Christmas rambles

Ian and Zanne brought with them a box of cards called "Paris Walks," a collection guaranteed to introduce you to new parts of Paris (or deepen acquaintance with places you thought you knew.)

On Christmas Day we used the cards (smaller than a postcard, they are a wonderful accessory for travel snobs!) to do two radically different walks.

The first was in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, an urban but wilder-looking park than our neighboring well-tamed Parc de Monceau. Buttes Chaumont features a panoramic view of Paris, and paths leading up and down hills and through a gorge with a genuine waterfall. (How genuine the gorge is a matter for discussion, as Haussman dynamited the hillside to make the cliffs more dramatic.)

On Christmas Day (mild and sometimes sunny, by the way) the park welcomed runners, strollers, photographers, a few picnickers and children trying out brand new wheeled objects. We climbed to the highest point, a pillared folly with a great view. (Over Ian's right shoulder is Sacre Coeur, for example.)



Thanks again to the card, we found the neighborhood bakery of note -- and it was open! Treats all round, which we took back to a park bench to savor.

From there (after a walk through a definitely untouristed neighborhood) we made our way to the École Militaire metro, staging area for a walk up the Champ de Mars to the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero.

At least half of Paris evidently had the same plan for the afternoon. And half of those were carrying maps - there is no such thing as low season for Paris tourism. We blinked at the long lines waiting to ascend the tower, and pushed on to the Trocadero, for that wonderful view back from where we had come.



In the foreground you can see the skating rink, and the tented pavilions of the Christmas market. Everything was in full swing.

It was wonderful to get back to the 17th, where almost everything was closed, and traffic almost non-existent. Ian cooked us a splendid Christmas dinner to finish off the day.

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Christmas Eve in Paris

And the sun was shining! We walked the Rue Montorgeuil street market with crowds of people doing last minute holiday shopping. Santa outfits were popular.












In contrast to the usual Friday-night bustle, the neighborhood was quiet last night. We went out to dinner, and were the only guests for quite some time. On the street, buses and taxis were empty.

That continued today, where only the usually heavy tourist areas were crowded. Notre Dame was full of people, but St. Eustache, near Les Halles, was almost empty, except for people preparing for tonight's services.

This is a side chapel, dedicated to the farmers who brought produce to the market that once spread out in front of the church.








At the apartment, we have a small, reusable Christmas tree (I can pack it flat and bring it home in the suitcase!)




And we have candles and Christmas ornaments. French yogurt glasses make excellent candle-holders.




Joyeux Noël to all!


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Company!

Staying in an apartment here makes it easy to invite friends to visit. Since the invitation is to Paris, most accept. Immediately.

Last week two friends from Seattle arrived for a week's visit. They stayed here 4 nights, then moved to a hotel for the remainder of their stay.

When I saw the 2-room suite at their hotel, I had trouble believing that they had actually enjoyed sharing the tiny bathroom here and pulling down the Murphy bed every night. But they assured me the experience was memorable.

Because they moved to an entirely different area, we were able to explore and enjoy two neighborhoods in the course of errand-running and Christmas shopping.

One Christmas window near their hotel featured penguins. When the window was illuminated, the birds moved up and down.



Here's a side street near their hotel (located near the Luxembourg Gardens.)





The Luxembourg Museum was directly across the street from the hotel, making it wonderfully easy to visit the current exhibit, a Cézanne retrospective, featuring his time in Paris.







The visitors from Seattle departed on Monday. Today Ian and Zanne arrive.

Now it really IS Christmas!

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All kinds of windows

It's possible to walk for miles in Paris, simply to see what is in the next window.

In this neighborhood, there is the cordonnier (shoe repair) with the window full of a mix of full-size and miniature shoes.




Nearby an optical shop has a slightly different approach.




Lanvin has highly unusual Christmas windows this year, featuring life-size mannequins that look eerily real.








And then there is the high-end shoe store on the Rue de Castiglione (the street leading into the Place Vendôme.) I am not sure who would buy or wear some of these shoes, but they attract plenty of attention.








More in keeping with the season are the windows you can see all year round, for example this one, in St. Pierre de Montmartre.




St. Pierre is the small church on the Place du Tertre, at the top of Montmartre. Today it was nearly empty, and the Place itself far less crowded than in spring or summer. When the weather is as mild as it has been for the past few days, December is a fine month to visit Paris.

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Evening in Paris

OK, this dates me. When I was growing up, "Evening in Paris" was a perfume that came in dark blue curvy bottles. You could buy it in the dime store, and no one you knew wore it (or admitted they did!)

There IS something blue about evening in Paris - the real thing. Tonight I walked a long way - from the Rue de Grenelle, in the 7th (where I attended the monthly service of the UUFP - the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Paris) to the Opera, where I took the Metro back to the 17th.

