Windows at Galeries Lafayette

Yesterday I took M to see the holiday window displays at the Galeries Lafayette. While not as elaborate as the ones at Bon Marche - they were mostly animates puppets, not videos or anything like that - they were probably more fun. 

The ceiling above the walkway.

Each of the windows had a scene with these figures that appear to be Japanese-inspired robot/puppets.  They were not as creepy as that sounds.  A lot of them were scenes of the puppets as a rock band and they played Christmas music (rock style of course), played their instruments, and danced.  Some of them were just the puppets hanging out, rocking to Christmas music.

The pictures are poor quality, sorry.  I didn't have my camera with me and often couldn't get very close, not to mention the inevitable glare.  I hope you can kind of make them out.

M really liked them and thought they were super fun!  There were a ton of kids watching so they seem to have been successful.

Also I just wanted to say I'm sad that this guy died.  Any English speaker who has been to Paris has probably been to his bookshop, or at least heard about it.  He lead a really interesting life and kept up the tradition of writers and artists in my neighborhood.

4th arr

Okay, we've reached my favorite arr!  Hooray!  So, warning, this is going to be VERY long because 1) I love this arr and 2) it has a ton of stuff to talk about, although I still won't be able to show even half of the interesting things here.

I think this rather amusingly straightforward line from Wikipedia sums up the 4th pretty well: "It is desirable for those insisting on old buildings and multi-cultural exposure."

As I said in the last arr post, the 3rd and 4th share a lot of history, particularly in the medieval and Renaissance periods.  The 4th, however, has a longer (or at least more well-known) history from Antiquity as well, being that part of the Ile-de-la-Cite is in the 4th.

There are two tiny islands in the Seine: the Ile-de-la-Cite and the Ile-St-Louis.  The former is probably the very oldest place in the city that was inhabited.  In the square in front of Notre Dame cathedral there is an underground archeological museum (sadly, sort of neglected because it's overshadowed by the cathedral, but it's really very cool) where you can see the Roman and Gallic ruins.   All of the Ile-St-Louis and half (the Notre Dame, and therefore more popular, half) of the Ile-de-la-Cite are in the 4th.

Here is Notre Dame as seen from the Ile-St-Louis:

And the Ile-St-Louis from the Ile-de-la-Cite:

Both of the islands are largely unchanged from late medieval times.  A lot of this is because already by then there were a lot of historic buildings that people didn't want to lose, but also because even then the two tiny islands were built up as much as they could be.  There simply wasn't room to build more buildings or do much construction.  So if you want to walk around some of the most historically authentic areas of the city, go to these islands; Ile-St-Louis is better because it has far fewer tourist shops.  And a world-renowned ice cream store.  Yum.

Moving along to the Right Bank of the arr, the Marais, the 4th looks very much like the 3rd.  Very small streets and overall a very quaint look.

It has many more monuments and significant sites, though.  The Hotel de Ville (city hall) is in the 4th, just across the river from Notre Dame.  This is not the original structure, but it is exactly how the original looked.  The Hotel de Ville was destroyed during the Commune (1871) but all the plans and such were still available, and I believe they used the same materials to redo it.  Personally I think it's kind of a monstrosity but a lot of people who come are very taken with it.  (These are not my pictures, obviously!)

Those fountains were just replaced with the ice skating rink.

Close to the Hotel de Ville is the formerly very mysterious Tour St Jacques.  I had no clue what this tower was or why it existed until this summer when my Mom and I went exploring, although I frequently used it for navigational purposes.

It turns out that while St Jacques (James in English) of somewhere went on a pilgrimage he stopped in a number of places that built these towers to mark his progress.  It's not a church or anything, mostly just a memorial.

Just a few blocks north of that is the Centre Georges Pompidou, a very modern modern art museum.  Its construction caused quite a bit of controversy and it remains a significant landmark in modern architecture.  The museum is pretty cool - very big and it usually has completely off-the-wall exhibits.

And on the opposite side of the arr, right on the border with the 3rd and developed as a promenade for the aristocratic families that settled there during the Renaissance, is the Place des Vosges.  It's a perfectly square park surrounded on all sides by symmetrical buildings that were mostly residences at the time.  When you emerge into the place there is an overwhelming feeling of orderliness.  (My pictures here)

Each side of the square is a row of galleries like this.  Now they are mostly small art shops/galleries or cafes/restaurants.  They all tend to be pretty expensive.

