My video of Mouffetard Street is finally finished and online. I shot it in September, but it took a long time to get around to editing it.
The French word for “street” is rue, which is why you see this word so often on street signs in Paris. In place names, words like street or avenue are usually not capitalized in French, and the name of the place follows the noun designating the type of place … so rue Mouffetard simply means “Mouffetard Street.”
Mouffetard Street is one of the better known streets in Paris. It is famous as a street with a lot of food shops on it, although it really doesn't have that many food shops. It's extremely old, too: it has followed roughly the same path since the days when the ancient Romans ran the city, and there are signs that it had already been an actively inhabited area for thousands of years before the Romans arrived twenty centuries ago. Today it's a moderately straight street that physical extends approximately south from the place Maubert to the avenue des Gobelins in the Latin Quarter, although it doesn't actually take on the name of Mouffetard Street until you reach its lower (southern) end.
The street starts low at its north end, near the Seine River, and then rises significantly as it passes over the summit of the Montagne Sainte Geneviève, a hill named after the patron saint of Paris. From that point it descends again towards the avenue des Gobelins, ending at a spot where a small stream, the Bièvre, used to flow (and it flows still today—but it is completely buried below street level). At the summit of the hill, it passes discreetly to the east of the huge Panthéon, the twenty-five-story church of Saint Geneviève that dominates the Latin Quarter skyline.
Most of Mouffetard Street is “standard charming,” meaning that it is a typical street of Paris, which in turn means that it is charming, as soon many typical streets of Paris tend to be. For various reasons, it is more famous than most streets, but I wouldn't say that it is really much different from thousands of other interesting streets in Paris. However … since it is so well known, I've made a video about it.
From tourist guides, you'd think that Mouffetard Street is just jam-packed with food shops, but that's not really true. Most of the street (under its various names) is lined by shops and restaurants, and a significant landmark near its midpoint is old École Polytechnique campus. (The school moved to the suburbs years ago, but the campus is still there and serves as a government ministry now.) As it moves south and actually becomes Mouffetard Street by name, it passes the place de la Contrescarpe, a roundabout that Hemingway wrote about in A Moveable Feast. From there, there are more and more shops and restaurants, and eventually the street is blocked to vehicular traffic, allowing only pedestrians. As you finally descend towards the southern extremity of the street, the food shops and some open markets appear. Overall, it's about 2/3 of a mile long.
In my video I start at the place Maubert (where there is a very nice open food market on certain days of the week, although not on the day that I shot), and I walk all the way down to the lower end of Mouffetard Street. I make a quick detour to show Hemingway's former apartment, which is right off the place de la Contrescarpe.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Luxembourg Gardens
This summer I filmed the Luxembourg Gardens with the intent of making a video about them, and I finally finished editing it. I just uploaded it to YouTube a few days ago.
The Luxembourg Gardens are some of the largest and prettiest green spaces in Paris. Oddly enough, they don't actually belong to the city, unlike the vast majority of other parks within its limits. The Luxembourg Gardens belong to the French Senate, which meets in a building at the north end of the gardens, the aptly-named Luxembourg Palace. Because the gardens belong to the national government rather than the city of Paris, they are guarded by gendarmes (who are part of the army), rather than police officers.
I consider the Luxembourg Gardens to be one of the best places to relax in the city. They are large enough that the non-stop traffic noise of Paris doesn't penetrate into the center of the gardens, so you can sit and relax in near silence while you read or vegetate. Often all you hear is the wind in the trees and the occasional cries of children playing nearby. The gardens are filled with chairs, which nobody steals (American visitors always ask me about that), and you can sit all day without being disturbed by anyone. Assuming you have that kind of free time on your hands, the Jardin du Luxembourg, as it's called in French, is a wonderful place in which to escape the stress of noisy streets and crowds.
The central gardens just south of the palace are beautifully manicured, in a style originally commissioned by Maria de Medici to resemble the style of her hometown of Florence, Italy. The rest of the gardens has alternating areas of tall trees and perfectly maintained lawns. Flowers decorate many parts of the gardens, and when the flowers wilt, they are removed and new flowers are planted, so that the gardens are always pretty (this practice is followed in other Parisian parks, too).
There's more to the gardens than just trees, flowers, and grass, however. There's a big playground for kids. There's a puppet theater for kids, too. There are playing fields for pétanque, a favorite game of the French, and there are tennis courts. There are basketball courts as well, and there's even an area with tables containing inlaid chessboards, if you prefer something a bit less strenuous. The long paths that run through and around the gardens are popular with joggers and strollers.
There's also a group of beehives in the park, and a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty. And there's a gazebo that seems to attract a lot of high-school bands from the United States. On the day I was there, in fact, the Stevens High School band, from Rapid City, South Dakota was giving a concert. Talk about something completely different … it must have been quite an adventure for them. Unfortunately, I had to mute their performance in the version of my video that I uploaded to YouTube, because YouTube these days is afflicted with copyright trolls that will fraudulently claim copyright infringement on just about any music they find in an effort to dishonestly make money from advertising. They were playing things like a medley of Henry Mancini music. They were—well, about as good as you'd expect from a high-school band. I found myself wondering if they paid their performance licenses for the concert.
I didn't really manage to do justice to the gardens in my video. I'll probably have to redo a new version in the future.
