Oct 17, Part 4 - Paris: River, bridges, Right Bank

After leaving the area of Notre Dame and the narrow streets to the north of it, we were on our way to Cafe Zimmer on the Right Bank for brunch. This is the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) from the Ile de la Cite, just before we started across Pont d'Arcole.

Crossing the Seine on the Pont d'Arcole, you get a gorgeous and romantic view in both directions. This is the Ile St-Louis. It still surprises me to see blue sky and fluffy clouds in this city! I'm so used to gray skies in Paris.

Here's the magnificent view looking the other direction toward theTribunal de Commerce and the remarkable Conciergerie on the left.

Same general view from the Right Bank. The two bridges are the Pont Notre Dame in front and the Pont au Change behind it.

The Tribunal de Commerce is on the left and the Conciergiergerie (the old palace) beyond it with the two conical towers on the far right. We weren't trying to see everything today. We'd been walking a lot, and this morning we were just ambling, enjoying the magic.

Here we are on the right bank at the end of the bridge. This is a poor photo of the Hotel de Ville, but it's magnificent and imposing from any angle.

A glance up the Rue du Renard shows us the corner of the Centre George Pompidou and some impending weather. It's funny the notions you get about places. I always thought the Pompidou was much further from the river. I must have gotten there the long way around on another trip.

Another glace into the streets of the Right Bank, but our path is along the river.

The Tour St-Jacque has captured my interest from the first time I saw it almost 40 years ago. It stands on its own in a small park, all that's left of a church dedicated to the butcher's guild. It was built between 1508 and 1522, and was one of the major starting points for the pilgramage made by so many during Medieval times to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The church sold during the Revolutin and then pulled down in 1802 due to restructuring of the streets so the Rue de Rivoli could cut through the ancient warren of buildings.

Naturally, I couldn't stop after one photo, so here are several.

The tower is now a meteorological station. Can you imagine a more beautiful one?

I just love the flamboyant Gothic. The stones have been cleaned in recent years. I think it was almost black when I first saw it. It's amazing to me to think that it's real and it's really that old.

There's a statue of Pascal here somewhere. It is said that the physicist/philosopher condicted experiments into the weight of the air first at another location, then here in 1648. Actually, I ran across a note in a book that said his experiments may not have been conducted here, but in the Tour St-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, which still stands on the Left Bank.

I love this structure at the back of the Theatre de la Ville on Rue Adolphe Adam at the corner of Avenue Victoria. The building is by the architect Davioud. It was rented and used by Sarah Bernhardt in 1899, and her name stayed on as the name of the building until 1968. Isadora Duncan danced here in 1903, supported by her whole family, but ridiculed by many critics. The building is now a cultural center. Near the stage in what was once the Rue de la Vieille Lanterne, the troubled poet and essayist Gerard de Nerval hanged himself in 1855.

Here's Lee walking across the Place du Chatelet. We're nearly to the Cafe Zimmer now. It faces the square.

The metro sign in the Place du Chatelet is one of several old-style signs with character. Brunch, here we come!

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Oct 17, Part 5 - Paris: At Cafe Le Zimmer

After all the walking we'd done for the past few days (not to mention the walk from the hotel this morning), we decided to hang out at our favorite Cafe Le Zimmer for awhile. First: coffee. Yumm.

Confession time: coffee and sugar. Note the taped window. I don't know how it happened, but they didn't waste time in getting it fixed (read on).

This is someone at the next table. All the glass with the dark colors caught my attention.

Watching the Place du Chatelet across the street. It has a long history, including being the site of a prison, for which the square is named, but now it's a benign park with a nice fountain and a metro stop.

The sphinxes on the fountain in the Place commemorate Napoleon's victory in Egypt.

Not much to say here: people outside the cafe window.

We each ordered very different types of lunches, but we agreed they were some of the best food we'd had in Paris; maybe the best. Mine was a cheese plate and some kind of squash soup. Lee had cioppino.

There's my lunch again. We took this opportunity to research some of the people we'd come across on our first day, walking to and through the Jardin des Plantes: the early zoologists Cuvier and Lamarck, Linnaeus, Buffon, and a few others. I had bought the BlackBerry World Edition just before the trip so I could stay in touch with business by e-mail and by phone. "Why?" you might ask. Well, some things are just necessary. But it also gave me the opportunity to look things up online for fun like we were doing now. It was great, and it was still quite a novelty.

It's hard to call this wonderful device a "phone," but here I am linking to Cuvier.

Here's the glazier. They moved us to another table so they could replace the window pane.

An appropriate poem in the bathroom.

. . . and lights in an oval mirror.

Here's Lee, looking quite satisfied.

Finished.

More lights, this time in the enclosed area near the front windows.

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Oct 17, Part 7 - Paris: Crossing the Ile de la Cite

After the wonderful brunch at Cafe le Zimmer, we trekked back in the direction of the bateaubuses, which meant crossing the island back to the Left Bank. I already mentioned the wonderful old palace with the pointed towers (sroll to the bottom of the post). Obviously, I can't get enough of this. Here follow a few more pictures of it.

A new angle, as we cross the Seine on the Pont au Change.

This brings us to the intersection of the bridge and the Quai de l'Horlogue behind us with the towers. Ahead, we're looking back toward the Hotel de Ville, where we were this morning. Directly behind us is something that - as big as it is - is easy to miss in the bustle and excitement of the street.