At the north and south ends there are arches cut out so carriages could get back into the streets.  Other than those arches there are just two spots where you can enter or exit the square.  I have a special fondness for this place because Victor Hugo lived in the square towards the end of his life, and the building is now a museum dedicated to him.

So I basically just took you on a tour of the outskirts of the 4th arr; none of these monuments are in the heart of it.  At this point you might be wondering why this is my favorite arr, despite the cool monuments here.  The answer to that is mostly because the middle of the arr is just a fantastic place to hang out: it has some of the best food in Paris, it's my favorite place to shop, and its nightlife is awesome.

I'll get to most of that in a moment, but first I want to continue a little where I left off on the post on the 3rd arr.  If you recall, the Marais (consisting of the 3rd and 4th arrs together) became Paris' Jewish ghetto after the Jews were expelled from the city proper in medieval times.  Despite the influx of nobility into the 3rd arr during the Renaissance the interior of the 4th remained mostly populated by Jews.  By the late 19th century the community was almost entirely Orthodox, with lots of recent immigrants fleeing the persecutions in Eastern Europe at the time, although many residents were long-established Parisian families.  To this day the area is known (to some) through France as the Pletzl, Yiddish for "little place."

The community more or less was left in peace by Parisians and the government, excepting the Dreyfus Affair at the turn of the 20th century, which brought out a lot of anti-Semitism.  But having such a tight-knit, visible, and comfortable Jewish community in Paris was major liability during WWII, as you might imagine.  The Vichy government, which kind-of-but-not-officially had a policy of collaboration with Germany, had a super easy target and rounded up people from the Marais by the thousands to be deported (deportation meant sometimes going to German-run concentration camps but more often meant going to Vichy-run work or internment camps).  It was by far the hardest hit of any area of Paris.

A few years ago the French government went around putting up plaques on pretty much every school that lost students to the deportation and while I would say the majority of schools in Paris have a plaque, unfortunately probably every single one in the Marais has one.  I took a picture of one in the 2nd arr:

"To the memory of the students of this school who were deported between 1942 and 1944 because they were born Jewish, innocent victims of Nazi barbarism with the complicity of the Vichy government.  They were killed in the death camps, 140 children living in the 2nd arrondissement.  Never forget them."

This particular sign is dedicated to all the children who were deported who lived in the 2nd; in the Marais each school commemorates only its own students, but the numbers are still very high.

Despite the enormous blow to the Marais community, the Jewish population made it through the war and today this area still retains its Orthodox, very religious identity.  Tons of signs in the Pletzl area - not just for the religious-oriented places, but for everyday things like bakeries, bookstores, and pizza places - are written in Hebrew and/or Yiddish (I can't tell the difference) and it has the only reliably kosher food in the city.  Although later years saw a huge influx of Ashkenazi (culturally Eastern European Jews) the older Sephardic (Jews culturally closer to Spain/Portugal/North Africa) community has also survived and makes the best falafel anywhere.  Seriously, anywhere!  On any given day you can find lines wrapping around the block to get falafel from the two or three great take-away places in the 4th.  The 4th is also the only place I can find my beloved matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwiches.

In the 90s the Marais, specifically the 4th arr, took a whole new turn: it became the center of gay social life in Paris.  I have absolutely no clue how this came about, but now it's the undisputed gay neighborhood.  Here it is after the pride parade in June.  There are a ton of gay bars and bookstores in the area, and it's become the fashionable place for upper class gay couples to live. 

Besides that, though, it's definitely one of the top two going-out places for any young Parisian - there are lots of bars/pubs/clubs for any taste, many great restaurants, etc.  It's a bit more expensive than the other good nightlife area, around the Bastille, but much less expensive than going out other places.

So you have the two major populations of the 4th arr: the Orthodox Jews and the bourgeois gay community.  I'm not quite sure how it works but it seems to be a live-and-let-live attitude (hey, I guess it works in NYC too).  On the Rue des Ecouffes, for example, towards the south end of the street are the two most popular lesbian bars in Paris; in the middle of the street is one of the Orthodox synagogues and at the end is a chic, popular Yiddish bakery that has been around forever.  Just because it's fun, here is the bakery in 1978 and a picture of it today.