The Luxembourg Gardens are some of the largest and prettiest green spaces in Paris. Oddly enough, they don't actually belong to the city, unlike the vast majority of other parks within its limits. The Luxembourg Gardens belong to the French Senate, which meets in a building at the north end of the gardens, the aptly-named Luxembourg Palace. Because the gardens belong to the national government rather than the city of Paris, they are guarded by gendarmes (who are part of the army), rather than police officers.
I consider the Luxembourg Gardens to be one of the best places to relax in the city. They are large enough that the non-stop traffic noise of Paris doesn't penetrate into the center of the gardens, so you can sit and relax in near silence while you read or vegetate. Often all you hear is the wind in the trees and the occasional cries of children playing nearby. The gardens are filled with chairs, which nobody steals (American visitors always ask me about that), and you can sit all day without being disturbed by anyone. Assuming you have that kind of free time on your hands, the Jardin du Luxembourg, as it's called in French, is a wonderful place in which to escape the stress of noisy streets and crowds.
The central gardens just south of the palace are beautifully manicured, in a style originally commissioned by Maria de Medici to resemble the style of her hometown of Florence, Italy. The rest of the gardens has alternating areas of tall trees and perfectly maintained lawns. Flowers decorate many parts of the gardens, and when the flowers wilt, they are removed and new flowers are planted, so that the gardens are always pretty (this practice is followed in other Parisian parks, too).
There's more to the gardens than just trees, flowers, and grass, however. There's a big playground for kids. There's a puppet theater for kids, too. There are playing fields for pétanque, a favorite game of the French, and there are tennis courts. There are basketball courts as well, and there's even an area with tables containing inlaid chessboards, if you prefer something a bit less strenuous. The long paths that run through and around the gardens are popular with joggers and strollers.
There's also a group of beehives in the park, and a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty. And there's a gazebo that seems to attract a lot of high-school bands from the United States. On the day I was there, in fact, the Stevens High School band, from Rapid City, South Dakota was giving a concert. Talk about something completely different … it must have been quite an adventure for them. Unfortunately, I had to mute their performance in the version of my video that I uploaded to YouTube, because YouTube these days is afflicted with copyright trolls that will fraudulently claim copyright infringement on just about any music they find in an effort to dishonestly make money from advertising. They were playing things like a medley of Henry Mancini music. They were—well, about as good as you'd expect from a high-school band. I found myself wondering if they paid their performance licenses for the concert.
I didn't really manage to do justice to the gardens in my video. I'll probably have to redo a new version in the future.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Cour du Commerce Saint André
There's a tiny little passage between the boulevard Saint Germain and the rue Saint André des Arts in the Latin Quarter that is almost a thousand years old, called the Cour du Commerce Saint André. For centuries, it has been a small commerce street, and it still exists today, very much as it did back when Philippe Auguste was running France in the 13th century.
Although this small pedestrian passage is in a very busy part of the Latin Quarter, it's easy to walk past it without ever realizing that it's there. It is paved with very rough cobblestones and features a number of restaurants and an eclectic assortment of shops. One of the restaurants is a bistro from the turn of the century (the turn of the previous century, not this one), and another is the oldest café in Paris, the Procope, where people like Benjamin Franklin, Robespierre, and other Big Names from history came to chat and eat. It was also in a courtyard just off this passage that the guillotine was first tested (on sheep). And the passage originally ran just outside the city wall of Philippe Auguste, and some vestiges of that city wall are still in place and visible.
At the north end of the passage, which is covered, there's a bonsai shop, a stationery store, a bar, two restaurants, and a podiatrist's office.
Overall, the Cour du Commerce has a great deal of charm for its small size, and that's why I decided to make a video about it. The great thing about Paris is that cool and interesting spots like this are the rule, rather than the exception.
Although this small pedestrian passage is in a very busy part of the Latin Quarter, it's easy to walk past it without ever realizing that it's there. It is paved with very rough cobblestones and features a number of restaurants and an eclectic assortment of shops. One of the restaurants is a bistro from the turn of the century (the turn of the previous century, not this one), and another is the oldest café in Paris, the Procope, where people like Benjamin Franklin, Robespierre, and other Big Names from history came to chat and eat. It was also in a courtyard just off this passage that the guillotine was first tested (on sheep). And the passage originally ran just outside the city wall of Philippe Auguste, and some vestiges of that city wall are still in place and visible.
At the north end of the passage, which is covered, there's a bonsai shop, a stationery store, a bar, two restaurants, and a podiatrist's office.
Overall, the Cour du Commerce has a great deal of charm for its small size, and that's why I decided to make a video about it. The great thing about Paris is that cool and interesting spots like this are the rule, rather than the exception.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
More videos, like it or not!
A walk through the Latin Quarter inspired me to make another short video about the ancient Roman amphitheater in the neighborhood, and a visit to the Paris Plages event this summer inspired me to make a video about that.
The Roman amphitheater is called the Arènes de Lutèce by Parisians, and is about 2000 years old. It was completely covered over and forgotten more than a millennium ago, then was rediscovered in the 19th century. Part of it had been destroyed by then, but most of it was still intact, and it has now been fully excavated and partially restored. It is surprisingly well built.
For some reason, it feels a bit eerie to visit this amphitheater and see people playing soccer in it, perhaps because there were probably people doing exactly the same thing there twenty centuries ago. Once again, it makes me think of the stability of Paris, and how the more Paris changes, the more it's the same. The neighborhood around the amphitheater is lively and popular these days, and so it was two thousand years ago. As I walked around the amphitheater, which was in shadow as the sun prepared to set, I reminded myself that the light, the weather, and the people were essentially the same way back when, with one of the few differences being that the people playing in the amphitheater would have been yelling at each other in Latin in the old days, instead of the distorted descendant of Latin that they use today (i.e., French).
