I was in Paris on Saturday, May 30, staying with CHM at his apartment there. In the afternoon, I decided to go out for a walk in the neighborhood, just to take advantage of the beautiful weather and get some exercise before we embarked on our three-day drive out to the Perche and back down to the Loire Valley. I of course took my camera with me.
CHM's apartment is not far from the Avenue de Breteuil, which has a wide green median down its center. It's actually a big park. You can look up the avenue and get a view of the Eglise du Dôme at Les Invalides, where one attraction is Napoleon's tomb. On nice days, a lot of young people enjoy spending time out in the sun along the Avenue de Breteuil.
A lot of other people spend time in the sidewalk cafés around the city. This one is on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, I think. I walked over that way, dodging bicycles and other pedestrians. I took a lot of photos, of course.
I considered stopping in to have a look around in this antique store, but I wasn't really in the market for anything. I would have had to go get the car out of the parking garage and drive over to the shop if I had found anything I just had to have. It would be fun to have an apartment in Paris to furnish with things found at such shops.
I decided to walk over to a neighborhood where Walt and I spent a lot of time back in the early 1980s and again between 1988 and 1993. It's near the Luxembourg Gardens. For years when we visited Paris we would get a room at the Hôtel de l'Avenir — "the hotel of the future" — which at the time was very welcoming and pretty comfortable. It's been a long time now...
Since I was in the area, I continued exploring over toward the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood, also old stomping grounds. I worked near here as a teacher back in the 1970s. As a student, Walt lived in a boarding house (une pension de famille) in the neighborhood for a few months in 1981. It's nice to spend some time wandering around Paris every now and then.
I don't especially like that dark grey color for the Hôtel de l'Avenir. As I recall, when we stayed there you, Walt and me in 1992, it was all white. I think it was more classy.
ReplyDeleteI liked it better before too. When all three of us stayed there was in January 1992. Can you believe it?
DeleteAh Paris! The photos show the bright sun of a day in May.
ReplyDeleteWhat's amazing to me is that 1992 seems like just yesterday
ReplyDeleteand yet it's closing in on being a quarter century ago.
Happy/ sad to see these. Happy to see them, sad I am not there :)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed coming along on your walk through familiar places.
ReplyDelete: ^ )
DeleteAhhh, lovely, lovely :)
ReplyDeleteReally great pictures. I feel like I'm in the middle of the scenes.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend that lives at the very north end of the 14th arrondissement....it must be close to chm's place. Ken, I didn't know you liked antiques. That store would have caught my eye too. We love going to the Marche aux Puces de Saint-Ouen, which is a sort of antique heaven on earth.
My place is right at the metro station Sèvres-Lecourbe. I walk les than 50 yards away from my building and I can see clearly the Dôme des Invalides. That's about were Ken was standing when he took that photo.
DeleteWalt and I used to look around in antique shops when we lived in Washington DC and some in California. We have some pieces of furniture and other things we bought way back then. Now we have as much furniture as we need, and we'd have to throw something out or put it in storage in the garage if we decided to buy anything else. (We also don't have the income we used to have...)
DeleteAh, chm, yes they are pretty close to you, On Rue du Chateau.
ReplyDeleteThirty years ago or more, with French friends I used to enjoy the food at a really down-home, authentic couscous restaurant on the rue Raymond Losserand, near its intersection with the rue du Château. The couscous place probably doesn't exist any more — but who knows?
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