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Published: September 9th 2013
Saturday morning was sunny but a little cooler; a perfect day to explore a castle! We chose the Vincennes Castle, about a 1/2 hour by Metro across the city.
Vincennes is one of the largest and best preserved castles in Europe. Construction started in the mid-1300's by John II (John the Good) and was completed by his son Charles V (Charles the Wise) around 1370. It served as a military stronghold, a prison, an arsenal and various Royal residences over the years.
The wall and ramparts around the castle enclosure is 1,200 metres long, lined with nine towers originally 40 to 42 metres high, surrounded by a 27-metre wide moat filled with water until the end of the 17th century. The 2.6 metre thick curtain wall, rises some ten metres above the average level of the interior courtyard and 18 m above the bottom of the current moat.
Also within the castle walls is a chapel modelled on the Sainte-Chapelle of the Palais de la Cite in Paris. The Sainte-Chapelle of Vincennes was intended to house part of the relics of the Passion. The stained glass windows of the choir, listed as a historical monument, were created and
Fireworks Grand Feu d’Artifice de Saint-Cloud
The world's biggest and longest fireworks displayput up in 1555-1556 by the master glassmaker Nicolas Beaurain.
Saturday evening we were sitting around the apartment when we heard fireworks going on for quite a while. We finally climbed up to the roof-top terrace and discovered an amazing fireworks display, about 5 or 6 km away, that went on for nearly two hours! It was the Grand Feu d’Artifice de Saint-Cloud, the world's biggest and longest fireworks display. It was pretty incredible to watch and we later learned that tickets to the event cost between 28 and 78 Euros but we had an amazing, free view from our terrace.
Sunday was the final day for our museum pass so we headed out into a cooler day with a bit of rain off and on, for our final day of pre-paid museum viewing. Actually, we went to the Pantheon, built by King Clovis in 507 AD to house his tomb and that of his queen, Clotilde, although they appear to no longer be there. Many relics of Royalty were moved and/or destroyed during the French revolution.
Saint Genivieve, who protected Paris from the barbarians, was buried there in 512 AD. Soon afterwards, care of the relics
of Gelevieve, the patron saint of Paris, was entrusted to an order of regular canons, the Genovefains. In a macabre demonstration of the revolutionary regime's judicial authority, the saint's bones were put on trial and condemned to public burning, their crime being the "participation in the propagation of error." Having been subjected to a revolutionary auto-da-fé (The burning to death of heretics) in Paris' Place de Grève on December 3, 1793, Sainte Geneviève's ashes were sanctimoniously cast into the Seine. Today, the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont preserves portions of the saint's remains that had survived the Revolution in "other locations".
A few of the interesting tombs that we did see were those of Victor Hugo (died in 1885, author of Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831, and Les Miserables), Voltaire (French writer, died in 1778), Marie Curie (died in 1934, famous for her pioneering work on radioactivity, won nobel prizes for Physics and chemistry), and Louis Braille (died in 1852, famous for creating Braille, the system for reading and writing for the blind).
After touring the Pantheon, we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens nearby and picked a sunny bench to stop at and have our lunch. The Jardin du
Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg Gardens, is the second largest public park in Paris at over 22 hectares. The park is the garden of the French Senate, which is itself housed in the Luxembourg Palace. The garden is largely devoted to formal gardens of gravel and lawn and filled with statues. There is a large pond and fountain in the center and children sail model boats here. The gardens include a large fenced-in playground for young children and a vintage carousel, a large gazebo for live musical events, and a small cafe with both indoor and outdoor seating beneath the trees.
From here we walked a couple of blocks east to find the home where Gertrude Stein lived. For some forty years, the Stein home at 27 Rue de Fleurus on the Left Bank of Paris was a renowned Saturday evening gathering place for both expatriate American artists and writers and others noteworthy in the world of vanguard arts and letters, most notably Pablo Picasso. Entrée into the Stein salon was a sought-after validation, and Stein became combination mentor, critic, and guru to those who gathered around her, including Ernest Hemingway, who described the salon in “A Moveable Feast”.
Gertrude and her brother Leo shared living quarters on the Left Bank of Paris at 27 rue de Fleurus from 1903 until 1914, when they dissolved their common household. Their residence, located near the Luxembourg Gardens, was a two-story building with adjacent studio. It was here they accumulated the works of art into a collection that would become renowned for its prescience and historical importance.
Their collection included paintings by many new artists of the day including Gauguin, Cézanne, Renoir, Delacroix, Matisse, Picasso, and Toulouse-Lautrec. While numerous artists visited the Stein salon, many of these artists were not represented among the paintings on the walls at 27 Rue de Fleurus.
After this we walked to La Coupole restaurant at 102 Blvd. de Montparnasse to see an exhibit of graffiti artists. The display turned out to mostly be actually painted on the walls and pillars around the restaurant. When I told the hostess I was there just to view the art they happily allowed us to wander around the large, packed restaurant and even to take photos. For years I've said that some of the best modern art I've seen is graffiti, often on train cars. Everything I saw
at La Coupole was of much higher quality and in my opinion, demonstrated greater talent than anything on display at Paris' Museum of Modern Art, the Pompidou Centre. In particular, the artists Alex and Hopare had some beautiful work.
We walked over to Place St. Michel from there and came upon a demonstration, pro-Syrian, and anti French involvement in any possible military action. Place St. Michel is historically, and still is, the most popular location for demonstrations to begin.
This is on the edge of the Latin Quarter so we wandered around there and chose a traditional little café, Le Sainsev, with outdoor, curbside tables to have our dinner. I had Escargot and steak and Chris had Duck l'Orange. We had great meals, fantastic people watching, and then caught the metro nearby for a quick trip home.
Monday morning was very cool, cloudy and started pouring rain early in the day, and then continued for most of the day. Garth and Sue headed off to do some sightseeing and Chris and I stuck around home, reading and writing. We did venture out into the rain later to hit the market so Chris could buy some fresh produce
and create Ratatouille for dinner. And, as usual, it was great!
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Milton
non-member comment
Great blog. You know how much I enjoy history. Thank you for the background info. Blonde looks great. Diane home from visiting family in Ontario. Milton