The east side of the main arena in this amphitheater contains structures that supposedly supported a stage in the days of the Romans. And there are cages around the periphery of the playing area that supposedly held wild animals for certain spectacles. Nobody's quite sure, but that's what the specialists say. It's not hard to believe, especially when you are standing in front of these things and looking at them.
Anyway … this summer I briefly visited Paris Plages, the subject of my other video. This event was created by the city government to entertain Parisians who couldn't or wouldn't leave the city on vacation in summer. Originally it consisted of closing the Georges Pompidou expressway that runs along the north bank of the Seine River, and then dumping tons of sand on the expressway, along with beach chairs and umbrellas, so that Parisians could enjoy a sort of beach of their own on the banks of the river. It was very successful from the beginning, and has become a tradition in Paris. Today the event extends beyond the banks of the Seine, but I only visited and filmed the part along the river, which is still the major part of the event.
Paris Plages isn't intended for tourists, although they are welcome to attend if they want. Most tourists don't know about it. Tour companies and guide books don't talk about the event because it's temporary and more oriented to the locals, so sometimes tourists just stare at it, wondering what all the activity down by the river is all about. The recorded patter on the excursion boats on the Seine doesn't mention Paris Plages, either, so tourists often look bewildered as they pass the artificial beaches on their boat cruises.
These days, it's not just sand and umbrellas. There are snack bars (dramatically overpriced), some activities for kids such as playgrounds, a real swimming pool, some concerts and live music, a few sit-down restaurants, and lots and lots of beach chairs and hammocks. There are misting devices at some points to cool people off when it gets hot (although July of 2011 was unseasonably cool). Back in 2003, when a recording-breaking heat wave drove temperatures on the street up to 110° F during the day, people actually slept on the ground during the night at Paris Plages, in order to escape the stifling heat of their apartments (which generally are not air-conditioned in Paris).
I only visited Paris Plages a few times this year. I actually preferred the cooler weather, though. When it's really hot, I stay at home with the A/C running, rather than go outside and suffer heat exhaustion. But July this year was unusually cool, and August was warmer than normal, but not like 2003.
Paris Plages runs every summer from roughly July 20 to August 20.
The Roman amphitheater is called the Arènes de Lutèce by Parisians, and is about 2000 years old. It was completely covered over and forgotten more than a millennium ago, then was rediscovered in the 19th century. Part of it had been destroyed by then, but most of it was still intact, and it has now been fully excavated and partially restored. It is surprisingly well built.
For some reason, it feels a bit eerie to visit this amphitheater and see people playing soccer in it, perhaps because there were probably people doing exactly the same thing there twenty centuries ago. Once again, it makes me think of the stability of Paris, and how the more Paris changes, the more it's the same. The neighborhood around the amphitheater is lively and popular these days, and so it was two thousand years ago. As I walked around the amphitheater, which was in shadow as the sun prepared to set, I reminded myself that the light, the weather, and the people were essentially the same way back when, with one of the few differences being that the people playing in the amphitheater would have been yelling at each other in Latin in the old days, instead of the distorted descendant of Latin that they use today (i.e., French).
The east side of the main arena in this amphitheater contains structures that supposedly supported a stage in the days of the Romans. And there are cages around the periphery of the playing area that supposedly held wild animals for certain spectacles. Nobody's quite sure, but that's what the specialists say. It's not hard to believe, especially when you are standing in front of these things and looking at them.
Anyway … this summer I briefly visited Paris Plages, the subject of my other video. This event was created by the city government to entertain Parisians who couldn't or wouldn't leave the city on vacation in summer. Originally it consisted of closing the Georges Pompidou expressway that runs along the north bank of the Seine River, and then dumping tons of sand on the expressway, along with beach chairs and umbrellas, so that Parisians could enjoy a sort of beach of their own on the banks of the river. It was very successful from the beginning, and has become a tradition in Paris. Today the event extends beyond the banks of the Seine, but I only visited and filmed the part along the river, which is still the major part of the event.
Paris Plages isn't intended for tourists, although they are welcome to attend if they want. Most tourists don't know about it. Tour companies and guide books don't talk about the event because it's temporary and more oriented to the locals, so sometimes tourists just stare at it, wondering what all the activity down by the river is all about. The recorded patter on the excursion boats on the Seine doesn't mention Paris Plages, either, so tourists often look bewildered as they pass the artificial beaches on their boat cruises.
These days, it's not just sand and umbrellas. There are snack bars (dramatically overpriced), some activities for kids such as playgrounds, a real swimming pool, some concerts and live music, a few sit-down restaurants, and lots and lots of beach chairs and hammocks. There are misting devices at some points to cool people off when it gets hot (although July of 2011 was unseasonably cool). Back in 2003, when a recording-breaking heat wave drove temperatures on the street up to 110° F during the day, people actually slept on the ground during the night at Paris Plages, in order to escape the stifling heat of their apartments (which generally are not air-conditioned in Paris).
I only visited Paris Plages a few times this year. I actually preferred the cooler weather, though. When it's really hot, I stay at home with the A/C running, rather than go outside and suffer heat exhaustion. But July this year was unusually cool, and August was warmer than normal, but not like 2003.
