Stone Base of the Guillotine and the Dapper Museum

Our first priority today was to find the place near Pere Lachaise where the guillotine was used.  It's located on rue de la Roquette across the street from where a prison once stood.  All that's left today are five stones that supported the guillotine when it was put to use.  The five stones are indentations in the street and two of them are usually covered up by parked cars.

After that it was lunch at a nearby cafe.  Nothing exotic today, just a salad with roasted Camembert  for me and roast pork with potatoes for Bill.












We've been postponing museum visits expecting that a rainy day would come along and that's when we'd go.  Today rain was predicted but didn't come.  Nevertheless we went to the Musée Dapper in the tony 16th arrondissement.  It's a museum of African art.  The current exhibit is of masks and other artifacts from the Congo River basin.  Very interesting and nicely displayed.












We saw a very nice display in the window of a nearby pastry shop.  We also picked up the 19th of our contest baguettes.  It won 6th prize in the 2012 contest.  We have only one baguette left on the list.

A Very French Lunch and a Tribute to Serge Gainsbourgh

Today's lunch, in contrast to yesterday's was very French.  We walked over to a small restaurant in the middle of our block, Chez Maria et Louisa.  My appetizer was eggplant layered with ricotta cheese and tomato while Bill had paté, which came with toast and a small salad.  My main dish was scallop raviolis served with zucchini and a lemon sauce.  Bill had veal kidney which was served with pasta and fava beans.  We skipped dessert today, which is probably un-French.

We've been doing lots of walking recently and decided to take it easy today by visiting only one attraction.  Serge Gainsbourg was a singer, actor, and songwriter beloved by the French.  His townhouse, in an upscale neighborhood, is covered with adulatory graffiti.

Today's baguette won 10th place in the 2013 contest.  We have only two left (both of them from the 2012contest).

Edith Piaf Day

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Edith Piaf's death, and this week the Belleville neighborhood where she grew up is celebrating her life and career.  Our first stop this morning was the church where she was baptized.  Her baptismal certificate is supposed to be on display through the end of the week.  According to the event's brochure, it should have been near the statue of St. Theresa.  We looked carefully throughout the church and especially near the St. Theresa statue, but couldn't locate it.  Disappointed, we went to the patisserie across the street from the church.  They have designed a new pastry in honor of Piaf and will be selling it this week.  The patisserie opens at 9:00 a.m. and at 11:00 a.m. when we arrived they were sold out.  They expected to have more later in the day.

We decided to give up on Piaf and go to lunch at a restaurant in the Marais that Bill had discovered while walking home yesterday evening.  He had today's special, mussels and fries, and I had spinach quiche.  It was okay, but nothing to get excited about.















We decided to get our baguette early today and bought it from the second place winner in 2012.   Then we  gave the Piaf tour a second chance and returned to the patisserie where we were fortunate enough to find and purchase the special pastry - a bargain at 6.80 €, about $9.23.

Aux Folies, where Piaf sang in her younger days

After paying that kind of money for a pastry we were hesitant to take it on the Métro where it might get crushed.  Instead we walked home passing by several sites that figure in Piaf's life.  We passed by one of the apartments where she lived and the house on whose steps she claimed to have been born.  Her birth certificate shows she was actually born in a hospital.  We also passed by a couple of the places where she performed.  Piaf is known for her hardscrabble life, and Belleville is still a hardscrabble neighborhood in spite of its upscale pastry shop.

Elusive Joan of Arc Statue Located!

Today we took the bus to try to find the Joan of Arc statue I claimed to have seen.  We narrowed its location down to two bus routes and, unfortunately, it wasn't on the first route we tried.  However, on the second route, which took us to the foot of rue St. Jean d'Arc, we found it.  It was not an equestrian statue, like I thought I had seen, but it was clearly Joan of Arc.













After getting off the bus and taking the photo, we walked to the Escarpment near Rue Mouffetard.  We'd gotten a late start and were having trouble finding a cafe that was still serving food, so decided to head for a noodle place on Boulevard St. Germain that I was pretty sure served food all day.  It started to rain just as we were passing a cafe on rue Descartes that appeared to be still serving, so we ducked in there for lunch.  We got the €19 menu which offered 3 courses. We had salads for our first courses.  For the main course
I had grilled leg of lamb and Bill had bream Provencale.   We were both pleased with our choices.

The desserts were great too.  I had profiteroles (small cream puffs filled with ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce), while Bill had a chestnut puree with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.















While we were eating we noticed a tour group and several smaller groups of people inspecting the building next to our cafe and taking photos.  Turns out that this was a building where Hemingway had lived for awhile and where the poet Verlaine died.

