The Road Goes Ever On

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Le marche d'Aligre

Thursdsay, while Vicki and Beth did the Louvre, Bob and I walked over to the marche d'Aligre, said by some to be Paris' favorite market. I was not so impressed. Bob was game to keep going, so we then walked on to the Bastille Market, did it twice (stimulating the local economy), then, after resting in a cafe, walked on to the Quai de la Rapee, then the Pont d'Austerlitz, and then back via Avenue Ledru Rollin to Rue de Charonne and our apartment. 13,000 steps, much of it new to me and fun for all.

In this amazing sequence, a delivery is made to the boucher,
that is, the personne qui abat certains animaux pour leur
viande

Thus

And thus

Flowers at marche d'Aligre

Ditto

At marche d'Aligre

Biggest artichokes ever, so far

Porte de Arsenal, a marina where the St. Martin canal comes into the Seine

Ile St. Louis and Notre Dame de Paris, just a few hundred meters down
the river

Shopping avec Bob et Beth

Tuesday we visited the Opera district, again, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette and more, for Bob and Beth to see.

A plus size store on Blvd. Haussman

I really like this place; aesthetically

Bob and Beth on the roof of Galeries Lafayette

Fashion

Don't laugh

Nice chandelier at GL

Child's tea set; OK, it's sort of an up-scale place

Down the road a bit, at Printemps, the Laduree shoppe; finest macaroons in Paris,
we were told; must be an acquired taste...

Way down the road, and across the river, at the shrine of St. Catherine
Laboure; perhaps we were doing penance for spending so much time
at Galaries Lafayette

Monday, June 2, 2014

L'église de Saint Sulpice, du Jardin du Luxembourg et le musée de Cluny (continuer)

The Archbishop of Paris made for an unusually long
mass (so we were told)

So anyhow, after a nice lunch at The Clown, a Bretonne creperie nearby, we
walked to the Cluny Museum, where we spent the rest of the day; above, a
stained glass of the resurrection from the Saint Chapelle, literally a leftover
part from a recent renovation and cleaning; previous blog post on the Cluny,
from 2009, is at http://roadeveron.blogspot.fr/2009/08/cluny.html

Heads of the kings of Judah, from Notre-Dame de Paris, lopped off in the
Revolution, found buried in someone's yard only in the 1970s; some tour
guides says the Revolutionaries thought these were statues of the kings of
France, and thus defaced them; I doubt that, since they despised the Church
every bit as much as the monarchy

A smiling angel, like at Reims

One of the world's great tapestries

The Kiss; also some reconstructive ear surgery

Note how the robe folds are both sculptured and painted

I'll drink to that: a tapestry on the making of wine

Related theme on the misericord

Nice place, the Cluny; not pictured are the Roman stuff atop which the abbey
was later built

L'église de Saint Sulpice, du Jardin du Luxembourg et le musée de Cluny

Our Sunday needed an opportunity to attend mass, for our new guests, Bob and Beth, so Vicki put together an itinerary that included the church of St. Sulpice, and its great organ, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Cluny Museum, and assorted other Left Bank sights. (More on St. Sulpice, from 2012, is at http://roadeveron.blogspot.fr/2012_06_01_archive.html.)

The great organ at St. Sulpice; Widor's organ, during his 63 year tenure at
St. Sulpice, the greatest of symphonic organs

Touristed to death...no more visits to the organ loft during concerts and
"auditions"; but then I agree with Wagner, that watching musicians play
really detracts from the music; thus the entire orchestra at Bayreuth is
submerged beneath the stage...but I digress

So while Bob and Beth attended the mass, Vicki and I walked around a bit in
the area...passing first a wall reciting Arthur Rimbaud's Le bateau ivre