Paris Plages runs every summer from roughly July 20 to August 20.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
A Moveable Feast redux
I'm not a fan of Ernest Hemingway, but I do have a well-worn copy of A Moveable Feast, his semi-fictional account of his time in Paris in the 1920s. I bought the book long ago because it's about Paris, not because it was written by Hemingway. It's the only work of his that I've ever read, and it will probably remain so, because I don't much care for his writing style, and if anything the book has discouraged me from reading anything else he has written.
Hemingway was depressed when he wrote the book, forty years after the period that he describes therein, and his depression casts a dark shadow on the entire text, like a huge storm cloud. There are some snippets of humor in the book, but for the most part it's just terribly morose, and this despite the fact that it's about my favorite city—and despite the fact that presumably the period Hemingway describes in the book was happy for him at the time he lived it. Still, it talks about Paris enough to be interesting, in moderate doses.
Of course, the city has changed since he lived here, greatly in certain ways but hardly at all in others. I don't think goats and their owners still ply the streets advertising fresh goat milk, for example … although I do hear the unmistakable braying of a goat in the street outside about once a week, and one of these days I'm going to peek out the window when I hear it to see if there really is someone still selling raw goat milk in the streets of Paris. Hemingway also talks about septic tanks being emptied by honey wagons in the 1920s, whereas I think that just about everyone is now linked to the extensive municipal sewer system that the city has had since long before Hemingway lived here. But there again, I do see trucks that look exactly like those described by him parked in front of certain buildings from time to time, so I do still wonder. It's true what they say about Paris: the more it changes, the more it remains the same.
Once of these days, I have a project to visit each and every spot mentioned by Hemingway in the book and document them all in some way, just for fun. Some of them have hardly changed at all; others have changed greatly. In an old picture of Hemingway with his son, I immediately recognized the street corner on which they were sitting, even though the photo was presumably taken nearly a hundred years ago.
A problem with A Moveable Feast is that the author likes to describe everything he eats and drinks in detail, which makes me a bit queasy. He never seems to drink anything that does not contain a great deal of alcohol, which further alienates me, as I don't do drugs. He seems to enjoy physical sensations, because he talks about eating, drinking, the environmental conditions around him as he walks about the city, and sex with his wife a lot. These discussions don't do much for me and make his book less interesting.
He also describes his poverty at the time he lived in Paris. In reality he wasn't poor at all, but apparently he thought it more interesting to exaggerate in the book. Unfortunately, I really am poor, and being reminded of the unpleasantness of poverty does not enhance my enjoyment of the book.
Still, I like the book, because it's about Paris and describes Paris in considerable detail. I don't have too many books like that, outside the category of guide books, so it's entertaining to go back to the book and read a few pages from time to time.
Hemingway was depressed when he wrote the book, forty years after the period that he describes therein, and his depression casts a dark shadow on the entire text, like a huge storm cloud. There are some snippets of humor in the book, but for the most part it's just terribly morose, and this despite the fact that it's about my favorite city—and despite the fact that presumably the period Hemingway describes in the book was happy for him at the time he lived it. Still, it talks about Paris enough to be interesting, in moderate doses.
Of course, the city has changed since he lived here, greatly in certain ways but hardly at all in others. I don't think goats and their owners still ply the streets advertising fresh goat milk, for example … although I do hear the unmistakable braying of a goat in the street outside about once a week, and one of these days I'm going to peek out the window when I hear it to see if there really is someone still selling raw goat milk in the streets of Paris. Hemingway also talks about septic tanks being emptied by honey wagons in the 1920s, whereas I think that just about everyone is now linked to the extensive municipal sewer system that the city has had since long before Hemingway lived here. But there again, I do see trucks that look exactly like those described by him parked in front of certain buildings from time to time, so I do still wonder. It's true what they say about Paris: the more it changes, the more it remains the same.
Once of these days, I have a project to visit each and every spot mentioned by Hemingway in the book and document them all in some way, just for fun. Some of them have hardly changed at all; others have changed greatly. In an old picture of Hemingway with his son, I immediately recognized the street corner on which they were sitting, even though the photo was presumably taken nearly a hundred years ago.
A problem with A Moveable Feast is that the author likes to describe everything he eats and drinks in detail, which makes me a bit queasy. He never seems to drink anything that does not contain a great deal of alcohol, which further alienates me, as I don't do drugs. He seems to enjoy physical sensations, because he talks about eating, drinking, the environmental conditions around him as he walks about the city, and sex with his wife a lot. These discussions don't do much for me and make his book less interesting.
He also describes his poverty at the time he lived in Paris. In reality he wasn't poor at all, but apparently he thought it more interesting to exaggerate in the book. Unfortunately, I really am poor, and being reminded of the unpleasantness of poverty does not enhance my enjoyment of the book.
Still, I like the book, because it's about Paris and describes Paris in considerable detail. I don't have too many books like that, outside the category of guide books, so it's entertaining to go back to the book and read a few pages from time to time.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Some further strolls through Paris
The weather has been unseasonably warm but not too extreme, thank goodness, with many nice days, and too little rain to break the drought. I've produced two new videos, one a rather long video of the rue du Bac, and the other a short one of the infamous rue Cler.
