We got up late today, like everyone around here it seems. Although, as Sandy pointed out, we actually have nothing specific to do so “late” is relative.<\/p>\n
The usual annoyances at the gym, no one getting how to “work in” and leaving towels on one machine and reading for a while on another. Oh, well.<\/p>\n
At the Caf\u00e9 de la Mairie, we thought about not having a\u00a0baguette\u00a0<\/em>at lunch, hard to do, at least here. I may have mentioned already this but a French writer, Georges Perec wrote a book about this\u00a0caf\u00e9<\/em>, at Place Saint-Sulpice, where he sat for 3 days and\u00a0wrote\u00a0what he observed. We thought we should do a 21st century version. For instance, saw the 96 bus stop, lady walking two French poodles, parked Vespa, etc. Best-seller, for sure.<\/p>\n Off we went for a 2+ hour walk, which I am about to condense and describe in 2+ minutes, around the \u00cele de la Cit\u00e9 where the Celtic tribe known as the Parisii first settled\u00a0in the 3rd century BC. From Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris, overlooking the square du Vert Gallant, past the Conciergerie, the royal palace before the Louvre and a prison during the Revolution, past the Palais de Justice and Sainte-Chapelle, onto rue de Lut\u00e8ce with its flower stalls, into the lovely garden of the\u00a0H\u00f4tel Dieu, the 19th century hospital to Notre-Dame with its beautiful fa\u00e7ade and portals (and a brass stud in the pavement, the Zero Point of Paris, from which the distance to all the other cities and towns in France are measured), by the cheesy tourist shops on rue d’Arcole, onto rue des Ursins where a modern French architect, Fernand Pouillon (1912-1986) built a medieval-looking home, along quai aux Fleurs where there’s a memorial plaque for the star-crossed lovers, H\u00e9loise and Abelard, to the back of Notre-Dame with its flying buttresses, essential for the large windows and a revolutionary architectural development of the time (13th century) into the sombre and affecting\u00a0M\u00e9morial des Martyrs de la D\u00e9portation, one corridor of which is embedded with 200,000 glass pearls for the 200,000 people that France deported during the Nazi occupation.\u00a0 There’s a quotation from St.-Exupery in the memorial which says,’There is no common measure between the freedom of combat and disappearance into the night.’<\/p>\n On the way back, despite the fact that Paris (especially on a somewhat sunny Saturday) seems much more crowded than we’ve noticed to date, we ran into our friend Charnois with whom we\u00a0had already arranged to have\u00a0dinner tonight at the\u00a0superb Le Baratin (again).\u00a0Un baratin\u00a0<\/em>is a smooth-talker.<\/p>\n Funnily enough, I ran into Charnois and some friends last October when we were here to celebrate his 75th birthday. Large city but small world or vice-versa.<\/p>\n\n\t\t