Les Grands Magasins

Our favorite department store in the world is the Bazar de l'hotel de Ville, known generally as the BHV, on Rivoli, just across from, you guessed it, the Hotel de Ville. Printemps and Galeries Lafayette are fine if you're crazy rich. Actually affordable and useful things are at the BHV, and our favorite department, apart from kitchenware, is the basement hardware store, which is always fascinating. We breezed right through the huge electrical, plumbing, lighting, garden, tools, paints, and other usual departments to hit some of the more interesting curiosities.

For example, shoe and leather care...Paris has hundreds of shoe repair shops,
yet there apparently is something in the Gallic spirit about DIY shoe care; this
is one of four rows of various kinds and colors of shoe polish 

Shoe repair materials

A whole wall of inserts

Shoe horns, ranging in price from 8E to, well, the ones that probably belong at
Galeries Lafayette

A wall of leather

A bit of the brush department

More brushes

Wood landscaping items

Probably won't find these at Ace or Home Depot

A smidgeon of the sign department

Your own Paris street sign for only 199E

You rang, Monsieur?

And the piece de resistance: Parisian mousetraps (piege a
souris); Parisian mice are very fashion-conscious

Meanwhile, up on the 3rd floor, hundreds of different wine bottle openers to choose
from; Chateau Screwtop has never caught on here

And your own apero guillotine, which I do want

Our party, Penelope, Rebecca, Vicki, and me, elected to
walk to our next department store, Le Bon Marche, beyond
St. Germain de Pres...and so among the many interesting
establishments encountered on the left side was this academic
regalia store

And the very popular Maison Georges Larnicol chocolate store;
the life-sized Egyptian chocolate thing marks the appearance of
the Two-Tank-Amen exhibit at the Parc Villette

Eventually we got to the Bon and our goal, its grande epicerie Paris, that is,
its food hall; unfortunately, I was so engrossed marveling at what they had, and
didn't have, I forgot to take any pix

Among the many beautiful buildings along the way, the Lutetia (the Roman
name for Paris, a convenient ford)

Loss And Hope

It was not our favorite church, probably not even in the top dozen, but its centrality in this great city and in the life of the nation are undeniable, and we feel the loss as acutely as any foreigner could. Nearly all of the old cathedrals have had fires or other damage, but nearly all have been restored to even greater glory...St. Paul's Without The Walls in Rome being the best example. So we are heartened that the damage here was no greater than it was and that the determination to restore the cathedral is as great as it is. There is loss, but there is hope, and I guess that's a pretty Christian message.

The towers still dominate the central skyline, as in the past eight centuries

Clearly it will be a long process, recovering what can be recovered, assessing
the damage to the stones and the structure, rebuilding in a manner that is
faithful to the heritage but also safe and sound

 

Rive Gauche/Rive Droite: Random Views

Our plan for the 8th--our 51st wedding anniversary, BTW--was to wander around on the left side for a bit, St. Germain de Pres and thereabouts, and then to cross back and on to Les Halles and the kid's playground there, the Adventure Land in the Parc Nelson Mandela. We like just wandering around, but P needs some activity and the prospect of being with other kids. It was a partial success...the wandering around bit, where you can hardly go wrong...

In St. Germain de Pres church, oldest of Paris' churches

X=0, Y=0, as Cartesian coordinates go

Today's wedding pix pix

In a wonderful old-timey spice shoppe, with a knowledgeable keeper: alas, the
French do not do red pepper flakes (which I need for the Thai cucumber salad)

Florally-topped cafe and ghost-signed building

Wordy cafe: too many words, as Salieri might have said

Another  great Guimard

Very fresh ghost-sign; or not

P outside the great church of St. Severin

Downspouts at St. Severin

P said take a picture of this...love her sense of humor

Now, on the right side: "Paris is the most beautiful in the rain"; Penelope does
NOT agree

Faux windows, seriously

So we circumnavigated Les Halles, looking for an entrance
to the kid's Adventure Land at the Parc Nelson Mandela

The whole grounds had been taken over by the FIFA Fans extravaganza...
the women's World Cup is going on right here in France; so we decided to
have a look instead at St. Eustache...this is SO Paris

But first, a little sculpture

St Eustache is a very young Gothic, 16th century,  but has
 always intrigued me by its great height

Foiled again! The Rubens Emmaus painting I wanted to see
is in restoration! 

Parc Villette

Paris goes by many names, another of which might be "City of Parks." We visited the giant park at La Villette in 2014, and remarked at the time that it would be a great place to take an older Penelope. In addition to the variety of cultural and educational institutions there, the Parc also has several museums, including the Cite des Sciences et Industrie, the largest such in Europe. And within it is a Cite des Enfants, one of the special attractions for P. We spent most of the day there, the 5th, the last half of which was at a couple of the numerous playgrounds.

Thank you, President Mitterrand, France's longest-serving
elected chief of state, first Lefty of the 5th Republic; vive le
Socialism!

Back side of the Cite

The Geode, still the world's largest Imax, I guess

Parc Villette has a number of water features, not least of which is the Canal St. Martin

Paris was one of the popular departure points for the Camino,
and The Way evidently passes right through the Parc

P at the end of the longest and highest slide I've seen

Thus; she says she's been on a much larger one, in New
Zealand; figures

Zip-lining girl