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Published: April 26th 2006
We were all so whacked from the day before that we all slept in, even Kaspar (must be feeling his age), until about 8am - practically a crime punishable by death when you only have a few days in Paris.
So with that in mind we thought it only fitting to check out the local execution facilities at the Concergerie (finished in 1313) in the Palais de la Cité. The Concergerie was initially home to the old prison cells that saw the pre-execution last days of such historical characters as Marie Antionette, Robespierre and André Chénier (no, we’d never heard of him either but then we’re not big on our French poetry).
The Concergerie is definitely worth a visit just for interest’s sake - and its only 8 Euros and takes an hour or so to get through with some impressive architectural features. Top trip for travellers with young babies - make sure that you get all their screaming out of the way BEFORE you enter the Concergerie. It is large, stone, and cavernous and has exceptional echo producing acoustics!
Among what you’ll get to see here are the enormous pillared and vaulted dining hall (210 x 90
ft) with its oversized fireplaces, the prison cells of the low, middle and upper class prisoners (apparently the rich could pay to have a nicer cell, but with uncharacteristic French efficiency their executions were generally processed much quicker than the lower class prisoners so I’m not too sure why you’d opt for the 5 star service), Marie Antoinette’s private cell, the chapel (it still eludes me how you can put execution and religion side by side) and the Women’s garden (even when they were lining people up to be executed the French were granted a pleasant stroll in the back yard to smell the flowers and wash their undies).
King John the Good’s kitchen was closed when we visited so not sure what we missed there.
The place is reasonably sparse, much like it would’ve been 700 years ago, but you certainly get a feeling for just how grim it would’ve been to be on death row in those days, but then any day would be a bad one when you’re counting down the days.
We wandered back towards the 2e arondisement first along the Siene. Every shop was either a plant shop or a pet store selling
everything from puppies to Boa constrictors. We timed it well and managed to see a few snakes being fed their daily allownace of mice and locusts - very cool. Then on through the markets we found entire streets lined with shops and stalls selling fresh fruit and veges, breads, cheeses, chocolates, snails, meats, sea food...pretty much a specialty store for every typoe of food imagineable.
After lunch we headed across town to visit Aurelie, Marius, and Kerion. They live in a flash part of town, in the west, so we felt most comfortable in our shorts and t-shirts as we strolled the streets amongst the well to do Parisians. Aurelie had done some shopping research for us and found a brand new car seat at Carrefour for $40E - which she helped us pick up before dinner.
It was lovely catching up with Aurelie and Kerion, and Marius was kind enough to show Kaspar how to play with his trucks and cars in French. Marius is not yet 3 but is clearly going to be bilingual. He also has an insatiable appetite for cars and needs to know the make and model of everyone he walks past. We are
sure he will be able to use his powers for good in the years to come, especially if there is a “Name That Car” game show in the near future.
Aurelie whipped up a couple of superb classic quiches in record time and we had a fab dinner followed up by Aurelie & Marius’ soon to be world famous chocolate mousse - keep your eye out for it next time you’re in Paris!
We headed for the metro around midnight loaded up with Kaspar and the car seat and chose to forgo a stop at La Tour, which we’re told is currently light up superbly on the hour in the evenings. We’ll see if we can squeeze it in on Thursday night.
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Nicola
non-member comment
Bon Jour
Am really enjoying your updates and pleased you managed to rendez vous with Aurelie. From all the photos it looks like Kaspar is having a wonderful time!