Homemaking in Paris

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Dinner in a French oven

With a door that opens to the side

And heat settings that have to be mentally converted to Fahrenheit

The guest book tells us in English how to add detergent and empty the water filter, but when it then says to "choose your cycle"....

It would be awfully helpful if there was a translation of the cycles!

Our Neighborhood in Paris

After much research (and long-remembering what my high school French teachers had told me of Paris) we chose an apartment on the Left Bank, specifically on the eastern edge of the 7e arrondissement.  The 7e arrondissement is home to the Eiffel Tower, Hotel des Invalides, the Rodin Museum, and Musee d'Orsay.

However, we are just a two-minute walk from the western edge of the 6e arrondissement, home of Boulevard St.-Germain-des-Pres, Les Jardins de Luxembourg,  St. Sulpice,  Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots, frequent gathering cafes of the Lost Generation writers, poets, and artists, as well as locations in which they lived --- the stuff of a literary walk outlined in my Lonely Planet guide that we aim to take.

A very convenient neighborhood and tres charmant.  (But the whole of central Paris is charming!) What follows in this post are photos of the area within just a two to five minute walk of our apartment.

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Cafe on our corner

Four restaurants/cafes next to our apartment (the building in front of the motorcycles.)

Le Bon Marche on the corner of our intersection, Rue de Babylon and Rue du Bac.  It contains Le Grande Epicerie, where we've shopped for our groceries.

More shops around the corner

One of the locations of The Foreign Mission of Paris on our intersection.

The Square de Boucicaut down the block, delightful children's playground and carousel, gardens, sitting areas.

The Tuileries

We walked a bit of St. Germain, up to a cafe on Rue de Solferino for lunch, and then over the Pont de Solferino to the Tuileries.  What follows are snippets of the city and daily life.

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The Louvre

Play area and bike path along the Seine

Statue of Thomas Jefferson

Love this tree in the Tuileries

Backside of this statue just seemed the angle to shoot.

One of the garden cafes

"It's just like in the movies" --  a phrase I heard some Europeans say about America when they were visiting.  ;)

On Place de la Concorde

The Love Locks of Paris

Strolled the Seine today.  My mission was to see the love locks on the bridges, started here about 2008.  A mistaken belief is that they are a longstanding tradition of Paris, but they originated about 100 years ago in a Serbian tale.  They present a great controversy, because their added weight caused a partial collapse of the parapet of Pond Des Arts.  There is great concern about preserving the historic bridges.

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Sunday Morning

Seems more shops and restaurants are closed on Sundays than even in the U.S. South!  Coming from the Midwest, that is a really foreign concept for me.  We found a place a couple of blocks away for breakfast and then a friendly Parisian on the street directed us to a "French 7-11" (for my Southern friends, a "French Quick Stop") and we bought a few food items.

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Ruth ordered quiche, but you cannot see the giant portion this was due to the camera perspective!  I ordered an omelet -- also gargantuan -- but it didn't have cheese and I just can't do an omelet without, so I asked for a "to go" box and ordered a quiche, too.  The quiche was scrumptious, but I guess they don't do "to go" in Paris, as our server brought me an emptied out candy box!  (It leaked all the way home.)  Note to Self:  No "to go" in Paris.  Forget about "wasting food" and just leave the rest.  (I did, however, get four breakfasts out of this!)

Ugh.  McD's is everywhere.  And what is "shiny" bacon, I ask you?!  (Or maybe a Big Mac is called a "Shiny" here?)  Beats me.

Ruth in the "French 7-11."

Only one thing worse than seeing chains like McD's around the world:  Seeing Coke products.

First Night and Morning

Sharron walked down and we stopped into Bon Marche's Grand Epicerie, just round the corner for groceries, then went to dinner.  Exhausted from a long travel day, we made short of eating and all returned to our apartments.

Our weather is cool enough to sleep with open windows --- where are the bugs in Paris?  Haven't seen a one! --- and awake to morning church chimes.  Though we haven't a long-distance view, the architecture is lovely.  

As are the avian neighbors.

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