And it was blue - the "blue hour" of song and story. (There used to be a perfume for that, too - l'Heure Bleu, a heavy, heady 20s scent. No one I ever knew wore it, either.)

Here's what I mean:





Picture is from the Pont des Arts. In the Tuileries, I had to take at least one more picture of that Ferris wheel, and a carousel.






Later, my way led through the Place Vendôme, with its elaborate Christmas lights.


In the days when "Evening in Paris" seemed glamorous and faintly wicked to me, I never imagined that I would see the real thing.



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Saturday on Quai Branly

Quay Branly runs along the left bank of the Seine, from the Pont de l'Alma to the Pont Bir Hakiem. It is a lovely but incredibly crowded walk at all times, because as well as the Musée de Quai Branly (fascinating anthropology, ethnology and ecology museum) the street borders the top of the Champ de Mars and leads to the Tour Eiffel. Since I wasn't going to the tower, I swam upstream against crowds who were!

(But of course I took a picture or two.)




Where I went was a new place to me - the Japanese cultural institute (Maison de la culture du Japon.) It is worth walking by just for the architecture (the building dates from 1966, and is a striking addition to the area.)

I was lucky enough to catch the last few days of an outstanding exhibit of Japanese woodblock prints, from the Manos Collection, whose home is a museum on the island of Corfu. Much more information here.
I know - it's all in French, but even the tiny pictures give some idea of the richness of the collection.

(M. Manos collected his prints in early 20th-century Paris, at the height of "Japonisme," the fascination with all things Japanese. The Utamaro prints in the show were worth a visit all on their own.)




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Lights everywhere!

Paris knows how to celebrate. Tonight I took a leisurely (read 'slowed to a crawl by heavy traffic!') bus ride to the Place de la Concorde, to see the Grande Roue (ferris wheel) and other illuminated objects.

I was just in time for the hourly light show from the Tour Eiffel (no pictures here, because my little camera wouldn't do it justice - see "Midnight in Paris" for a sense of the display.)

Tonight it was mild, clear and dry, and a full moon floated over the merrymaking. The Champs Élysées is lined with lights that suggest UFOs. They start blue then morph to pink and white, often as you are trying to line up a picture.








A Christmas market adds to the gaiety. Tonight most people seemed to be interested in drinks and snacks, or just out to enjoy the evening.




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Paris au temps de grisaille...

Just another way to say "cloudy with a chance of rain." But the weather is still mild, for December.

On the Pont des Arts, a hardy artist displayed his work. Sales were slow.



Spontaneous art on the bridge includes locks -- hundreds of locks, fastened to the chain link fencing.







It gets dark here soon after 4:30 pm, but schools aren't out until after 5, even for young children. In spite of the dark, the Parc de Monceau is the place to be, for small children, their mothers or nannies.




I think the carousel runs all year.




Window decorations are not just for holidays. This is a shoe repair shop near the apartment.







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More about Paris

Late leaves & flowers, Parc de Monceau

Except for the lights, and the early sunsets, it could be late October rather than December. Thanks to the handy weather app, I know this mild weather will continue for a while.

The apartment is near the Parc de Monceau, also the Musee Cernuschi, where I went today. Current show is of Chinese artists who came to Paris beginning in the early 1920s, eager to learn more about western painting styles, but also interested in incorporating their own traditions.

The artists banded together, and were first recognized with an exhibition at the Jeu de Pomme in 1933. Many paintings in the current exhibition were acquired by French museums at that time.




This picture is of Shana, a daughter of one of the artists. She is, quite literally, the poster child for the exhibition, her face appearing all over Paris.

Aside from the current exposition, the Cernuschi has an extensive collection of objects from Asia, much of it acquired in the 19th century by M. Cernuschi. His widow acquired the elegant townhouse that is now the museum, and installed the collection.

Here are a few more objects:














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Pictures!

Turns out it is more of a hassle to post pictures while blogging from the iPad. However, now that I have bought an app that works, I expect Blogger will soon issue its own. Probably free.

Here's a kitchen closeup at VM, result of today's shopping.


And here is Rue de Courcelles, illuminated.





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Paris pour Noel

"Did you stop blogging because you weren't traveling?"

It's a fair question. In the winter I wrote about books and knitting, not always in that order. And I didn't travel.

Now I'm back in Paris, at Villa Monceau. Since my allotted month this year is December, why NOT be here for "les fetes." Luckily for me, various friends and family have accepted invitations to join me from time to time.

Paris is dark early in the morning, and goes from light to dark very quickly late in the afternoon. Then the lights come on. Rue de Courcelles, the main street of the immediate neighborhood, is hung with decorations that remind me of the lights strung across Main St. in Moscow, Idaho, circa 1956. Nice then, nice now.

I'm learning to blog from an iPad - how does one upload a picture? No blog post until I figure it out!


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Location:Villa Monceau,Paris,France