Everything looks virtually the same today except the buildings are somewhat fixed up since the 4th has become such a popular area.

I think I've been over everything I can get through quickly so here are a few random pictures I got in my last wandering there.

The 4th also has the distinction of having my favorite street name in Paris.  The city is full of funny and/or odd street names but I just love this one:

Street of Bad/Naughty Boys.  Really, this name came from the gangs of rogue young men ("brigands" in French but more akin to "thugs" maybe in English) who used to wander small towns stealing crops, robbing people, things like that.  They called these groups "mauvais garcons," bad boys.  But I like to imagine that this is where all the little boys on Santa's naughty list are sent.

I used to pass this store and be grossed out because I assumed it sold horse meat.  Usually the red horse sign means that.  However when I took this picture I realized this shop is no longer a horse butcher, it sells sock and tights and such.  The mosaic is still kind of nice.

 This is the Reform Church of the Marais.  It's very large.

Only a few people will be interested in this, but I believe this is where the old song "Le temps des cerises" was written - or at least they want you to think that.  It's a song that is heavily tied to the Commune of Paris, and it's still sung by groups who protest in the city.

Things not to miss in the 4th: Notre Dame cathedral; archeological museum outside Notre Dame; wandering around Ile-St-Louis; Place des Vosges; Pompidou museum; L'As des Falafels; Schwartz's Deli or the above boulangerie on Rue des Ecouffes

So pretty!

Le Bon Marche is officially the prettiest, most festive department store ever.  I've been in there dozens of times but I always go straight downstairs with M to the toy section and never see the rest of the store.  Today I went in a different entrance and walked through the main area.  It was absolutely gorgeous, and I wish I had better pictures.  There are lights on every level and this cascade of star ornaments coming through the middle from the top level ceiling.

Sorry the picture is so bad.  I'm going to try hard to get back during the week with my camera to take some more because you guys really have to see it!

Misc

First - I've been working ALL THE TIME for the past two weeks, so I'm sorry about the infrequent posting.  With working that much I don't really have time to do and/or write about many interesting things.  This coming week, starting Monday, I'll be working long hours for 7 days straight and then flying back to NY the next day.  This weekend I'm going to make a concerted effort to get a bunch of things done before my time is consumed for the following week.  That will include a lot of non-blog stuff but I do want to do another tour of the markets and lights, and go to a concert/Mass at Notre Dame on Sunday.

Second - I went to BHV while I had a short break today and passed by the Hotel de Ville.  You will recall that in my post on the lights, theirs were not set up yet.  They appear to be set up now but as it was during the day I couldn't really tell.  Anyway, I took a picture of the carousel (which is always there, it's not a Christmas thing) and the sad ice skating rink.  It hasn't gotten much below 42 or so here in Paris - unseasonably warm even for here - so it's like half melted.  I bet there are lots of disappointed Parisian kids around this month.

Third - Questions from last post: No, I do not accept Arts and Crafts as a translation for Arts et Metiers.  "Metier" is a word people use to talk about someone profession - specifically the skills needed for that profession, especially if it's in the arts or some technical skill.  So in the sense of "craft" as in, like, an old-school guild mentality it might work, but to English speakers the connotations of the phrase "arts and crafts" is very, very wrong for this kind of thing. 
No, I haven't been to all the museums.  I've been to the Arts et Metiers, one fine art museum in the 3rd, the Carnavalet, and the Jewish museum.  I think the locks and keys one might be interesting but to be honest I am creeped out by old-fashioned porcelain dolls so probably will not be visiting the doll museum.

Fourth - I am seriously considering retiring the blog after I get back from NY in January.  I started this blog the first time around to stay connected with friends and family - to keep people updated and be able to look back on the things I did.  When I was traveling a lot and going to lots of new places I did it more for me, so I could have a place to keep pictures and details.  Now I am doing really going to a lot of new places and such so the function here is more to stay in touch, to feel more connected to the people who are so far away.

