rue Mouffetard

Rue Mouffetard is a tourist's dream. It's a small cobbled street that climbs up a hill and is lined with varied shopping opportunities and multiple restaurants serving just about anything you could ask for. I've seen French, Greek, Mexican, and Asian offerings. It's usually jammed with tourists, but Thora and I usually visit in the morning before many shops are open to do some serious window shopping and looking around.

At the bottom of the hill in the Square Medard are a couple of cafes, our favorite boulangerie (bakery), a fruit stand, a children's playground, and the St. Medard church. I love any place with a historical marker. Here's the one outside Saint Medard.

You probably know more French than I do, but when I see a date like 1163,  I am in love. Apparently an abbey called Saint Genevieve stood on this site. The basic church that stands here today was begun in the mid-16th century.

Surrounding the church are gardens, a playground, and a small cafe.

cafe and fruit stand

As you begin to walk up Mouffetard, look to your left. There is the most amazing mural on the building there.

The following will give you an idea how charming the street is. Maybe when you come to Paris you'll stroll rue Mouffetard.

Jardin du Luxembourg or Luxembourg Gardens

One post cannot begin to show you Luxembourg Gardens, Paris's second largest public park. I think it is one of the most lovely public spaces I have seen. People come to stroll as I did with Thora one afternoon, or they read, sun bathe, or meet with friends.

The park is named for the Duke of Luxembourg who sold the land to Marie de Medicis,  widow of France's King Henry IV in 1615.  Missing her native Florence, Marie had an Italianate palace built on the land with a 50 acre garden surrounding it. Interestingly enough, Marie never lived here. Her son, Louis XIII, had her exiled from France when he found she had been plotting against him. After the French Revolution, the land was made into a public park. Obviously the aristocrats would not be needing it anymore. (This information comes from a wonderful book entitled, Chronicles of Old Paris-Exploring the Historic City of Light by John Baxter.)

There are plenty of chairs and benches. You can be in the sun or shade. There are a few kiosks for buying a drink or toy for your child. There is a lovely cafe under the trees where my sister, daughter-in-law, and I ate last summer.

Thora and I arrived at the Boulevard St. Michel entrance to the gardens after a strenuous uphill walk on a sunny warm day. I find it small comfort when they say uphill walks have downhill returns. I was very relieved to step into the shade at the garden's entrance.

After a short walk the view of the gardens open up and it is breathtaking.

Look at what is in the distance on the left side of the picture.

The park is surrounded by 20 statues of French queens and other important women.

All were real women except this one, Clemence Isaure, who only exists in stories from the Middle Ages.

My favorite statue right now is the statue of Artemis with her stag. This may change as I explore the Gardens more thoroughly. 

Next time I will take the bus to the Luxembourg Gardens so I can more time and energy to check out the parts I haven't seen yet. What you see here is just the beginning.

Look Up - Architectural Details in Paris

I have been walking for an hour or two every morning. Those who know me will be amazed to hear this. I love pushing the stroller!
When Thora is finished with her morning nap, I put her in her stroller and we take off. We don't live in a particularly famous or historic section of Paris. We are, however, surrounded by an infinite number of charming architectural details.

One detail I especially like are doors. Here are a few.

Then there are the balconies and windows.

 

 
Sometimes the artwork is purely ornamental.

 

Yesterday Thora and I were walking up rue de Saint Marcel. I'd never taken this route before and as usual, I was looking up. My son tells me that I look up too much because in a city you have to also look down so you won't step in something you will regret. While Paris is a clean city, there are a lot of dogs here as well as homeless people. Need I say more?
If I hadn't been looking up, though, I would have missed this spectacular building. I don't know what the building was used for because there was no sign on it.

I was fascinated by the carvings that ran around the building.

The pictures seem to tell the story of early man in several cultures. I see people from Africa, India, the Arctic, and Australia represented. I'm not sure where the large apes come into the story. I'm hooked, though. I'll be going back to this building looking for answers.  

Recycling in France and a Gas Station

This morning, not long after Rebecca headed out to work, Thora and I decided to take out the recycling.  The bins for everything but glass are in our courtyard. I like the way someone tried to make them less of an eyesore by planting vines, trees, plants around the space for the bins.

You can see that one of the bin lids is deformed. Either someone unknowingly put something very hot in or purposely set fire to the bin. This happened before Josiah and Rebecca moved in so there is no interesting story to tell about the Great Recycling Bin Fire.


Thora and I deposited our recycling and then headed off for the glass recycle bin up on boulevard Arago.  It was a gorgeous day in Paris. Sunny and warm. But not too hot because the chestnut trees gave us shade.

About 2 blocks up Arago we came to the glass recycling bin. You'll see them all over Paris on the sidewalks.

Once the glass had been disposed of, we headed another block up the street to rue de la Sante which leads to the hospital, Hopital Cochin, where Thora was born. The hospital is within easy walking distance of our apartment.








The walk along rue de la Sante is not very beautiful, but up ahead there is a lovely dome that rises above the trees. We think it may be part of a private hospital.

I turned right when we reached boulevard de Port-Royal and started toward home. Port-Royal is a very wide tree-lined street. We passed a gas station that is very different from those in the US. The gas pumps are literally on the curb and the cars pull up right in the lane of traffic to fill their cars. I was surprised to see that the cars did not pull out of the traffic to buy their gas. In the picture with the red car you can see the gas station with the pumps on the sidewalk next to the curb.

On Port-Royal we passed a fire station all decorated for Bastille Day.
















We turned right again onto rue de la Glaciere where I admired these wrought iron balconies. So far I have found that even the not so picturesque streets often have lovely balconies above the street level, many with bright window boxes.

Now to head home, we turned left onto rue Saint-Hippelyte. I love the name of this street because of its connection to ancient Greek mythology.










At the intersection of Hippelyte and Broca is a branch of the Sorbonne. We call it the "ghetto Sorbonne" for obvious reasons. I thought it was an abandoned building, but Josiah says he's seen people coming and going.

The recycling walk was nearly over. We turned left on Broca  and in a few steps were home again in time for a short nap before momma came home for lunch.

PS. It may look from these pictures that we live in a bad part of town.  Don't worry-we don't.  In our immediate neighborhood we have old, new, charming, and uninteresting buildings because this is a big and growing city.