Dimanche à Paris
Sundays around the world are generally pretty slow. If you're lucky enough to have the day off, you wake up at 10 am or later, fumble about the house and finally make your way into some pants and a pair of sunglasses and you're out the door, destination: afternoon breakfast.
But when you're in Paris as a new arrival, you are probably not all too aware that unlike most places (heaven forbid, even Charlestown), Paris est fermé. Closed. Shops are closed, even pharmacies. It's like the place is telling you to slow down and enjoy a day of complete leisure. Museums and galleries are mostly still open, and the wide open spaces like the parks and gardens are calling for you and your family to become the flaneurs that Paris so eagerly wants to create in all of us.
So today, not knowing what would be open or where I was going, I took the metro to the middle of the city and walked. I spent a good two hours spiralling around the old medieval cobblestone streets of Le Marais, winding up at a Jewish wedding and locating La Maison de Victor Hugo (quel surprise!), and dabbling some art appreciation (gratuit/free) up some alleyways. I found myself at La place de Bastille where I walked along Boulevard Richard Lenoir and found un Marché aux Puces (flea market) where I was thus knighted as a Parisian. I also located not one, but two paintings of a disappointed horse (see below).
From the end of the market began the beginning of the Canal St Martin (where you will find Amelie skipping stones in her spare time). I ended up at Stalingrad in the quiet Sunday rain and channelled my afternoon energy towards a backtrack to the middle of the city where I became aware of the fact that La Jaconde (Mona Lisa) is just the Regina George of the Louvre.
All in all, a good day.
But when you're in Paris as a new arrival, you are probably not all too aware that unlike most places (heaven forbid, even Charlestown), Paris est fermé. Closed. Shops are closed, even pharmacies. It's like the place is telling you to slow down and enjoy a day of complete leisure. Museums and galleries are mostly still open, and the wide open spaces like the parks and gardens are calling for you and your family to become the flaneurs that Paris so eagerly wants to create in all of us.
So today, not knowing what would be open or where I was going, I took the metro to the middle of the city and walked. I spent a good two hours spiralling around the old medieval cobblestone streets of Le Marais, winding up at a Jewish wedding and locating La Maison de Victor Hugo (quel surprise!), and dabbling some art appreciation (gratuit/free) up some alleyways. I found myself at La place de Bastille where I walked along Boulevard Richard Lenoir and found un Marché aux Puces (flea market) where I was thus knighted as a Parisian. I also located not one, but two paintings of a disappointed horse (see below).
From the end of the market began the beginning of the Canal St Martin (where you will find Amelie skipping stones in her spare time). I ended up at Stalingrad in the quiet Sunday rain and channelled my afternoon energy towards a backtrack to the middle of the city where I became aware of the fact that La Jaconde (Mona Lisa) is just the Regina George of the Louvre.
All in all, a good day.