However, if anything, keeping the blog recently has been making me feel more disconnected than ever.  I know it's annoying that I keep going back to this, but I rarely get any feedback and most of what I do get is from my parents!  (Not that I don't appreciate it, parents, but it's rather lame of me to be keeping this mostly for you guys.)  I'm aware that more people read than ever tell me about it, and that some people read sporadically.  The thing is, it's rather depressing to sign in here and see that it's only had a small number of page views in the last few days (not today; I assume most people look post-weekend) or that posts I've spent a lot of time on have initiated very little response.  It indicates to me that either people are not that interested in what I'm posting, or that the posts aren't interesting enough to get a response.  Of course I also understand that a lot of people don't want to make public comments and whatnot - but my email address is on here.  I like to know that people are at least somewhat invested, and that the time and effort I put into these (like going around places, taking pictures, uploading them, writing the posts...) is worthwhile.

On the other hand, I will have more time to do interesting things after I get back in January.  So maybe the blog will be more interesting if I continue afterwards.  I'm kind of torn at this point.  Thoughts?


Fifth - the father of the family I work for gave me a very nice bottle of wine (he doesn't like white, but I prefer it).  It's Alsatian.  Once I tried traditional honey mead, which was very sweet and indeed tasted a lot like honey; this wine tastes like honey mead mixed with wine.  It's actually very good.  Just thought I'd share!

3rd arr

This will sort of be a two-part post because the 3rd and 4th arrs are very closely linked.  Together they make up an area of the city called Le Marais, meaning "the marshlands," my very favorite area of the city and one with a really interesting history.  The 3rd makes up the northern portion, and the 4th is to the south, right on the river.  So in this post I'll give some of the older history and some 3rd-specific information, and I'll discuss the modern day Marais when I talk about the 4th arr.

I've mentioned before that at its beginnings Paris was much smaller than it is today, and that it was mostly comprised of the islands in the river, the area on the right bank surrounding the royal palaces (the 1st and 2nd arrs), and areas on the left bank (the 5th and 6th arrs).  In medieval times the Marais was outside of Paris city limits, and I'm not exactly sure when it was technically incorporated into the city.

Despite that status the Marais has been connected to the city since very early on: in 1240 the Knights Templar built a huge, fortified church in the middle of the 3rd arr that lasted until Napoleon's time.  This painting is from 1795, long after it had been abandoned by the Templars and made into a prison/fortress.

Napoleon decided that almost 600 years was a good enough lifespan for this old thing and knocked it down.  Today there are still two long streets named for it and its former home became a pretty park.

And just because I think it's super cool here is a daguerreotype of the road next to where the Temple was in 1838, soon after they had finished demolishing the structure:

Anyway, lots of other religious orders installed themselves in area after the Templars did, and most of the main streets in the 3rd and 4th still refer to them.  Interestingly, this is the one area of Paris where I almost never see nuns; all the orders are gone now.

So by the 13th-14th century this area had a pretty good reputation: away from the city proper (ie, away from the poor people) but right down the street from the heart of the political regime, fortified by the Templars, lots of religious orders in residence.  Nobility began building their mansions here, mostly in the 3rd arr, and many survive today, mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Hotel de Sens, now an art museum:

Part of the Hotel de Soubis, how a historical museum and home of the National Archives:

I think all of the existing mansions are in the 3rd, and partly because of this there are also lots of great, interesting museums in the 3rd.  The state eventually took control of all these former homes - either when the family died out or sold them, or when they lost their titles during the Revolution - and needed something to do with them, so they mostly became museums.

Similarly an old priory in this arr, St Martin-des-Champs, was converted into the Museum of Arts et Metiers (I know what that means but can't translate it - arts and industry I guess), one of the coolest museums you will ever see.  This place has prototypes or first version of basically all important inventions ever: early flying devices, cameras, recording devices, binoculars, calculators, computers, pieces of the Statue of Liberty...the list goes on.  It also has the original Foucault Pendulum.

Other museums in the 3rd include: Musee Carnavalet (one of my very favorites - Paris' personal museum of art, history, and artifacts just relating to the city), Picasso museum, Museum of the Art and History of Judaism, the doll museum, a museum just full of locks and keys from Roman times to now, and I think two fine art museums. 

Okay back to the history: so, lots of aristocrats started moving here from the 13th-16th centuries - definitely more in the 3rd than the 4th.

