A Dog "Walker," Les Soldes, The Darkest Hour and Crêpes

Kelly did his long run on Saturday and had to stay up on the quais rather than run down close to the weather.  Kelly discovered this new way to "walk" about a dozen dogs at once.

Can you see the dog in the helmet in the basket on the front of the bike?  Never know what you'll find in Paris.
While Kelly was running, I went up to Galeries Lafayette and Au Printemps on boulevard Haussmann to check out Les Soldes.  This year the winter Soldes are January 10 to February 20.  Les Soldes are a big deal here in Paris.  Twice a year all unsold seasonal merchandise goes on sale throughout the country.  After the first week, items are discounted more.  But the best things go quickly the first week.  What is interesting is that the sales are legislated by the French government.  In 2008, the French Senate declared that Les Soldes cannot be longer than five weeks.  The dates must be synchronized among all shop owners.  They are to happen only twice a year, once in winter beginning the second Wednesday of January and once in summer beginning on the third Wednesday in June.  The store is obligated to mark the original price as well as the Soldes price, so that you know you aren’t getting a 40% discount off an elevated price tag. Shop owners have the right to hold other sales at different times of the year, but only for a total period of two weeks.  Sales during other times of the year have to be called a "promotion" or a word other than Soldes.  It's the law!


Les Soldes Table at BHV

Les Soldes

I had checked out Les Soldes at the BHV department store but I wanted to see what Printemps had to offer.  This store is so pretty.  It spills out over several buildings.  The designer boutiques inside the store are filled with shoppers from China-sometimes the shoppers are even lined up just to get into the boutique to shop.





Entrance to Printemps



On the top floor of Printemps is a restaurant under a beautiful stained glass dome.  I went up to sneak a quick peek.  This restaurant is on Kate's list when she comes to visit.  So pretty!

I hurried home to meet Kelly to go see the movie The Darkest Hour about Winston Churchill and World War II.  We found a theatre down boulevard Saint-Germaine past the Cluny Museum that we could walk to.  It was showing the Version Originale or VO in English with French subtitles.  I enjoy following the subtitles to see how things are translated.  We splurged on popcorn and shared an Orangina.  We had a choice of sweet or salty popcorn.  Evidently the sweet is the most popular in Paris.  When we got inside the theatre, which had a pretty small screen, by the way, we noticed there were no cup holders.  I'm not sure we saw anyone else with popcorn or a drink.  So while we don't really recommend the over salted popcorn, we definitely recommend the movie.  Gary Oldman was a great Churchill.

Kelly in the Movie Theatre

On the way home we stopped at a crêpe stand.  Kelly rides by this stand on the way home from his office.  He says there are always people lined up to get a crêpe or a gaufre (waffle) at the stand so he figured it must be good.  We couldn't decide what kind of crêpe to get.  Everything looked so good.  We watched the man make us a fresh Nutella-banane crêpe with a whole banana in it as Kelly chatted with him.  It tasted so good as we shared it walking home.  A perfect Saturday in Paris.

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Rain, Rain Go Away

It won't stop raining in Paris.  We've been in Paris for almost three weeks and I think we've seen blue sky only 2 or 3 days.  Even when it isn't raining, the skies are grey.  But we don't mind.  It rarely rains the whole day and we just feel lucky to be in Paris.
Sunday was one of those few sunny days.  I had to snap a picture of Kelly by Nôtre Dame with the blue sky while we were walking home from church in the Marais.

By the Solferino pedestrian bridge not far from Kelly's office stands Thomas Jefferson, who was ambassador to France from 1784 to 1789. He is holding the plans to Monticello.  Jefferson was close to the Marquis de Lafayette who fought in the American Revolution.

Jefferson holding the plans to Monticello

The French Revolution broke out while Jefferson was living in Paris. As a supporter of the French Revolution, Jefferson met regularly with the Marquis de Lafayette, who was now a rebel, and even advised him on how to conduct revolutionary activities. Lafayette's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, was a declaration identifying basic human rights and was directly inspired by Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.  The Concorde métro stop is tiled with the Declaration of the Rights of Man.  It's one of my favorite stations.

The rain started to cause some flooding along the Seine over the past couple of weeks.  Kelly has had to alter some of his running routes because of it.  He now has to run on the upper quais with the car traffic rather than on the lower ones by the river.  The flooding was starting to abate but it poured rain all day today and more is expected all week.

Trees inundated with water
 

Stairway to the river and
covered road

Kelly's running road covered with water

This gangplank once led to dry land

Kelly was surprised on one of his runs to see the police swimming in the river as part of their training.  A police boat was following along with the swimmers, who were in wetsuits.  I read in the newspaper that a policewoman drowned last week in the Seine during training.  The river is so high and the current so swift.  We were surprised they were still training under those conditions.

Musée Cognacq-Jay

Before our visitors come to Paris, I have been continuing to check out some of the smaller museums I have never seen in Paris.  One of these is the Musée Cognacq-Jay-a taste of the 18th century-situated in a 16th century mansion in the Marais.  And as a bonus, admission is free.