For the former video, I walked continuously from one end of the rue du Bac to the other. This is a small and very charming street in the chichi Seventh District of Paris, running roughly north-south. It is lined by many cool shops and restaurants, and it caters entirely to locals. There are very few tourists on the street, which is nice. I follow the street from where it begins on the rue de Sèvres, next to the Bon Marché department store, up to its northern end on the Seine River. It is intended as one of my “you-are-there” videos, and I think that objective has been achieved.
The other video is a very short video showing Rick Steves’ sacred rue Cler, also in the Seventh. I show it before dawn, though, which is a slight departure from the norm. It's very quiet at that time of day, with no locals and no tourists clutching their little green guide books. I have no special affection for the rue Cler, but I know that many Americans worship it because Rick Steves has told them to.
I like to prepare videos that simply show a walk along a street, with no voice narration or music, because it's about as close as one can get to actually being in Paris. Originally I thought about adding music, which requires expensive licensing, but feedback from viewers of my videos has made it clear that they are more appreciated without music and with only ambient noise. In Paris, ambient noise generally means traffic noise, but these latest two videos are mercifully light on the traffic noise, becaue the rue du Bac simply doesn't have much through traffic, and the rue Cler is nearly silent (like most of Paris off the major avenues) before sunrise.
For the former video, I walked continuously from one end of the rue du Bac to the other. This is a small and very charming street in the chichi Seventh District of Paris, running roughly north-south. It is lined by many cool shops and restaurants, and it caters entirely to locals. There are very few tourists on the street, which is nice. I follow the street from where it begins on the rue de Sèvres, next to the Bon Marché department store, up to its northern end on the Seine River. It is intended as one of my “you-are-there” videos, and I think that objective has been achieved.
The other video is a very short video showing Rick Steves’ sacred rue Cler, also in the Seventh. I show it before dawn, though, which is a slight departure from the norm. It's very quiet at that time of day, with no locals and no tourists clutching their little green guide books. I have no special affection for the rue Cler, but I know that many Americans worship it because Rick Steves has told them to.
I like to prepare videos that simply show a walk along a street, with no voice narration or music, because it's about as close as one can get to actually being in Paris. Originally I thought about adding music, which requires expensive licensing, but feedback from viewers of my videos has made it clear that they are more appreciated without music and with only ambient noise. In Paris, ambient noise generally means traffic noise, but these latest two videos are mercifully light on the traffic noise, becaue the rue du Bac simply doesn't have much through traffic, and the rue Cler is nearly silent (like most of Paris off the major avenues) before sunrise.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Twenty Minutes at the Louvre
I've finished my masterpiece on the Louvre, Twenty Minutes at the Louvre, which I've uploaded to YouTube. It's a look at the logistics of getting into the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, along the standard tourist track. I was a bit more imaginative than usual in preparation of the titles. Watching the crowds trudge through the museum in the video is rather tiring, but rest assured that it's even more tiring in real life (especially when it's 90° F inside the museum).
Earlier this month, I splurged on a ticket to the Louvre. I don't normally visit the Louvre on my own, since there really isn't anything there that I'm interested in seeing, but on this occasion I wanted to make a short video about the museum. I particularly wanted to show the “Greatest Hits” of the Louvre, meaning the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. The ticket is only ten euro, which is a pretty good deal in exchange for the opportunity to see a quarter-million works of art, but my budget is so limited that even this expenditure counts as a great extravagance.
As with all major tourist attractions, tourists visiting the Louvre follow a well-worn, well-defined pattern that does not vary over time. Most tourists enter the Louvre through the main entrance under I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid in the central courtyard (the “Napoléon courtyard”) of the museum. They do not know that there are several entrances to the Louvre, all of which are far less crowded than the main entrance. They wait up to two hours or so in line just to get past security at the front door of the pyramid, then they wait in line again inside the pyramid to buy tickets. Of course I shot some views of the long lines for my video.
The tourists do not know that there's another street level entrance 200 feet away that allows them to get tickets, enter the museum, and see the Mona Lisa in about five minutes flat, with no waiting. And another entrance, in the shopping center beneath the courtyard, is nearly as fast, with handy ticket machines and a very short security line. I show this in my video, too.
Tourists going through the main entrance or the shopping center entrance end up under the pyramid, which is below street level. From there, they have to climb multiple flights of stairs to get up to the second floor, where the Mona Lisa is. There are lots of signs and to some extent they can just allow themselves to be carried along by the current of humanity flowing towards the famous painting. In high season, the temperatures in the museum are in the 80s or above (Fahrenheit), with no humidity, no air conditioning, and no air movement. I've seen people close to passing out in the heat and crowds.
Once you get up to the Grand Gallery (as seen in The Da Vinci Code), it's a short walk to the Mona Lisa. This painting, the Louvre's priceless golden goose, is mounted behind bullet-proof glass in a gigantic wall all by itself, with a sturdy wooden railing in front of it to prevent people from standing too close. There's always a crowd in front of the painting. Most people looking at it are tired tourists trying to get their own photo of the Mona Lisa to bring home (apparently there's something special about a photo of the Mona Lisa that you've taken yourself, even though millions of better photos of the painting can be found all over the Web). Since they cannot see the painting directly because of the people in front of them, they hold the cameras above their heads to get pictures. Once they have pictures, they linger for a minute or two, and then they leave.
