Initial Paris Wanderings, 2024

We arrived May 23rd and by the evening had unpacked, moved in, bought groceries, etc. No need to explore the apartment nor neighborhood, since we stayed here for 7 weeks last year. Daughter Rebecca and grand-daughter Penelope were not due for a couple more days, so we mostly relaxed, took several walks, and battled the jet lag. Below are some scenes from those walks.

A favorite activity is just taking in all the great variety of architecture;
every block has numerous examples, sometime of historic note

Sometimes it's just the portal

Film production underway near Rue Vavin

More beauties

At the Edgar Quinet market, Montparnasse, interesting
display

Hobbit asparagus

Morelles; and not from Montana

More architecture, this one, we surmised, sort of a transition from
nouveau to deco

Along Boulevard Raspail, a block's brocante stands...always 
interesting

Our (now) vast experience with eBay and such has
led to a protocol: shoot-it, Lens-it, consult eBay for
current listings, pricing...this one not so attractive 

On one of several strolls in Luxembourg Garden, the palais in
the background

So Paris...

All abloom

On another walk, now in the Cite, the barrier between the cathedral
and its forecourt is now a photographic tribute to the many workers,
artisans, others contributing to the repair of the church

A large and very tasteful tribute...carpenters, stonemasons, art historians,
architects, electricians, engineers, custodial, security, management...hundreds

Opening by Christmas, they now say

Official Olympics poster, in the souvenir department of our favorite
department store, BHV (Bazar d' l'Hotel de Ville), in the Marais; 
like most of Paris, seemingly, we're mostly ignoring it all, insofar
as possible; I suppose I'll buy a fridge magnet eventually

A block away from the BHV, our 2022 apartment was on
this street in the Marais

Bowellism's greatest example, the Centre Pompidou;
its scheduled closing for a five-year renovation now
postponed until after the Olympics; I'm still wondering
why something not fifty years old needs renovation...

Back in our neighborhood, Henri Sauvage's 1914 stepped/terraced
apartment building, at 26 Rue Vavin...a first step toward modernism...
the facade in blue-trimmed gleaming white tile; Simone de Beauvoir
lived here in late 1930s, I've read, though I found no historical
marker

Rue de Fleurus intersects with rue Jean Bart, where we live, and,
not a block away is 27 rue de Fleurus, which I've walked past
dozens of times without looking up...but now I genuflect when
passing by...

The site of Gertrude Stein's Saturday evening salons; her guests, friends
and clients being pretty much a who's who of Euro-American art and
literature in the first half of the 20th century

See Kathy Bates' convincing portrayal of her in Midnight
in Paris