In the meantime, in 1394 all Jews were technically expelled from France - though the Paris region decided to treat this as "expelled from Paris proper."  There were plenty of Jews living in Paris at the time who found that they could just transplant to the Marais and be outside Paris while still living the Parisian lifestyle.  From this point on (and still today) the Marais was "the" Jewish ghetto. 

It appears that they mainly ended up settling in the 4th arr, but there were still a lot of Jews mingling with the aristocrats in the 3rd.  I find this an interesting dynamic, especially since if anyone were to have tried to enforce the national expulsion it would have been the nobles.  Apparently they didn't care enough or it didn't bother them enough.

Anyway, it's partly for this reason that after aristocrats were effectively crushed in the late 18th century and rulers stopped the expulsions the government kept a kind of laissez-faire approach to the Marais.  There were not a lot of renovations or expansion projects here because they didn't really want to interfere with a ghetto that was running nicely on its own.  So the Marais has ended up being one of the most untouched areas of the city: the streets are absolutely tiny, many still cobblestone, and it's the area with the highest concentration of medieval buildings.

A silly arty picture but it gives you an idea.

By the mid to late 19th century lots of Eastern European Jews were having serious trouble with their governments and fled to Paris.  Nearly all of them settled in the Marais and it became even more insulated and religious (before it was less bound by religion and more by a common culture); from what I've read about Paris during the Dreyfus affair around the turn of the century (a very ugly anti-Semitic episode in which a non-practicing Jewish army man was accused of spying) you would have been hard-pressed to find an observant Jewish family in Paris outside of the Marais.  You can probably imagine how that worked out later in the century.  I'll discuss that in the post on the 4th arr.

Lastly, the 3rd is home to the oldest open-air market, the Marché des Enfants Rouges (red children - named for an orphanage nearby with a distinctive red uniform).  It's like the markets I described last week but much bigger, permanent and open every day, and including several cafes.  I have to say, this is probably the best market in Paris and the cafes are really excellent - cheap and delicious.

Now, the 3rd is not as distinctively Jewish as the 4th.  It's also home to a small Chinatown.  The real, very large, one is in the 13th arr but this one has a definite presence.

It also has some really good clothes shopping - the 3rd and 4th are definitely my favorite areas for that.  It's full of quirky little boutiques and vintage stores.  There are lots of good restaurants too - it's a great place to hang out.

What not to miss in the 3rd: the Museum of Arts et Metiers, the Marché des Enfants Rouges, the Musee Carnavalet and Picasso Museums (if you like the subject areas of course).

(Also, a disclaimer, NONE of the pictures in this post are mine.  I found them all online.  It's raining again today and I have some stuff to do, so no adventuring for me.  Lastly, I've added a "reactions" button at the end of the posts in an attempt to get some more feedback.  All you have to do is click!  It won't even tell me who clicked what so go nuts.)

Christmas fail!

Mostly fail, anyway.  Today's mission was to visit the main sites for Christmas markets and lights in the city.  There are lots, and, as I mentioned last weekend, they were pretty much all going up this past week.  After doing some diligent internet research I compiled a list of places that were to be open and decorated today so I could take some pictures and report back. 

Firstly: what is a Christmas market?  Traditional French Christmas markets originated in Alsace, an area of France that is on the German border and over the years has been traded back and forth between the two countries.  So these markets often have a bit of a German flair.  They sell lots of small gift items, snacks, etc, all with a Christmas theme.  It's all very festive, as you'll see.

My first stop was the market closest to me, next to the old St Germain-des-Pres abbey.  As I approached I was excited to see the small white stalls set up, neatly lining the street.  Getting closer, though, I noticed that they looked rather empty...

...and yes, it seemed like they had just been constructed today.  The sellers haven't come yet, and the abbey's lights aren't done.  Boo.  Ah well, I had several more stops to make, and the surrounding streets had some pretty lights too.  Here is Les Deux Magots, one of the most renowned Parisian cafe/restaurants, all dressed up.

Next up, I had read that there was a smaller Christmas market in the square in front of St Suplice church, just a few minutes' walk away.  As you can see below, there is no trace of anything around the church.