The museum establishes one-way traffic lanes to route people to and from the Mona Lisa, so you can't go back the way you came after seeing it. Instead, you get flushed into a different set of rooms filled with French painters. There are a few moderately famous paintings here, such as the Coronation of Napoléon, and after you pass through these rooms, you get a good view of the Winged Victory of Samothrace (the goddess Nike). Then you go down multiple staircases again to reach the Venus de Milo, a bit further east in a street-level wing featuring ancient Greek art. The Venus de Milo also has a crowd around it, but it's already much smaller than that in front of the Mona Lisa, because the Venus de Milo is far less known.
Beyond the Venus de Milo, things get really quiet. In other words, once you've followed the hordes to the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, the crowds disperse. Most people leave the museum and go to Starbucks or somewhere else to rehydrate and eat before they collapse, but a few press on. In any case, once you move beyond the Greatest Hits, the entire atmosphere of the museum changes, and it starts to look a lot more like the quiet, calm place you'd expect a museum to be. Entire wings of the museum have hardly anyone in them, and most of the people wandering around outside the beaten path have at least some interest in classic fine art, otherwise they would have headed for the exits as soon as they saw the two main attractions.
I include all this in my video, including some snippets of the quieter parts of the museum, for contrast. Lots of people take pictures of the art in the museum, but nobody takes pictures of the crowds and the exhausting logistics of visiting the museum, so that's a niche I can fill.
Oh, and if you are curious, yes, you can photograph and film the permanent collections of the Louvre freely. You are simply requested not to use flash. The Louvre did try to outlaw photography for a while, but that only lasted for a year before they had to give in. The Orsay museum also outlawed photography a few years ago, but they haven't rolled back the change (yet).
Earlier this month, I splurged on a ticket to the Louvre. I don't normally visit the Louvre on my own, since there really isn't anything there that I'm interested in seeing, but on this occasion I wanted to make a short video about the museum. I particularly wanted to show the “Greatest Hits” of the Louvre, meaning the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. The ticket is only ten euro, which is a pretty good deal in exchange for the opportunity to see a quarter-million works of art, but my budget is so limited that even this expenditure counts as a great extravagance.
As with all major tourist attractions, tourists visiting the Louvre follow a well-worn, well-defined pattern that does not vary over time. Most tourists enter the Louvre through the main entrance under I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid in the central courtyard (the “Napoléon courtyard”) of the museum. They do not know that there are several entrances to the Louvre, all of which are far less crowded than the main entrance. They wait up to two hours or so in line just to get past security at the front door of the pyramid, then they wait in line again inside the pyramid to buy tickets. Of course I shot some views of the long lines for my video.
The tourists do not know that there's another street level entrance 200 feet away that allows them to get tickets, enter the museum, and see the Mona Lisa in about five minutes flat, with no waiting. And another entrance, in the shopping center beneath the courtyard, is nearly as fast, with handy ticket machines and a very short security line. I show this in my video, too.
Tourists going through the main entrance or the shopping center entrance end up under the pyramid, which is below street level. From there, they have to climb multiple flights of stairs to get up to the second floor, where the Mona Lisa is. There are lots of signs and to some extent they can just allow themselves to be carried along by the current of humanity flowing towards the famous painting. In high season, the temperatures in the museum are in the 80s or above (Fahrenheit), with no humidity, no air conditioning, and no air movement. I've seen people close to passing out in the heat and crowds.
Once you get up to the Grand Gallery (as seen in The Da Vinci Code), it's a short walk to the Mona Lisa. This painting, the Louvre's priceless golden goose, is mounted behind bullet-proof glass in a gigantic wall all by itself, with a sturdy wooden railing in front of it to prevent people from standing too close. There's always a crowd in front of the painting. Most people looking at it are tired tourists trying to get their own photo of the Mona Lisa to bring home (apparently there's something special about a photo of the Mona Lisa that you've taken yourself, even though millions of better photos of the painting can be found all over the Web). Since they cannot see the painting directly because of the people in front of them, they hold the cameras above their heads to get pictures. Once they have pictures, they linger for a minute or two, and then they leave.
The museum establishes one-way traffic lanes to route people to and from the Mona Lisa, so you can't go back the way you came after seeing it. Instead, you get flushed into a different set of rooms filled with French painters. There are a few moderately famous paintings here, such as the Coronation of Napoléon, and after you pass through these rooms, you get a good view of the Winged Victory of Samothrace (the goddess Nike). Then you go down multiple staircases again to reach the Venus de Milo, a bit further east in a street-level wing featuring ancient Greek art. The Venus de Milo also has a crowd around it, but it's already much smaller than that in front of the Mona Lisa, because the Venus de Milo is far less known.
Beyond the Venus de Milo, things get really quiet. In other words, once you've followed the hordes to the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, the crowds disperse. Most people leave the museum and go to Starbucks or somewhere else to rehydrate and eat before they collapse, but a few press on. In any case, once you move beyond the Greatest Hits, the entire atmosphere of the museum changes, and it starts to look a lot more like the quiet, calm place you'd expect a museum to be. Entire wings of the museum have hardly anyone in them, and most of the people wandering around outside the beaten path have at least some interest in classic fine art, otherwise they would have headed for the exits as soon as they saw the two main attractions.
I include all this in my video, including some snippets of the quieter parts of the museum, for contrast. Lots of people take pictures of the art in the museum, but nobody takes pictures of the crowds and the exhausting logistics of visiting the museum, so that's a niche I can fill.
Oh, and if you are curious, yes, you can photograph and film the permanent collections of the Louvre freely. You are simply requested not to use flash. The Louvre did try to outlaw photography for a while, but that only lasted for a year before they had to give in. The Orsay museum also outlawed photography a few years ago, but they haven't rolled back the change (yet).
