Mock Roman temple of Sybil in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont |
August 5, 2017 – The Buttes Chaumont offers a panoramic view
of the north stretches of Paris, along with lots of fresh air, a mountain
breeze, acres of sloping lawns, and a forest of mature trees. At the top of one of its peaks is a folly of
a Roman temple of Sybil. That’s the peak
we chose to climb. Then we walked across
a pedestrian suspension bridge designed by none other than Gustave Eiffel.
Suspension footbridge designed by Eiffel. |
The Parc des Buttes Chaumont is majestic, located in a
neighborhood that is not majestic. In
fact, the first thing we saw when we emerged from the subway in the Place Col.
Fabien was the stark, modern Communist Party headquarters. We walked past it, up the avenue Mathurin Moreau,
to the park. No other park in Paris
gives me the sense of vastness that Buttes Chaumont does (technically, the huge
Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes are just outside of Paris).
We left the park and retraced our steps to the Place Col.
Fabien. Along the way, we saw the police
pull over two different vehicles driven by similar looking men. Both of them were sent on their way. The police were evidently looking for someone
in particular. Some of the cops were
wearing bullet-proof vests, and they all were armed. We were mildly and momentarily unsettled
about this, but we forgot about it within minutes.
We left the 19th arrondissement behind, and
walked downhill into the 10th along the rue de la Grange aux
Belles. Beautiful it is not, but that
street is important to us, and to the history of Paris. It is the location of the enormous Hopital
Saint Louis, the public hospital and research institute that specializes in
blood disorders (among other things).
This is the place we will go to if Tom starts hemolyzing again as he did
in November/December 2015.
The chapel of the Saint-Louis hospital |
The hospital seems to be the size of a small city – 2,500
people work there. It is comprised of
many buildings, built in many different eras.
King Henry IV set the first stone for its construction in July
1607. The hospital’s chapel was
completed in 1608.
The original purpose of the hospital was to relieve the
Hotel Dieu from having to take all the victims of the plague. Its location was outside the city at the
time, so it offered a place to treat and quarantine contagious patients away
from the city center.
The hospital was initially supposed to be temporary; when
the plague epidemic ended, it could be closed.
But the need for this huge hospital became year-round, for thirty years. After those first three decades, the hospital
was opened only periodically. In 1773,
following a fire at the Hotel Dieu, the Hopital Saint Louis had 3,600 patients
and remained open for good. Today, its specialties
are dermatology, hematology, and cancer.
We did not feel the need to go in; we hope we never do. Yet it is a great comfort to know that
Hopital Saint Louis is there.
Colorful diner on the rue Lancry. |
We continued down the hill on the rue de Lancry, and noticed
that the neighborhoods were becoming more inviting and colorful as we
approached the city’s center. The rue
René
Boulanger brought us to the Porte Saint Martin, a grand arch that stands where
one of the old medieval gates to the city was once located.
The rue Saint Martin was home to the former Priory of Saint Martin
of the Fields, or Saint-Martin des Champs.
On that site originally stood a chapel dating to the
Merovingian dynasty. A community of
monks settled there, but their abbey was destroyed by the Normans in the 10th
century.
In the year he died (1060), my ancestor, King Henry I,
decided to rebuild the former abbey as a priory. Its “des Champs” designation refers to the
fact that it was outside the city walls at the time.
The priory’s church was completed in 1135; too bad King
Henry did not see it, because it is a Gothic masterpiece.
Saint-Martin-des-Champs church. |
A little farther down the rue St. Martin we passed Saint
Nicholas des Champs, a flamboyant-gothic-style church which is badly in need of
restoration.
After crossing the busy rue de Turbigo, we slipped into the
charming, narrow passage de l’Ancre, lured there by a cute sign for a shop named
Pep’s that restores parasols and umbrella’s.
We explored the passage, and then returned to the rue St. Martin. We stopped for refreshments at a brasserie
off the corner of the Place Georges Pompidou, where the famous Pompidou Center
presides.
We’ve never seen so many people hanging out in that
Place. It seems uncomfortable, to sit on
a slightly sloping surface of hard cobblestones for hours. But so many young people were doing just
that.
St. Merry church near the Pompidou Center. |
We walked on to the church of St. Merry, just south of the
Pompidou Center. The church had its
huge, red front doors flung wide open!
With its big doors open like this, the church sent a welcoming
message.
Inside the church’s gorgeous interior was a special
installation by the Colombian artist Alejandro Tobon Rojas. It consisted of hanging “nests” made of
wood strips collected off the streets of Medellin. The nests are like the nests of oropendola
birds, a threatened species in South America.
A recording of the oropendola songs echoed through the church’s
interior. To see and hear this was an
uplifting and moving experience.
St. Merry Church with the "nests" by Alejandro Tobon. |
We spent some time in that holy place, and finally we
departed to continue our walk.
The next site was the little park where the beautifully
gothic Tour Saint Jacques stands. We saw
two rats in that park. I managed to
photograph one of them. The other
scurried past Tom, and ran directly under the park bench where a man sat. The man was startled, and raised his legs off
the ground, but he did not squeal.
We stood calmly and stared into the shrubs and trees at the
remaining rat -- Southwest Floridians who are no longer afraid of large rats. We just don’t want them in our houses. So we like snakes that eat rats. This particular rat at the Tour Saint Jacques
park had the look of a wild animal that lives in the woods. He didn’t seem to be like urban rats I’ve
seen before. I wonder if he is a
descendent of the famous rats of Les Halles, the former market that was not far
from the park, or if his ancestors moved into the city like Remy’s family did in
the movie Ratatouille . . . .
Along the Quai de la Megisserie, we enjoyed strolling
through displays of plants and flowers, and then we ducked into the pet store
to look at all the cats. We love cats;
however I’m allergic to them and Tom can’t live near a cat box. Oh well.
We got our cat fix yesterday.
We crossed the Seine on Paris’s oldest bridge, the Pont
Neuf. I checked to be sure one of my
favorite jewelry stores is still there across from the Square du Vert
Galant. It is.
Crossing into very familiar turf in the 6th
arrondissement, we window shopped the art galleries on the rue Mazarine and
caught the line 10 metro at Mabillon.
In the evening, we managed to go out again on foot to dine
at Le Pario, that magical place where the cuisines of France and Brazil are
merged.
When we were home at last, we realized we’d walked more than
ten miles that day. Oh my.
1 comment:
This entry was so packed with good stuff (about ten miles' worth)! From Buttes-Chaumont, which I've always wanted to see, to several churches, including one with the same name as a London church and one with a cool art exhibit in it, two arches, two rats, and the admission that you're allergic to cats (what about Major Burnside??). Whew! Such fun. (After a very distracted summer, I'm just catching up on Paris Journal!)
Post a Comment