Early Sunday morning while M was still catching up on her
beauty sleep, I was up to walk the near empty Parisienne streets with my
camera, sharing it with dog walkers, homeless people sleeping in door and
church entrances, waiters cleaning tables and preparing for the morning's
coffee and croissant hunters. I ended up with not many pictures; I just enjoyed
the quietness of the streets and the emptiness of the city. The morning was
crispy, only 10 degrees Celsius, but from time to time bright sunlight would
sneak through a patchy cloud cover. The rain would come later. I purposefully
steered away from any major roads where possible and I quickly got myself
totally lost walking along narrow side streets, crooked and curved alleys and
sleepy passages until I eventually found myself on Boulevard Saint-Germain
where a bank’s automatic teller machine was also still asleep and refused to
give me any cash.
Further along I discover the dirty Saint Sulpice church with
its unusual twin towers and beautiful fountain and walked until I got to the
boundary of the Luxembourg gardens on Rue de Vaugirard. There I turned around,
met a bronze lady, tired of waiting on someone or something, sitting in front
of the Institut Hongrois, a cultural
center to promote Franco-Hungarian dialogue and sat down next to her to take a
short rest and enjoy a cigarette before I walked back towards the Seine along
Rue Bonaparte, boutique alley, passing Maxmara, Swarovski France, Louis Vuitton
de Paris, and many more well-known, high prized fashion stores.
I stood at the Seine’s banks for a while; Early morning
runners made full use of the sparsely trafficked upper promenade and lower
level walkway, a barge silently drifted down westwards to make a delivery
somewhere, an old couple walking slowly, arm in arm, supporting one another
over the cobblestones. There were no tourist boats yet only house boats moored motionless,
occupants still in doors. Most great cities have a natural or central point of
reference, a positioning beacon. The Seine is Paris’s beacon. Not a life giving
artery like Venice’s Grand Canal, but with its many bridges, a constant compass
to tell you where you are, much like Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa
or the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy.
Although photography was strictly forbidden inside the D'Orsay I did sneaked a few here and there. Here is another view of the ground floor.
Facing south and with no visible reflection of the still rising
sun on the river I solemnly watched the river’s water flow westward to its
delta at Le Havre and the English Channel. In front of me was the Louvre, still
passive at that moment, but only until the tourists arrived, and to my left the
Tuileries Garden stretched greenish eastward to the Place de la Concorde and
beyond. A river can be so alike a fire. It has the ability to quickly put a
person in a meditative state. I eventually turned away, reluctantly, and to
some degree sadly, breaking that moment of meditation, and made my way back to
our hotel in a circular fashion via Rue De Seine. Time for the day to start in
earnest, time for breakfast. Time for more exploration, to discover something
new that Paris has to offer.
The famous European guidebook author and tour operator, Rick
Steves, suggests that if you have limited time in Paris, spend only an hour or
two at the Louvre and then head for the D’Orsay. The D’Orsay Museum, housed in
an old train station, is an art bridge between the Louvre Museum (anything and
everything old) and the Centre Georges Pompidou, the modern art museum in the
Marais, the 3rd arrondissement. The D’Orsay houses mainly art, statues,
furniture, etc. dating from 1848 to 1915 and of course the most impressive
collection of Impressionist and Post-impressionist masterpieces in the world.
The Impressionist period is one of my personal favorite art periods.
I will disagree with Mr. Steves. The Louvre is exceptional
and I would also say if you go to the D’Orsay, skip the first four floors of
minor art and go straight to the fifth floor to be totally blown away by Monet,
Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Van Gogh and many more. The Camille Pisarrio paintings
of landscapes and everyday life and the Edgar Degas ballerinas as well as his
bronze statue, Small Dancer Aged 14
were some of the best on view. The most impressive and a new discovery for me
and M was the painting The Floor Scrapers
by Gustave Caillebotte.
Inside the Pantheon's colossal nave
Upon our exiting the D’Orsay museum Paris was suddenly cold
and rainy. Out came the umbrellas again as we made our way south towards the
Luxembourg gardens and the Pantheon, one of the place we missed on a previous visit.
A four piece mural depicting the life of one of France's greatest heroines, Joan of Arc
The Pantheon was originally built as a church dedicated to
St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, but after many changes brought on by
history in general, a change in royalty and the French Revolution it ended up
being a burial place for exceptional Frenchmen or Frenchwomen; Authors, philosophers,
scientists, resistance fighters, inventors, etc.
Sculptures in the Pantheon.
Its façade is modeled on Rome’s Pantheon and from the top of
the front steps one gets quite a view of Paris. The inside is visually
stunning. The murals, wall sculptures and mosaic floors are exceptional within
the bareness of the building, which is totally devoid of any form of furniture.
This bareness amidst great art and the quiet footfall and whispered talk of
visitors greatly contributes to the solemnness and respect to the honored
buried here. The Pantheon is truly a must-see when in Paris.
Around the corner from the Pantheon we made a wonderful
discovery, the beautiful church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, which contains the
shrine of St. Geneviève. This Catholic cathedral, built between 1492 and 1626,
with its 17th century stained glass windows is a mixture of
Renaissance, Baroque and Gothic architecture. With its intricate cut-stone, lace-like
arch crossing the middle of the nave, separating the rear of the church (where
the common people used to sit) from the front of the church (reserved for the
nobility) it is from a personal perspective one of Paris’s most beautiful
churches. Elegant arches flanking the nave, a twin circular stairways flanking
the arch, an exquisitely carved wooden pulpit and colorful stained glass
windows make this a true jewel. By the way, this is the church made “famous” by the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (Owen Wilson began his
nocturnal time travel adventures on the front steps of this church.) Of course
the cathedral has been famous in church circles for centuries and two Popes
have celebrated mass here, the last being John Paul II in 1997.
We walked back to the Luxembourg gardens, found ourselves an
open bench and sat there for quite a while watching moms pushing babies around
in strollers, kids and their fathers playing with remote-controlled boats on
the palace’s pond, the inevitable runners in search for fitness, and Paris
folk, in general, just out for a stroll and fresh air, escaping apartment
living, on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Luxembourg Palace and gardens. Since 1958 it has been the seat of the French Senate.
An early dinner at Le Pre aux Clercs on the corner of Rue
Bonaparte and Rue Jacob was a disappointment, but the éclairs au chocolat across the street at the Laduree, a well-known
Paris confiserie since 1826 was
absolutely divine, heaven on earth. A perfect ending to a quiet, but certainly not
lazy Sunday in the Left bank. We needed such a scaled-back-in-activities-day.
Tomorrow will be a long travel day south into wine country.
Inside Saint-Étienne-du-Mont Church, a jewel of a discovery.
1 comment:
AWESOME!
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