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Parisian Statues of Liberty
The weather has often been seasonal so far this summer, which is a welcome change from the standard succession of dry heat waves. It has even rained quite a bit at times. We need the rain, so I can’t complain, although I’d prefer that it rain during the night, rather than during the day when I sometimes need to go out.
I took a picture of the Eiffel Tower from the Mirabeau bridge recently. This bridge is about a mile downstream and southwest of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a good spot for a photo because it shows both the tower and the Grenelle bridge, and the Grenelle bridge is interesting because there's a 1/5-size replica of the Statue of Liberty on the central island on which the bridge is anchored. So you get both the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower in one shot, which is great for confusing tourists and others who don’t know the city well.
There are actually several Statues of Liberty in Paris. One is next to this bridge, as I’ve just mentioned. It's not an exact replica of the one in NYC, but it’s similar—it was a gift to the city from a group of American expats in 1885. Another is much smaller, and in the Luxembourg Gardens, and it’s not an identical replica, either. It was a gift from the sculptor himself (Bartholdi) to the City of Paris.
And that’s not all … there’s a full-size replica of the flame of the statue in NYC alone, at the intersection on the place de l’Alma, where Princess Diana died. After she was killed, people thought the flame was a monument to her, but no, it has nothing at all to do with her. So many people left junk at the site that they put a little rope around it, although it appears that most of her groupies have grown up or forgotten her because there isn’t much junk around the flame these days.
If you’ve ever seen Roman Polanski’s film Frantic (which is a moderately interesting film), the final shootout occurs around the first of these replicas, near the bridge.
Excursion boats on the river, like the Bateaux Mouches and the Bateaux Parisiens, used to go all the way out to the statue at the Grenelle bridge on their 70-minute river cruises, but after an accident a few years ago in which several boats bumped into each other, this part of the cruises was removed. Too bad, as you could get some really nice shots from the boats. I don’t know if any other companies pass by the statue.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Latest videos, and Bastille Day
One advantage of digital technology is that it costs essentially nothing to produce digital photos or videos, once you have the equipment. This allows me to go out and take pictures or videos freely … one of the few activities that I enjoy that doesn't cost lots of money. As my school has given me very few hours of teaching lately, I've been shooting more videos in order to take my mind off the fact that fewer hours mean even less money to live on.
I finally did a video on the Promenade Plantée. It’s 23 minutes long, which is about ¼ of the time required to walk it in real life. It’s the only video that someone has disliked so far. Maybe it’s a bit on the long side. But I did want to show how the parkway looks. And much of it is in my hand-hand traveling “you-are-there” style.
I’ve also done a throwaway video on the rue de l’Échaudé, a tiny, quiet street in the Latin Quarter just slightly off the beaten track of tourists. Despite its proximity to the touristy areas, it's usually almost deserted. I selected it just because I liked the quiet of the street; it has no particular sights of interest.
And I’ve also finished a video on the Marché d’Aligre, a market on the east side of town. People talk about it in the same way they talk about the rue Cler (i.e., they exaggerate a lot), but it's really a street market like any other in Paris, and street markets are legion in the city. I suppose visitors come to the city, see one street market, and are struck by its charm, and assume that it is unique. But Paris has street markets in every neighborhood, and they all have that same charm … that’s one of the attractions of Paris.
I found many of the merchants at the market to be very hostile. France is a country that is hostile to photographers generally, which is unfortunate since it is very photogenic. Some degree of paranoia is par for the course whenever you take pictures in public. But this market was worse than most. I felt as though I was not welcome there, whereas at most street markets the merchants seem to be happy to see customers. Maybe I looked too European, although there were plenty of customers there who looked very French. The merchants seemed mostly to be of recent immigrant ancestry, so perhaps they regarded those who are obviously not of the same ancestry with suspicion. They weren’t all that way, but enough of them were like that that I don’t have any pressing desire to shop there in the near future. I just wanted to get it on video because some visitors to Paris ask about it, having read wonderful hyperbole about it in a travel guide somewhere.
In other news … today is Bastille Day, the French equivalent of the Fourth of July in the United States. There’s a huge parade on the Champs each year on this date, although it’s essentially a military parade and some French people question the appropriateness of a strictly military parade these days. There are also huge firework shows throughout France in the evening, especially the big one at the Eiffel Tower. The crowds watching the parade are enormous, so I’ve never even tried to go to see it in person. And in the evening, the city is filled with drunks who use the holiday (and every other holiday) as an excuse to binge drink. So I just stay home on Bastille Day. It’s a day off work, which is all that matters.
I finally did a video on the Promenade Plantée. It’s 23 minutes long, which is about ¼ of the time required to walk it in real life. It’s the only video that someone has disliked so far. Maybe it’s a bit on the long side. But I did want to show how the parkway looks. And much of it is in my hand-hand traveling “you-are-there” style.
I’ve also done a throwaway video on the rue de l’Échaudé, a tiny, quiet street in the Latin Quarter just slightly off the beaten track of tourists. Despite its proximity to the touristy areas, it's usually almost deserted. I selected it just because I liked the quiet of the street; it has no particular sights of interest.
