13-Nov-2024
Two days... And so much Paris...
Yesterday, we did a variation on this literary walk, which features several sites related to the reading I found so interesting earlier in the year.
But first we had to get there:
The Canal St Martin again. We did a circuit of canals in 2019
Place de la Republique
This garden occupies the site where the Knights Templar were headquartered until their dissolution in 1312, at which point their estate was handed on to the Hospitallers (as we've seen before). It's curious how we keep coming across these knights
The garden also pays tribute to Elie Wiesel
You then spend quite a while walking down rue du Temple
One of the doors of the Jewish museum on this same street
The spirit of the Olympics lingers on
We've crossed the river by now. This is the church of Saint Severin
Le jardin du Luxembourg
Finally, turning your back on the Luxembourg, you're in among all the literary plaques and recollections that you came for:
27 Rue de Fleurus. The plaque says: "Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), American author. Lived here with her brother Leo Stein and then with Alice B. Toklas. She hosted many artists and writers here from 1903 to 1938"
58 Rue de Vaugirard, Paris, France. One of the homes of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
The site of the original Shakespeare & Company. The plaque to the right reads: "In 1922 in this house Miss Sylvia Beach published Ulysses by James Joyce"
The site of the current manifestation of Shakespeare & Company was besieged when we got there
We took the metro home, having covered 12 km on foot already. After that vast distance, we felt well justified in popping into a bakery (one of the ones that provide tables and also serve coffee) for a sandwich and an espresso.
Today, we stayed nearer home, but still racked up more than 10 km, winding in and out looking at interesting things. The focus this time was art, but a few other cultural elements crept in (and, in terms of street art in the 20th arrondissement, we hardly scratched the surface):
There are many time-honoured rat motifs in street art. I'm not totally sure which one this is
Rue de Menilmontant
Notre Dame de la Croix de Menilmontant. The third-longest church in Paris (after Notre-Dame de Paris and Saint Sulpice)
Jerome Mesnager was one of the pioneers of street art in the early 1980s
Idir, singer, composer, and exponent of Kabyle culture
Le Carre de Baudouin. We were a bit early for the exhibition, but this is a lovely cultural space
Remembering Tunisian painter, sculptor, and musician Jaber Al Mahjoub (1938-2021)
Art on walls, art in life
Trees in the City, 2017 (the one at the top of the post is called Blue Planet for our Children, 2024)
The Man and the Bird, 2018
The school and the theatre, 2017
Next, we went back to Pere Lachaise cemetery, which we'd loved looking at in 2019.
On the way, a couple of moving memorials:
Paul Moreau-Vathier's haunting Victims of the Revolutions
A memorial for Parisians killed in the First World War
So many names. It's sobering that you've walked and walked, and then realize you're still only on the names for 1916... World leaders, come and observe. Learn, and do not repeat
The cemetery itself is such a rich place, full of memories, and reminders, and beautiful things. It's doubly poignant in autumn, with its backdrop of fallen leaves and blood-red berries:
Here is Proust's modest little grave
One of the little plaques in the Columbarium. Low down, behind a set of stairs, and hard to photograph
The grave of Gertrude Stein
Lovingly decorated with stones and little objects
Alice B. Toklas is buried here too, her name inscribed on the back of the gravestone
There are many sad monuments to the victims of the Nazi era. I hope there'll be monuments to the victims of the Israeli government one day too
Time to head home now. We return via Saint-Germain de Charonne. It used to be the centrepoint of the village of Charonne, incorporated into the city in 1860:
Another amazing walk. Again made us feel we'd deserved our bakery goodies (take-home this time), and again made me regret we're leaving Paris so soon...