Entrance to Cognacq-Jay Museum

Love how these old stone steps
are worn and dip in the middle

The museum consists of the collection of Ernest Cognacq and his wife, Marie-Louise Jay.  Cognacq founded La Samaritaine in 1872.  He had been a salesman in a tent under the Pont Neuf when the owner of a café he frequented offered to rent him the room next door to the café for a shop.  Two years later he married Marie-Louise Jay, who had been the first saleswoman at the Bon Marché department store.  Together, their shop grew in size until La Samaritaine department store was born in 1900. 

Ernest Congacq

Marie-Louise Jay

Originally, he displayed his collection in a wing of the department store.  The couple had no children and when he died in 1928 he gave his collection to the city of Paris and it was eventually moved to this old mansion in the Marais.
There were small porcelain miniatures, furniture, sculptures and more.  Most of the museum looked like this room with paintings by the artists Canaletto, Tiepolo and Boucher:

One room had a beautiful bed and paintings and sculptures of children.  I enjoyed this sweet little museum.

Arènes de Lutèce et Marché Monge

After a bit of searching, I've finally found the best local market.  It is at the Place Monge about a 10 or 15 minute walk from the apartment.  It is there on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
But first, on my way to the marché, I passed one of the entrances to the Arènes de Lutèce.  This is the ancient Gallo-Roman arena that once seated 15,000 and was used for gladiator combats.  The arena was rediscovered in the 1800s and restored and opened as a public square in 1896.  You can still see two of the animal cages.  Old men are often there playing pétanque or young kids kicking around a soccer ball.

The Animal Cages

I continued walking up the rue Monge and found the marché.  It was quite big and everything looked so good-there was such a variety.  Not pictured are the stands selling Lebanese food, chickens, eggs, various parts of pigs (including the feet!), couscous, choucroute (sauerkraut) and more.  I saw stalls selling handbags, sweaters and even slippers.  There were lots of older Parisian women with their shopping carts checking out the seafood and produce.  That's how you can tell it's a good market.  I will be returning often.

Huge Shrimp

Scallops

Look at those carrots!

Cheese Monger

Pretty Squash

Handbags

Slippers

SciencesPo, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Sulpice and Eugène Delacroix

Today I rode with Kelly on the bus to see where he works and meet Urban, the security guard at the university who has befriended him.  Urban likes to practice his English with Kelly.  And Kelly practices his French with Urban.

Kelly at Sciences Politiques

I hopped back on the bus and went down the street a few stops to see the abbey church at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the oldest church in Paris, originally built in the 6th century.  It is Romanesque and early Gothic and was restored in the 19th century.  The painting on the ceiling and columns inside was done in the 19th century renovations.  The mathematician and philosopher René Descartes is buried here.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés,

The church was once again undergoing restoration, which interfered with what little heat there was in the church.  A sign recommended that parishioners wear a heavy sweater so that the lack of heat would not prevent them from "meeting the Lord in prayer."


The Organ Loft

I walked from there past many chic clothing boutiques to Saint-Sulpice.  This church was built in the 17th and 18th centuries during the time of Kings Louis XIV and XV.  It is the second largest church in Paris after Notre Dame and is known for its organ.  Saint-Sulpice was made famous in Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code.  When Kelly and I were on study abroad in 1980, this church was not far from our pension and we would visit often.

I found two things interesting inside.  First is the Chapel of the Holy Angels, which contains three monumental paintings by Eugène Delacroix that he painted from 1856 to 1861. 


Jacob Wrestling with the Angel

Heliodorus Driven from the Temple

Saint Michael Slaying the Dragon

Saint-Sulpice is also known for having a gnomon.  A gnomen is the section of the sundial that casts the shadow.  The clockmaker/astronomer Henry Sully built it in 1727 at the request of the parish priest. 

Marble Obelisk and Brass Line

The priest wanted to calculate the winter and summer solstices and the equinoxes so he could accurately determine the date of Easter.  There is a brass line inlaid into the marble floor and on the shaft of the marble obelisk.  A small opening in a window allows the sunlight to shine on the brass line.  The church also still had its pretty crèche on display.

Yesterday I just happened to go to the Eugène Delacroix Museum not far from Saint-Sulpice. It is where he lived the last six years of his life.  His health was not good so he moved to be closer to where he was painting at Saint-Sulpice.  It was hard to find the museum tucked away in a courtyard in a tangle of short and narrow streets.

Entrance to the Delacroix Museum

Bust of Eugène Delacroix

Delacroix lived in the apartments up one flight of stairs.  He had a studio built behind the apartment and a garden created.  He made sure there was a covered walkway over the stairs out the back of his apartment down to the entrance to the studio.  The rose garden has been restored to how it looked when he lived there. I would love to see the garden in the summer.  It looks like it would be such a beautiful and peaceful spot in the middle of bustling Paris.

View of the Garden from the Apartment

Studio behind Apartment

The studio contained a huge room with large windows facing south.  It included some of the furniture and clothing he bought on his trip to Morocco in 1832 that inspired his painting.  I loved his painting box.  The studio was saved from being demolished to make way for a garage in the 1920s and eventually the museum was created.  What a pretty little corner of Paris.

Painting Box

Delacroix's Studio