Architecturally,St Suplice is kind of odd; I don't really even know what to call the style.  It's very big and has excellent acoustics, but in my opinion is rather sterile.  Anyway, you can see, the square is quite empty.

At least across the street the town hall of the 6th arr was a bit festive.

After being disappointed again I made my way across the river to the place Vendome (for some more info on that check out my post on the 1st arr).  It has a "walk through an enchanted forest" theme with the lights, which are rather simple but pretty, and whiter than they show up in these pictures.

They go all around the square, with those trees set up intermittently.  

A close-up of one of the "branches."

Pretty!

For some reason I thought La Madeleine, a significant church in this area, was supposed to have some pretty lights as well - although since looking back over my research I realize I must have made that up in my head.  I went there, though, only to see nothing of note.  There is just a giant cross hiding behind one of the pillars in this shot (you can see one of the arms).

Already a bit tired of walking around in the rain at this point, I cheered up thinking that my next stop was the Champs Elysees, where I knew there would definitely be a lot of things to see.  I got a little lost figuring out how to get there - I don't go to this area often, afraid that breathing the air there might cost a few euros - and ended up coming out of a little road right next to the Place de la Concorde. 

I was a little confused while walking down that little road, as there were police stationed at both ends, blowing whistles at pedestrians who were walking in the street, despite the fact that it was blocked off to cars.  I saw another pack of police when I emerged into the circle and suddenly I realized why: the large building just to my right is the president's Paris residence.  If I were Sarkozy, given his approval ratings, I might be a touch paranoid living next to the place where the French once beheaded their king.

Anyway, the first thing I saw was this, the ferris wheel at the end of the Tuileries gardens!

And while this might be a strange observation, because a giant glittering ferris wheel is sort of by definition ostentatious, I was struck by how non-ostentatious it felt.

A little father down I came upon the beginning of the Champs Elysees and its Christmas market, the biggest one in Paris.  It really is huge - both sides of the boulevard for about half a mile.  The stalls sell all types of little knick-knacks and gifts: cards, stuffed animals, jewelry, scarves, dolls, porcelain items, handmade/carved trinkets, music boxes, even specialty knives.  About two thirds of the stalls are that type of thing, the other third are food items.  They sell roasted chestnuts, mulled wine and cider, Alsacian sausages, fries, sandwiches, sauerkraut, Belgian waffles, crepes, and, bizarrely, churros. 

I guess I should mention at this point that all I'd eaten today to that point (about 4:30pm) was an apple.  So all those things cooking made the air smell absolutely divine and I soon had to buy some mulled wine.  And then a crepe and some fries.

Here is a chestnut stand.

On the other side of the street was a large tent full of some sort of attraction for kids.

The stalls, with their distinctive peaked white roofs and pretty lights.

It was so crowded down the length of the whole boulevard it was hard to get through at all.  I imagine it's just a bit easier to make your way down the sidewalks here (it was the first weekend) than it is to get around Times Square on New Year's Eve.

The middle featured a bunch of attractions and little rides for kids.  Here is the trampoline:

I'm not really sure what this is, as it wasn't running when I was there, but it appears to be a sleigh attached to a zipline.

 

Moving on down the street the market ended and there were some light displays.

You can see the Arc de Triomphe in the distance.  Those circle-y lights change color.

I walked down the length of the Champs Elysees to see what was around but there weren't any more displays.  So I made my way back to my general area, going to the Hotel de Ville (city hall) to see if their stuff was up yet.  Every year they put up an ice skating rink in front of the building but it's been so warm I wasn't sure if it was there. 


When I got there I could see they've started constructing it, but this was all that was to be seen for the lights:

Near that is Notre Dame - I hadn't really seen the tree yet and I was pretty excited.  Here it is:

Uh.  I've heard it compared to the one in Rockefeller Center and all I can say is...no.  Not even close.  It's cute, but kind of looks like a bigger version of your average home's tree.

So although I was thwarted in most of my attempts to see the big Christmas sights, there are always the random streets that are decked out.  One near me is pretty, and has lights strung down the middle of the street.

I passed by a Hermes shop and their windows were VERY elaborate - I don't normally go this way, though, so I don't know whether they do more for the season or what.

And a some others:

(PS - most of you probably know, but you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.)