Marais Scenes

 At least within a few blocks of our apartment...

Our street

Side street: premonition of Disney

Our apartment building door under the XV; don't
know whether une Glace a Paris is the most expensive
ice cream shoppe in Paris, but it was 5€ a scoop

Our little building; our apartment was the second
set of windows up; fortunately it was a very quiet
street

Directly across the street...not the budget part of town

Cool Nature store across the street

More nearby streets

No, we did not attend the Frenchy Bitch Party

A few blocks away

On the Rue des Mauvais Garcons; seriously

More a ladies' store, I think

Two blocks away, the Hotel de Ville

Our favorite Parisian department store (Galeries Lafayette
does not have a hardware department where you can buy, 
for example, mouse traps)

Popular sentiment here

Across from the Pompidou, 3 blocks away, 800 years of Paris
architecture in one row; I guess that's not that unusual, really

Interim Update #1,268: In France

The blog is hopelessly behind, I know. Sic semper. We're in Sarlat-la-Canéda, the Dordogne, now, and have been here a week. Before that we were ten days in Paris, all of which were busy because a) it's Paris, and b) we were joined for most of the time by grand-daughter Penelope. She's eleven now, a bundle of energy, old enough to remember Paris and to be impressed. (Not her first visit.) Plus, she's fluent in French, and was happy to serve as our interpreter in exchange for a trip to Disney Paris. We (Vicki) readily agreed. In any case, the next several posts will concern Paris, mostly Penelope in Paris, since I blogged about Paris extensively less than a year ago. 

We did not do anything particularly new during Penelope's visit, except maybe Versailles, which we hadn't done since 2014, and a church or two. We just wanted to show her our favorite city. Our apartment this time was in the Marais, 4th Arrondissement, even closer in than our previous appart on Rue Saint-Denis. We mostly walked to various destinations in the city, occasionally hopping a bus or the Metro/RER for longer journeys. Among things we did were the Carnavalet museum, the Marais neighborhood, BHV and Samaritaine (department stores), St. Merry church, the Bastille market, Les Halles, St. Eustache church, Mollard's (for our 54th wedding anniversary dinner), Disney Paris, the Louvre (twice), Versailles, selected sights on the Rive Gauche, Galeries Lafayette, and, by night, sort of, the Champs de Mars and the Tour Eiffel. Grandma and Grandpa needed several days off after Paris with Penelope.

Farewell, Britons!

After a day of packing and cleaning, we headed to St. Pancras station and the Eurostar to Paris. We'd been reading about delays on the line, and, sure enough, our train was nearly five hours delayed, getting us to the City of Light just as it was getting dark. Fortunately, St. Pancras is not a bad place to be stranded for a few hours.

Britain is probably the only place you'll ever see "catenary" and
"knock-on" used in the same sentence

Fellow detainees

In addition to all the shoppes, there's always people
playing the several pianos

Some very good indeed

And then there's some great sculpture upstairs

Not least, John Betjenan, the poet laureate who
saved St. Pancras and other glorious Victorian structures;
thank you, Howard, for introducing us to him

British Out-Takes, 2022, Part The Second

Pretty much the theme of the week, "Great job, Ma'am"

At a batsman practice shop, serving refreshments as well

Serious memorial in Camden; I whistled the Colonel Bogey March all 
the way back to Fitzrovia, also muttering "Madness!" occasionally along
the way

Still processing...

The BT Tower near our studio, along with the
interesting Bowellist structure I photographed last
year

Near us on New Cavendish St.

With its interesting displays

Most popular pub nearby

Noisy religious procession beneath our window

Street food on Tottenham Court Road

Shop/showroom on Great Portland Street; redoes your ugly exercise
machines in attractive natural wood

Always attentive to literary fashion

"I was here first!"

In Paris I guess they'll call it "Fromage!"

Soft opening

OK chippie, nearby

Proper view of Orwell's Ministry of Truth

The only public mention of Chamberlain I've seen here

Jubilee display at the Bloomsbury Waterstone's

Sir John Soane's Museum

Our last London visit of note was Sir John Soane's Museum, a house museum 20 minutes' walk from our studio. Soane was a noted Georgian/Regency architect, professor of architecture at the Royal Academy, and collector of thousands of sculptures, casts, prints, drawings, paintings and more, all preserved as he left them at his death in 1837. This is so is because he willed it all to the Nation, in order to disown his profligate son. By an act of Parliament no less. Wikipedia has an excellent and detailed account of it all, including the collection, and I'll post just a few pix from the house. The place is jam-packed with collection items, close-quartered, without a lift, also without much in the way of signage, and admits no more than 90 visitors at a time. There are knowledgeable docents in all the rooms, however. No reservations, and almost always a queue. Next time, rather than the general admission, we'll be reserving (early!) and signing up for the special guided tour.

Thanks, Wikipedia

So I asked, early in the visit, whether Marie Kondo had ever toured
the place; "she would be barred at the door" was the docent's answer,
noting that everything in the place evidently sparked Soane's joy

Canaletto

Original from Hogarth's Rake's Progress

The entire series!

Soane and Turner were friends; one of three Turners

Inscriptions filling the inside of a large Egyptian sarcophagus

Pretty incredible, overwhelming place