Flaneurs in the 5th Arrondissement

Today Kate and I went back to the neighborhood behind where Kelly and I lived in 2018 on Boulevard Saint Germain. We walked up the hill towards the church Saint-Étienne-du-Mont and the Panthéon.

Walking towards
Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

It is one of our favorite churches-the last one in Paris that still has its rood screen separating the high altar from the congregation. 

View towards the rood screen
and the apse

The church is at the top of Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. Sainte Geneviève is the patron saint of Paris. She saved Paris by diverting Attila the Hun's army away from the city in 451. What is left of her remains is in this church-mainly the slab her tomb had laid on. Sainte Geneviève's remains were burned and the ashes dumped in the Seine during the French Revolution. People who are looking for love leave notes inside of Sainte Geneviève's tomb. I'd never seen so many pieces of paper inside before!

Sainte Geneviève's tomb

Interior of 
Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

The Panthéon was originally intended to be a church dedicated to Sainte Geneviève but the French Revolution got in the way. It was finished in 1790 and In 1791, the new government took it over as a burial place or mausoleum for distinguished French citizens. If you are interested, you can read more about Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, Sainte Geneviève and the Panthéon in my blog post in February 2018.

Panthéon 

View of rear of Panthéon
from Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

Across from the Panthéon is the Sorbonne. I love the majestic façade of the law school.

Faculty of Law

We walked from here over to Place Contrescarpe and the rue Mouffetard where Ernest Hemingway would hang out in the cafés and write. His apartment was just around the corner from Place Contrescarpe and is mentioned in his book A Moveable Feast.

Café on Place Contrescarpe

Wallace Fountain

On the way to Place Contrescarpe, we passed a Wallace Fountain. These are found all over Paris and have fresh drinking water. You can refill your water bottle here. The original fountains were a gift to the people of Paris from Sir Richard Wallace, an Englishman, who saw the need in Paris for safe drinking water. The first 50 were installed in Paris beginning in 1872. They are painted dark green to blend in with the Paris streetscape.

The siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and the upheaval of the Paris Commune afterwards destroyed many aqueducts and other sources of clean water in Paris. Water became very expensive and most of the water sold by vendors and distributed on carts to the poor was drawn from the Seine River. At that time, all the waste water from the streets and many of the sewers drained directly into the river. So it seemed less risky to drink alcoholic beverages, which were often cheaper than the price of unsafe water. 

Given the choice, the lower classes were most likely to drink beer or wine instead of water. Drunkenness and alcoholism were rampant among the poor and working-class population at this time. Wallace considered it a moral duty to keep the less privileged from falling into alcoholism simply because they had nothing else safe to drink. 

Friday is market day at the Place Monge nearby. This was the market we frequented in 2018. We recognized many of the vendors. Everything was beautiful and just looks better in Paris-from the vegetables to the flowers.

We ended our wanderings with a visit to Le Boulanger de la Tour, our favorite boulangerie with the baguettes with the pointy ends. Their signature Baguette de la Tour is so much more flavorful than the traditions and campailletes in our neighborhood. It is across from and owned by the famous Tour d'Argent restaurant, which was supposedly founded in 1582 and the oldest restaurant in Paris. The restaurant is known for its canard à la presse or pressed duck and hence the duck logo. The dining room is several floors up and looks out over the Seine, Île Saint-Louis and the back of Nôtre Dame. The restaurant inspired scenes in the Pixar movie Ratatouille. 

Everything tastes better at this boulangerie!

Pain Suisee, Pain au Chocolat in the bag,
Baguette de la Tour, Chausson aux Pommes

Picasso Museum

Kate and I had only been to the Picasso Museum once. We went in 2009 with our Study Abroad students and their Art History class. After our 2009 visit, the museum was under renovation for five years and reopened at the end of 2014. So it was time to go back to the museum in the historic 17th century Hôtel Salé in the Marais. A hôtel in France is not what we would call a hotel in the US-it is a large private mansion.

Picasso Musem Courtyard
in the Hôtel Salé

According to the museum website, "The Musée Picasso-Paris collection comprises over 5,000 works and tens of thousands of archived pieces. For its quality and scope as well as the range of art forms it encompasses, this collection is the only one in the world to present both Picasso’s complete painted, sculpted, engraved and illustrated œuvre and a precise record—through sketches, studies, drafts, notebooks, etchings in various stages, photographs, illustrated books, films and documents—of the artist’s creative process." 

In 1966, there was a big celebration of Picasso's 85th birthday with an exhibition at the Grand Palais. Capitalizing on this momentum and in anticipation of the future inheritance of Picasso's works, France passed a law in 1968 to allow heirs to donate works of art to the government in lieu of paying inheritance taxes. In the years after Picasso's death in 1973, his heirs took advantage of this law. We saw only a sliver of the works donated to the museum.

Current Exhibit

The main floor of the museum was closed because they are preparing to open a new exhibit mid-February titled "Degenerate" Art: Modern art on trial under the Nazis. The exhibit we saw included Picasso works throughout his life.

Kate walking up
to the Exhibit

Mansion Stairs

At the top of the stairs was this sweet painting of a child playing with a "camion" or truck.

