May 23: Posting more Paris

I've been working on more Paris posts from October 2008. I love being able to re-live the trip in pictures.

Play vs. work . . . hmmmmmm.

I guess it's time to start on the accounting forms I've been avoiding this weekend! I've been having fun sorting and posting some of our photos from the Paris trip and learning more about putting pictures on Panoramio for Google Earth consideration. I also started an HTML version of the Paris Walks I began working on about 1981. You can check it out here. It's only a start, I wanted to play with some formatting ideas. I called it a "treasure hunt," because Lee used those words when we were looking for street numbers, and it made sense. It was fun.

This is Lee walking down the Rue St. Victor. It's quiet, and pretty, and there's a raised sidewalk because one side of the street is way higher than the other. We found a shop that had an antique train in the window. Cool! It's fun re-living the experience of being in Paris with Google Earth and the photos. I also got it together to upload a photo of Astoria and one of Corona (California) to Panoramio. It's easy, it's just more logins and passwords to remember.



Here's a mini Panoramio so you can see just where the picture at the top of the blog post was taken. More fun: you can drag the Panoramio map to see more of Paris, but there will be no additional photo icons. When you code Panoramio to appear in your web page or blog, it only shows the photos from the original square you insert into the page. Be aware - the map will also move when you click on a small square to see that photo. You may have to drag it back to continue to look at the original map frame.

And now I have some serious accounting to take care of so I can get the material to my accountant so he can do his thing. Wish I could have somebody do my part, too! I don't mind the normal accounting. I don't like the part where you have to get details for the forms. It's too hard to figure out! On the other hand, if I wait till Monday . . . ?????? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm on the verge of needing a new keyboard because this one is giving out. Maybe it will break and give me an excuse. :-p Or maybe I'll finish the book I bought at the airport. It's called Merde, Actually, by Stephen Clarke, and it's funny. About an English guy opening a tea room in Paris, but more about his messed up love life. It does shed some light on cultural things. We couldn't figure out why one of the waiters yanked the cloth napkins off the table we sat at and brought paper ones instead. Well, we did have an idea about it and it turns out we were half right. It seems you do NOT sit at a cafe table and order coffee when the table has CLEARLY been set for lunch already (a more expensive meal). Duh. Well, in this case the waiter was reasonably nice about it, but he was abrupt and probably a little ticked. Americans! What are they thinking???

Oct 17, Part 3 - Paris: Notre Dame and the Ile de la Cite

Yesterday afternoon the sun came out brilliantly for the first time on this trip, and this morning was the first time in a long time I'd seen a Paris morning in bright sunlight. It was gorgeous. As we walked from our hotel to the Seine (last post), I was enjoying the fall colors and bright light.

These photos are my few pictures of Notre Dame with alluringly blue skies.

We're crossing the Pont au Double from the left bank onto the island, and this is the gorgeous view you get of the south transept, the rose window, and the flying buttresses from that angle. The spire has some of the most interesting sculptures on it - mainly interesting to me just because of the blue-green color contrasted with the spire itself. Well, yes, and it's interesting to see these figures on the roof of the church.

It was such a nice day that the artists were out on the Pont au Double. I'm not usually interested in the caricaturists, like this one, but I do enjoy seeing really fine drawing. I have tended to think that even though this is Paris, most of the street art was by artists who were not so good, but this trip we saw many who were excellent. This guy was probably quite good for a caricaturist, but that's not my cup of tea. We saw some good portraitists at Montmartre.

This is where the Pont au Double intersects with the Parvis Notre Dame (the square in front of the cathedral). I like the arcs of cobblestone a lot. I also felt a kinship with the person trailing their luggage. Whenever possible, I like to make Notre Dame the first and last stop of my trip. Fortunately, we still had some days left to enjoy the city. It was still a novelty to see blue sky over the buildings of the Prefecture de Police in the background.

Passing in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, we came to a corner at Rue d'Arcole and Rue du Cloitre Notre Dame. I've always enjoyed the tile paintings that are part of this building. I like them better than the dime-a-dozen assembly-link prints being sold to tourists at the shop. It was hard to get pictures of the tilework today, though, because of the scaffolding. This image is on the Rue d'Arcole.

This one is around the corner on Rue du Cloitre Notre Dame. It's really, really too bad about the stupid graffiti.

In the warren of ancient streets to the north of Notre Dame, this is the Rue Colombe (named after doves) going to the left, and the Rue Chansoinesse ahead. We were making our way over to the Right Bank via some of these streets that are so easy to miss.

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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 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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Oct 17, Part 10 - Paris: Quai de Montebello Batobus landing

Strange things can be seen once you descend the stairs from the street level of the Quai de Montebello to the lower paveent where you board the boats. For instance, someone has painted white footprints on the cobbles, and there are large rings in the stone that look like they might belong in a torture chamber, although I'm sure they must be used to tie up boats, not humans. Also, right about here there's a marker on the wall showing the high-water point of the flood of 1910. Right now we'd be floating away.

Here is where you buy tickets for the Batobus (boat bus). It seems odd that it's built into the riverbank, but then why not?

Now we're waiting for our boat to come in so we can take a much-anticipated scenic ride.

What a great place to wait and watch the river. This boat heads toward the Pont au Double, right next to the front of Notre Dame.

Another boat goes by. It's busy on the river.

I'm enjoying the views above the riverbanks, too.

I love this photo. I think it's worth clicking on it to see the image larger.

Here's Lee, also enjoying the view on Notre Dame and waiting for the boat near the rings in the embankment.

It looks like the boat behind me is covering the bases. The Riverside Barbeque Restaurant has a pub and music, too. And the sign is in Korean (?) as well as English.

Here comes our Batobus.

It says, "Vendome" on the placard above the entrance to the boat. I don't remember what the prices were for the ride, but I never thought of using this "bus" to get around town, I'd only thought of it as a tour. Maybe next time it would be a good way to get across town.

Here's the name for the boat landing. It's too bad vandals have messed up the sign.

Lee gets onto the Batobus. Yeah, this will be great! What a treat. . . .

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