Advertisement
Published: September 26th 2005
Homework in Luxombourg Gardens
One of my favorite places to just sit and chill.One of my favorite places to go is the Palais et Jardin du Luxembourg. According to my Green Guide, the Palace and Gardens were built for Marie de Medici (of the famous family from Florence which also gave patronage to Galileo during his life) after she decided to leave the Louvre (which was the royal palace) upon the death of Henri IV in 1610. Marie wanted a place to remind her of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence where she grew up. Today the palace houses the Senate and the gardens are open to the public; the gardens are especially popular with students from the Latin Quarter. The Latin Quarter is so-named because many years ago Latin was the language of education and this was center of education in Paris and France for something like 700 years. The Latin Quarter (or 5th arrondissment) is where the main building for the Sorbonne (my school) is located. The first picture is of me doing my homework in the Luxembourg Garden. This, and the Phonetique picture serve as evidence I actually am doing something here besides chilling. . . lol.
When you come up out of the subway at the Place St. Michel exit
of the St. Michel/Notre-Dame station (which is like the northern edge of the Latin Quarter; the Luxembourg Gardens are on the southern side of the Quarter, but within walking distance) you see the fountains at Place St. Michel. This area is dominated by the Boulevard St. Michel (or Boul’Mich if you’re familiar with the area) has a ton of cafés, clothing boutiques, and book shops. It is really a hub of life for the student age population of Paris.
Every Wednesday and Saturday mornings, an outdoor market is constructed outside my building on Boulevard Charonne. There are a ton of people selling many different things here, with an emphasis on fresh foods. You have fresh fish, butchers cutting meet in their booth, fresh veggies, really all kinds of beautiful food here. People also will see clothing and other household supplies at these markets. The booths are put up and taken down each individual day for the market, so one day you’ll go out and there will be a ton of stuff in the sidewalk that divides different lanes of the boulevard, and the next day it will be gone with not a trace of what occupied the space the
Phonetique
Moi, and my new friend Melissa from UCLA. We are working on obtaining the perfect French accent. day before. People here shop several times a week (as opposed to in the US where people plan ahead and don’t shop so often). This is interesting because it means there are not preservatives used in foods which is probably better for you. Also, these markets don’t really make money anymore with the rise of supermarket type stores, but the French people and government subsidize it as an important part of the culture and society of Paris, so the street markets live to see another day. I kind of like the idea that they choose to help keep small businesses open in the face of competition from large businesses the small business really can’t afford to compete against.
I included a picture taken from one of the platforms of the Châtelet metro station. This is like the main station of the Paris Metro with five subway lines and three commuter lines converging here. All of the lines of the Paris Metro have dedicated platforms, which is kind of unusual because in other cities it is not unusual to have multiple lines leaving from the same platform. Having dedicated platforms really helps eliminate confusion (thought it is still very confusing
sometimes) in finding your train. The picture of the double-decker train is on a commuter line (commuter lines have fast service while in the city, but then some of the trains continue into the suburbs on a less frequent basis, they generally don’t make as many stops within the city as the regular subway lines). The Châtelet station is one of the world’s busiest mass transit stations, as something like a million people pass through it every day.
I also put in pictures of a couple of wedding dresses I saw in the window of a boutique down by the Louvre. Every store (it must be a law here or something) has to have the prices displayed next to their goods on display in the window, so this makes it fun to window-lick (the English translation of the word the French use to describe what we call window shopping). Window-licking is very popular with the French apparently.
There was a huge street even called the Techno Parade this weekend. I read reports of something like 400,000 people dancing in the streets in this parade celebrating Techno and all things clubbing. It was an amazing sight. The pictures on
Fountain at Place St. Michel
A close-up of the central part of a huge (like 2 story) fountain. this page are from the Place Bastille which served as the final point in the parade which lasted for hours. There were 20 or 30 floats, all of which were sponsored by a different venue in Paris. Some of them were quite elaborate, with smoke/fog or shooting massive amounts of bubbles into the air. There was all kinds of people there, from young (see the picture of the boy dancing) to like late-teen/20’s (which is what I would expect) to much older. Then people started scaling the tall fence that guards the monument to the French Revolutions (one of which started when the people stormed the Bastille, which was located here many years ago). The different levels of the base became different levels of a stage for dancers (there is a picture of this too). There was also a large riot-ready police squad ready to move in should there be any problems, which I’m happy to report didn’t happen.
I hope to post pictures from the last two weekends sometime this week (these are from three weekends ago). The internet here is contrary much of the time and I don’t have much patience with it . . . lol,
More of the Fountain at Place St. Michel
A close-up of one of the dragons? which flank the fountain. imagine me not having patience. Upcoming things to expect are pictures of my first close-up visit to the Eiffel Tower, the President’s Mansion (like the White House), the Grand Palais, tennis matches at Roland-Garros, and then in the post after that one pictures of the Fountains in Gardens at Versailles (perhaps the nicest palace in the world). I love and miss everyone . . . I have been so excited to receive messages/comments from you so keep up the good work.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 6; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0406s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Steve & Kathy Baker
non-member comment
Great Photos
Hi Jared... Kathy and I have really enjoyed your comments and photos... hope you can keep it going with your busy schedule... let us know if you are going to be traveling in the countryside... maybe we could suggest some places that you might find interesting... Have a GREAT DAY!!!