Enfant Jouant avec un camion
1953

The painting below, "Les Amoreux" or "Lovers" depicts a man in a tuxedo dancing with a woman, and references Manet in the upper right hand corner. On the ground, a page of the newspaper L’intransigeant is being trodden on by the dancers. This could be Picasso’s way of snubbing the critics who were not impressed by Cubism. Manet was also a painter of modern life who was snubbed by critics as he ushered in Impressionism. Picasso's painting could reference a painting by Manet titled "Nana," which also has a man in a tuxedo with a woman in a room with similar bourgeois decor.

Les Amoreux
1919

In the same room was a portrait of his 3-year-old son, Paulo, or Paul, dressed as a harlequin. During this time, Picasso received various commissions from Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the famous Ballets Russes company. Picasso created the various sets, stage curtains and costumes that set the tone for each ballet. The different characters in these ballets influenced his art.

Paul en Arlequin
1924

View onto the garden
behind the museum

Picasso made sculptures out of found items. A whimsical example was this girl jumping rope from 1950. The face is made from a cake tin, the body from a wicker basket, and real shoes are on her feet. He was able to suspend her in midair. 

Little Girl Jumping Rope

In the 1950s, Picasso was influenced by Matisse and moved to southern France near Cannes. Below is a painting of his workshop, L'Atelier de la Californie, with palm trees showing Matisse's influence and the Moorish Decor of his villa.

L'Atelier de la Californie
1956

The blank canvas represents all the paintings to come. 

This last painting below is of a young girl sitting. I loved how colorful she is.

Jeune fille assise
1970

This is just a small sample of the works in the Picasso Museum. I may need to go back to see the new exhibit on "Degenerate" art and the Nazis next month.

Ladurée 

We also made our first trip to Ladurée for our favorite macarons. We found when we arrived in Paris that the small shop Ladurée had opened on the rue Cler a few years ago had unfortunately closed. So it takes a bit more work to get our macaron fix. They did not disappoint. And rose is still my favorite flavor!

Ladurée 

Macarons

Carette and the Marais

 After buying our combs and making a quick stop at the Merci store, we walked to Place des Vosges to get lunch at Carette.

Merci Store

Despite the weather forecast and blue skies when we left home, it started raining as we left Merci to head to Carrette. That is Paris. Always be ready for rain! 

Arcade at
Place des Vosges

Kate at the entrance
to Carette 

Carrette is known for its hot chocolate and we wanted to warm up and also compare it to the hot chocolate at Angelina's. It arrived with a towering bowl of whipped cream.

Hot Chocolate and
Whipped Cream

Zucchini and Sweet
Potato Potage
With Croutons

We ordered some warm soup and had a delightful lunch. 

View from Carrette outside
to Place des Vosges

The hot chocolate was not quite as heavy and intense as the hot chocolate at Angelina's. They had yummy looking pastries but we were too full to try any of those. Kate and I highly recommend Carrette and their hot chocolate.

When we left, the sun had come out and we walked around Place des Vosges and the Marais toward Hotel de Ville.

Walking Along the Park 
at Place des Vosges

Place des Vosges Arcade

We walked down rue des Rosiers. It is an old street (its name goes back to 1230) in the Jewish Quarter of the Marais that was originally just outside the wall around Paris. It got its name from the rose bushes that grew next to it in the gardens outside the Paris wall.

Rue des Rosiers

The famous L'As du Fallafel is on rue des Rosiers. The lines are a lot shorter in January.

We were surprised to find the other Fallafel shop across the street (the competition when the lines are long at L'As du Fallafel) had been replaced with a Krispy Kreme donut shop. I did not bother to take a picture of the Krispy Kreme shop. I was too sad to see its looming presence on this historic little street.

Sacha Finkelsztajn
'Father and Son since 1946'
Yiddish Traiteur

Chagall Window Painting

Many Jews were rounded up during the Holocaust from this street and neighborhood with the complicity of the French police. It is always a bit sobering to walk here and think about the sadness and fear. Many memorial plaques on the buildings tell their stories.

Side Street in the Marais

We went home under blue skies. Another beautiful day in Paris.

L'Officine Universelle Buly

Today Kate and I went to the Marais to L'Officine Universelle Buly at 45 rue de Saintonge in the upper Marais. It is a beautiful little shop with a coffee bar on one side and upscale beauty products on the other.

Coffe Bar

Beauty Products

In 1803, a distiller, perfumer and cosmetician, Claude Bully, invented a vinaigre de toilette, a vinegar-based fragrance designed to fight body odors, cure disease, and nourish the skin. This later influenced the perfume industry. His son sought endorsements from doctors and scientists for their beauty products. But during the 1830 revolution, Bully lost his shop due to riots and he died in poverty. The brand was revitalized (and dropped one of the l's in Bully) in 2014 and sells high end beauty products for body, face, hair and even candles for the home.

Kate at the Beauty Counter

Candles

Fragrance Drawers

The reason Kate and I went was to look at their combs. They have many types of beautiful combs-maybe 25 or 30 styles-and also brushes. For an additional 5 euros, they will put your name on the comb or brush while you wait. Then they beautifully wrap everything and put your name on it.

Wrapped combs and shopping bag

The woman who helped us was a bit perplexed about my name. It is a French name that is usually spelled Janine. She was mystified as I spelled my name for her but it did come out right! Kate's name was much easier. Each comb came in a soft suede pouch.

We were pleased with our little souvenirs of Paris.