And I’ve also finished a video on the Marché d’Aligre, a market on the east side of town. People talk about it in the same way they talk about the rue Cler (i.e., they exaggerate a lot), but it's really a street market like any other in Paris, and street markets are legion in the city. I suppose visitors come to the city, see one street market, and are struck by its charm, and assume that it is unique. But Paris has street markets in every neighborhood, and they all have that same charm … that’s one of the attractions of Paris.
I found many of the merchants at the market to be very hostile. France is a country that is hostile to photographers generally, which is unfortunate since it is very photogenic. Some degree of paranoia is par for the course whenever you take pictures in public. But this market was worse than most. I felt as though I was not welcome there, whereas at most street markets the merchants seem to be happy to see customers. Maybe I looked too European, although there were plenty of customers there who looked very French. The merchants seemed mostly to be of recent immigrant ancestry, so perhaps they regarded those who are obviously not of the same ancestry with suspicion. They weren’t all that way, but enough of them were like that that I don’t have any pressing desire to shop there in the near future. I just wanted to get it on video because some visitors to Paris ask about it, having read wonderful hyperbole about it in a travel guide somewhere.
In other news … today is Bastille Day, the French equivalent of the Fourth of July in the United States. There’s a huge parade on the Champs each year on this date, although it’s essentially a military parade and some French people question the appropriateness of a strictly military parade these days. There are also huge firework shows throughout France in the evening, especially the big one at the Eiffel Tower. The crowds watching the parade are enormous, so I’ve never even tried to go to see it in person. And in the evening, the city is filled with drunks who use the holiday (and every other holiday) as an excuse to binge drink. So I just stay home on Bastille Day. It’s a day off work, which is all that matters.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
I come to save snails, not to eat them
I was walking home through the snooty Sixteenth for a change, on a day that was becoming increasingly warm despite heavy rains the night before, and I happened across a fleet of snails trying to cross the asphalt sidewalk in front of me. There were a dozen of them or so, all moving at a snail’s pace (of course). The asphalt was dry and extremely hot, and I became concerned that these snails would not make it to safety before dehydrating, as they depend upon their snail-slime when moving, and the supply of that is in turn closely related to their hydration.
So I hit upon an idea. I went to the first supermarket I could find and bought a jug of water. Then I returned to the spot with the many snails and poured some water around them on the sidewalk in order to provide a non-dehydrating path to safety. A man passing by suggested that they might drown, however, which seemed plausible (my knowledge of snail respiration being rather limited), and he commented that it might be easier to just carry them to safety. Additionally he suggested that a nearby planter might be the source of the snails, as well as their salvation. The planter was about a meter off the ground, and it was hard to imagine how the snails could have made the trip from the planter to the pavement, but it was the only place nearby that might have harbored snails, as far as I could tell.
So this man and I picked up some snails and carefully put them in the planter. Some of the snails had their shells broken, but they were not squished, which would be consistent with a fall from the planter onto the pavement. Perhaps they tried to escape flooding in the planter during the rain (?) and were unable to hold on to the sheer, textured concrete wall of the planter. Anyway, I returned all the snails I found, including the ones with broken shells, although I wasn't optimistic about the future of the latter. I then poured the remaining water around the planter so that it might remain moist for the snails benefit.
I don't know how many ultimately survived. But just leaving them to die on the hot asphalt was out of the question. I was surprised that anyone offered to help, but perhaps the man who helped simply thought he was humoring a psychotic or something. French people are usually very diffident, and are not the type to lend helping hands to strangers.
I don't know the species of snail that I found. They looked a lot like the kind that end up on people's plates at some restaurants. These, hopefully, will lead a happy and unmolested life, if they survived the encounter with the hot asphalt.
(By the way, sidewalks in Paris are paved with asphalt, not concrete. The roadway is usually asphalt, too, although cobblestones are still quite common in Paris, thanks to their easy maintenance and superior wear characteristics.)
So I hit upon an idea. I went to the first supermarket I could find and bought a jug of water. Then I returned to the spot with the many snails and poured some water around them on the sidewalk in order to provide a non-dehydrating path to safety. A man passing by suggested that they might drown, however, which seemed plausible (my knowledge of snail respiration being rather limited), and he commented that it might be easier to just carry them to safety. Additionally he suggested that a nearby planter might be the source of the snails, as well as their salvation. The planter was about a meter off the ground, and it was hard to imagine how the snails could have made the trip from the planter to the pavement, but it was the only place nearby that might have harbored snails, as far as I could tell.
So this man and I picked up some snails and carefully put them in the planter. Some of the snails had their shells broken, but they were not squished, which would be consistent with a fall from the planter onto the pavement. Perhaps they tried to escape flooding in the planter during the rain (?) and were unable to hold on to the sheer, textured concrete wall of the planter. Anyway, I returned all the snails I found, including the ones with broken shells, although I wasn't optimistic about the future of the latter. I then poured the remaining water around the planter so that it might remain moist for the snails benefit.
I don't know how many ultimately survived. But just leaving them to die on the hot asphalt was out of the question. I was surprised that anyone offered to help, but perhaps the man who helped simply thought he was humoring a psychotic or something. French people are usually very diffident, and are not the type to lend helping hands to strangers.
I don't know the species of snail that I found. They looked a lot like the kind that end up on people's plates at some restaurants. These, hopefully, will lead a happy and unmolested life, if they survived the encounter with the hot asphalt.
(By the way, sidewalks in Paris are paved with asphalt, not concrete. The roadway is usually asphalt, too, although cobblestones are still quite common in Paris, thanks to their easy maintenance and superior wear characteristics.)