Promenade Plantee, 2026

We first began walking the Promenade Plantee--aka the Coulee Verte Rene-Dumont--in 2014, when we lived in the 11th. We've done it a few more times since, most picturesquely in 2019. In April 2026, we were just looking for a walk, hoping for great garden and other views, but clearly we were a couple weeks early for the main bloom. Much of the planting is in roses. Still it's a beautiful walk, from the Bastille to Vincennes, 3 miles, the world's first elevated garden, through much of the old bits of the city, built on an old disused railway. We did New York's lower Manhattan imitation two years ago. Different place, different experience, still well worth doing. We'll do the Promenade Plantee again before we leave Paris in May.

Among the dozens of elite artisans' shops and studios in the Viaduct des
Artes, beneath the Promenade ("why a duck?); they're restoring old art

All in the 12th

So many things in Paris you're just not going to see anywhere else;
these adorn the 12th arrondisement police commissariat

Someone's art deco garden

Classic view

Early bloomers

Creche kids on a field trip...always a joy to behold

Martin Schongauer at the Louvre

We finally got back to the Louvre on April 15th, but not much further than the special exhibition of works by the late 15th century engraver and painter Martin Schongauer. Few of Schongauer's paintings have survived, but there are plenty of prints from the more than 100 engravings he did in his short life. He is widely regarded as the first to really make a go of artistic engraving and printing (Gutenberg was just a couple decades earlier) and was idolized by Durer, a generation younger, who, apart from being the master engraver/printer, was a major collector of Schongauer prints. We have been encountering Schongauer here and there since our 2011 visit to Colmar, and possibly earlier. We were there last in 2023.

But first, in the Tuileries...

Marveling at the lengths the French will go to to conceal unsightly
renovation, redesign...

Click to enlarge and read

All the biographical stuff was music to my ears, since
I'd just finished my Life and Art of René Ssance, who
would have been a younger contemporary of Schongauer

Crucifixion with Four Angels...the size and detail are
incredible; Schongauer's education as a goldsmith is
evident in all the engravings; the print itself is maybe
5x7 inches...

Holy Family, 1470s; oil on lime wood panel

Adoration of the Shepherds, oil on oak panel

Madonna and Child at the Window, 1475; all the
paintings are oil...we're two generations after van Eyck

Madonna of the Carnation, pen and ink, 1470

Two panels, four massacres/martyrdoms...St. Bartholomew,
the Innocents, St. Acacius and the Ten Thousand, and [not
to be outdone...] St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins

St. Anthony (not being tempted) and Nativity; note
Baby J head piercing

Non Tocare (you can look but you can't touch) and a Doubting Thomas;
late 1470s; according to the Louvre, only the Doubting Thomas Jesus is
by Schongauer, the other by his workshop

Madonna of the Rose Bower, 1473, Schongauer's most famous work, much cut
down in the 19th century

As we saw it in Colmar in 2023

Adoration of the Magi, 1475

"Take that, Saracen Pig!" very late 1400s. possibly not by Schongauer

Two St. Michael and the Dragon scenes...barely larger
than postage stamps, but incredibly detailed...the goldsmithing
skill and perfect eyesight are so impressive

Torment of St. Catherine; painted about 1500, possibly
in Krakow, from a Schongauer print

Illuminated books of the era

Schongauer's Road to Calvary, 1470-75, said to be the largest engraving/print of the 15th century; in
an adjacent small theater the Louvre showed a video looking at this print in detail, explaining the setting, technique, symbolism, etc.; and in English, too; we used to skip displays like this; now we never miss one

OK, so now we have moved on to the Hall of the Caryatids, Greek
and Hellenistic sculpture, appreciating this scene of Patsy, from
Monty Python and the Holy Grail...

And later...it's gone! Off to a "metamorphoses" exhibit at the Rijksmuseum...
the famous Louvre Hermaphrodite...

As seen at the Louvre/Lens some years ago

Always fun to watch people approaching from astern and then...
"Oh my! Oh dear!"

Ever More Seemingly Random...

Tuesday morning Vicki had her pastry class at La Cuisine Paris, on Rivoli near the Pont Louis-Philippe, and, to pass the time, I did the flaneur thing, more genuinely, walking in the 3rd and 4th, both fairly familiar from previous Paris visits. Wednesday morning, we did a longer walk in the Luxembourg Garden while the apartment was being cleaned (it's a "serviced" appartement, serviced weekly). More of the flaneur/flaneuse thing. Sort of.

The school; next week she does tartes

Star baker; the class focused initially on croissants, but
quickly got into several types of pastries, and even
included that most decadent/delectable kouign aman;
imagine having real kouign aman in Orlando in July

Celebrating the 475th anniversary of the Bouquinistes...

Passing by a bead store favored by Penelope,
on Rue de Temple

Holy kilt, Batman!

Marais art

One of the good things about Bowelist architecture is that when it
finally gets renovated you hardly notice the scaffolding...(the
Pompidou museum)

Also undergoing serious renovation...one of our favorite department 
stores in Paris...where department stores are still a thing

Hotel Rivoli, where we and the girls stayed in 1989; we
wonder whether they've put in an elevator since then...
it was 88 steps up to our room...

Attempted artsy-fartsy shot...then I noticed I was standing
at the entrance to the Maison Europeene de la Photographie

Hauling a load of gravel down river...probably headed for the paths
of the Tuileries or Bois de Boulogne

Rare port-side view of the Hotel de Ville

Lunch at Le Louis Philippe; my salad Nicoise not pictured...

Click to enlarge and be amazed...Le Bel Canto...
a dinner theater where (apparently) the serveurs and
serveuses sing operatic stuff at your table..."can you
do the Ride of the Valkyries?" "Maybe the Love-Death?"

Unicycle bass

Interesting pose...Marguerite d'Angouleme, Queen of
Navarre, 1492-1549, in the sculpture-studded Luxembourg,
most of whose sculptures are women...

But we were there mostly for the flowers

Medici Fountain

Monument to students in the Resistance

All-weather bullet-proof guard station outside the Senat

As far as the eye can see...French order imposed on Nature...

Delacroix monument now somewhat obscured in 
the renovation area

Among several walking groups that morning

Peering into the palace's orangerie, where they're now moving the
more tender trees back outside