The Last Time I Saw Paris - Part 2

Photos from a Winter Break

Across the Seine, to the Île Saint-Louis.

(Note: Part 1 of The Last Time I Saw Paris focused mostly on some of the the sites in our Paris neighborhood, the 5th arrondissement. Part 3 focuses on the FOOD. You can also join me The First Time I Saw Paris, 50 years ago; and for imagined adventures (and loves) in a 1920s fictional Paris, Song of the Amorous Frogs.)

Walking is the best way to explore Paris, even in the winter cold and wet (up to a point!). On most visits, we set out on foot to explore a neighborhood we’ve never discovered before - or at least not in a very long time. This visit it was the Butte-aux-Cailles (Quail Hill?), down in the 13th, which we remembered fondly from years ago, and which you might call “village” Paris - since it really had been a village, on the banks of the no longer visible Bièvre river, which they say still flows underground. This is a part of the city that tourists don’t often get to.

Along the way, we stopped for sustenance - and a foretaste to prime us for a hoped-for tour to Brittany later in the year - at Des Crêpes et des Cailles. We didn’t have any quail, but we had lovely crepes, both savory and sweet, along with the pleasant welcome from our new village friends.

Then on down into the - I can only call them “quaint” - residential streets going further south. It really is like being in rural France in the midst of the city, with Louis-Philippe architecture (forgive me if that’s not really the correct term), billowing front gardens, and lace curtains at the windows. If we ever move to Paris, we could live here!

The bus is also a great way to get around, if your itinerary will take you beyond walking distance. The buses are frequent, usually not too crowded, and cover the central city splendidly. Seeing Paris through (or even reflected in) a bus window is a treat.

Our favorite route is the No. 63, which we can board a block from our hotel and then take past many of the most famous sites, all the way to the Fondation Louis Vuitton, location of some of the most block-buster art exhibitions around, in the Bois de Boulogne. And it only costs 2 euros; can there be a better bargain?

The Grand Palais, and Pont Alexandre III.

Another view of the Eiffel Tower.

One of the glass houses in the Jardin des Plantes.

Of course even the bus can’t take you everywhere - at least not quickly - and so in Paris, we’ll always have the METRO!

And now, to end with a few random photos, just because.

The Stravinsky Fountain at the Pompidou (which, by the way, will be closing later this year for a five-year renovation - so, being realistic, this may have been our last visit there).

Breakfast at the Hotel des Grandes Ecoles, with Dorota and Nettie.

Dancing on a Saturday afternoon at the Rue Mouffetard Guinguette.

A visit - just because - to a shop of many temptations, temptations often given in to in past years. But they were closed this time.

Some things seen through glass along the way.

The two of us with beaming Paris smiles, knowing that dinner is on the way.

Au revoir, Paris. Until next time.