It's the Tour de l'Horlogue - the ancient clock tower. Built in 1370, it was the first public clock in Paris. During the Revolution (1793) its silver bell was melted down. I've never been on a tour of it (which is just one of about a million reasons to go back to Paris), but the 4th floor contains the room of the royal clockmaker. It's said that Charles V liked to visit in order to get away from the pressures of state and watch the clockmaker at work. Here he also had a nice view of passers-by in the streets below.

And here's the well-preserved old clock. I love the light blue Medieval pattern behind the ornate images. You can just see the underside of the arched roof. The whole clock is full of nice details.

Moving on down the Blvd du Palais. The tall Gothic church sticking up behind the office buildings is Ste-Chapelle, which we didn't visit this trip. It's amazing, but . . . again, I will have to come back. I found a great photo on Google Earth taken from across the street that puts these buildings and gates into perspective. And the lighting is very dramatic. (Kudos to the photographer.) I don't know whose hand that is, but it seems we had a similar idea.

Here's a close-up of the ornate gates. I think the first time I came to Paris, they weren't pained gold, but one year a lot of gold paint was used to brighten the city for a centennial or something, and it's been kept up. It's a little gaudy, but I actually like it.

Looking back the way we came.

Now we've walked past the palace completely and are crossing the bridge to the Place St-Michel. This building, on the island, is the Prefecture de Police. You can see it on another day from about the middle to the bottom of this post. I think it looks nice in this light. It's part of the whole justice complex that was originally a royal palace.

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Oct 17, Part 8 - Paris: Quai St-Michel

After crossing the Ile de la Cite, we arrived back on the Left Bank at Place St-Michel. We were enjoying the cool, sunny weather so much, it seemed that a stroll along the quai was just the thing. There's Notre Dame Cathedral in the background, a stunning view from any angle. Sorry the picture is a little crooked.

Here's Place St-Michel on the right, filled with traffic as always. We're headed along the quai to the left.

Beautiful . . .

The stalls along the river were all open today, so we did some browsing. It's fun to see what they have, although I'm surprised there are any old books and prints left to sell after all these years of hawking them. Some are old and some are reprints. It's usually very easy to find a vendor with tastes similar to mine. Some are not, but many are.

On the side of the street away from the river is one of the entrances to Gilbert Jeune, one of, if not THE landmark bookstore in Paris, or at least on the Left Bank. It was founded right here on the Quai St-Michel in 1886 (the same year as my home town of Corona, California was founded, for what that's worth). The store takes up many separate lots in this area, and has numerous entrances on various streets. If you ever want to be surrounded by the feel of information and learning potential, or you just love books and esoteric subjects (besides the regular ones) or want to feel like an intellectual par excellence, just open the door and wander the aisles and levels of this establishment!

Moving along, we passed the narrowest street in Paris (about 1.8 metres wide), the block-long (very short block) Rue du Chat Qui Peche, "Street of the Fishing Cat." It appears in all the guidebooks now, I expect. It's famous for that niche in the fact-list of Paris. The street dates from 1540, and was named for the picture on a shop sign. The poster is for the Hotel Les Argonautes, in which I've stayed three times. It's a funky, small hotel (rooms, tubs, showers, halls, everything very small), but the location is outstanding, the hotel is charming, and the price has been extremely affordable. My only complaint has been that the noise in the lower and outer rooms keeps up most of the night with the Greek restaurants across the street smashing plates and shouting like barkers for a carnival, and the dance music very loud in the restaurant below. It's sometimes not possible to change rooms. If you are getting a single room, you can have one in the middle above the first floor, which I found very quiet. The two times I stayed in double rooms, the noise was hard to sleep through. I don't know if you can get a quiet room on the river side of the hotel, but the one we had on the Rue de la Huchette side was very noisy. Still, I love the place.

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Oct 17, Part 9 - Paris: Quai Montebello - art along the Seine

From Quai St-Michel, we continued to stroll along the Seine. You stay on the same riverbank, only the name changes. I love this view of Notre Dame!

We found a vendor with animal stamps. We both love animals and Lee is a stamp collector, so we enjoyed looking, but didn't buy. I found a vendor who had a Paris touristy pocket knife with lots of blades and tools on it. I knew Sue would like it for opening things at work. For the longest time, she was using an "art" knife I have for pulling big staples and I didn't realize it! Now she'll have a handy tool for almost any purpose - with an Eiffel Tower on it, too :)

We liked these prints, espeically the one in the center with the dancers on the beach, because this artist's work from the same series was hanging in our hotel room on the last trip, when we stayed at the Hotel Les Argonautes.

Moving along, here's another view of the quai as we approach the Pont au Double. That's Lee in the white sweatshirt.

OK, so this is the kind of hack print I don't like, but the scene is . . . scenic.

Notre Dame is beautiful from any angle. The clouds are adding some drama today.

I thought this artist was pretty good. He's working in semi-caricature; I'd rather see a real portrait, but he seems to be one of the more talented. I wondered if he was a student, but we didn't disturb him. I like how he was emphasizing the kid's spiky hair.

Another shot of the magnificent cathedral and the clouds.

There is more. I really cannot get enough photos of this building. I think I keep hoping I'll get the perfect shot. I've taken so many where the light areas are burned out. There's so much contrast with the interesting shapes.

Flying buttresses - Notre Dame was the guinea pig for so much in Gothic architecture.

More Notre Dame.

Finally I tried setting my camera on wide angle, which I used also in the next post. I don't use it much and usually forget that I have that option. I like the result!

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