Today's baguette won first prize in the 2012 contest.  We have only 6 more baguettes to try to finish our project.

A Joan of Arc Day (Sort Of)

Today's lunch was at a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown.  I had grilled shrimp with vegetables and vermicelli noodles.  Bill ordered something described as "caramelized shrimp."  It was large shrimp (heads included) cooked in a thin broth.  It was difficult to get the shrimp meat out of the shells and the cooking had softened the shells.  For awhile he thought maybe he was supposed to eat the shells.  At any rate, he liked the meal and said he would order it again.





Today's sightseeing was dedicated to Joan of Arc.  There's a well-known gold colored equestrian statue of Joan of Arc in Place des Pyramides, near the Louvre.  Several weeks ago I saw a much more modest equestrian statue of Joan of Arc while we were on the bus.  Bill didn't see it.  I assumed it was in Place de Jean d'Arc, but this assumption didn't really make sense because the bus route didn't go past the Place.  At any rate, after lunch today we went to Place de Jean d'Arc.  Sure enough, there was no statue.  There was a church, Notre Dame de la Gare, but that was it.

The church dedicated to Joan of Arc is located in the southern part of the city near Parc Montsouris.  It was a little hard to find because it's hidden within a group of fairly modern apartment buildings.  There's a modest non-equestrian statue of Joan of Arc inside the church.   We may have to ride the bus again to find the statue I saw.

Today's baguette won 3rd place in the 2013 contest.  It was delicious!

Unfocused Sightseeing

Today's lunch wasn't too exciting.  I had a salad and Bill had a mushroom omelet.  The fries that came with his omelet looked and tasted delicious.
















The sightseeing wasn't particularly focused.  We went to see a couple of things we'd not had time to find before.  The first goal was to find the shortest street in Paris.  This took us on a convoluted route that was difficult to follow.  At Port St. Denis I noticed a very nice statue of St. Francis with a pig.  I haven't been able to find out anything about this statue on the internet.







The shortest street was, indeed, short.  It consists of a small set of stairs connecting two other longer streets.

The final goal for the day was finding the spot on Rue de la Ferronnerie where King Henri IV was assassinated by François Ravaillac.   Ravaillac had attempted to take holy orders but was rejected by two religious orders because of his hallucinations, which he considered religious visions.

Today's baguette won 8th place in the 2013 contest.  We have only 9 more to try to complete our project.

A Long Walk on the Promenade Plantée

Today we walked to Place de la Bastille to have lunch at Leon's of Bruxelle, a Belgian chain specializing in mussels and french fries.  It was a very pleasant lunch.  The photo of my mussels may appear blurred because they were steaming when I took the picture.









We took the Métro to the southeast edge of the city to buy kouglof, which is available at this particular bakery only on the week-ends.  I've been wanting to try it ever since I read about it here.  It's a bread-like yeast cake with raisins.

The weather was perfect, and I noticed we were not far from Promenade Plantée, so I suggested a walk.  Promenade Plantée is a linear park built on an abandoned elevated railway, a forerunner of the High Line in New York City.  It begins near Place de la Bastille and goes all the way out to Bois de Vincennes in the southeast corner of the city.  According to Wikipedia it's 2.9 miles long.  We were near the Bois de Vincennes when we started our walk, so we walked toward Place de la Bastille.  The park has a few short stretches where it appears you're out in a wilderness area.  It also has lots of manicured garden areas.  There's a bike path that runs parallel to the walking path, and lots of variety in the terrain.   There are tunnels, tables where you can play chess,  and even several small waterfalls.  I apologize for the placement of the photos.  I haven't quite figured out how to do the formatting in Blogger.

After we'd had enough walking we left the park to buy our baguette of the day, winner of 3rd place in the 2012 contest.  Then it was back to the Métro and home.

The Croix de l'Evangile

We left the house much earlier than usual today (before 11:00), and our first mission was to find the Croix de l'Evangile.  I had read about it here.  We took the Métro to northeast Paris and walked along Rue L'Evangile into an industrial area.  It was much farther than we expected - nearly a mile from the Métro stop.  We were nearly ready to give up when we spotted the crois de carrefour marking the crossroads of Rue L'Evangile and Rue D'Aubervilliers.  According to the Paris Invisible website, there are many of these throughout France, but this is the only remaining one in Paris.  Jesus' toes are shiny from people rubbing them and there are flower and candle offerings at the base of the cross.  Rather than walk back to the Métro station, we got on the first bus that came by, with no regard to its destination.  The route happened to go by the city hall of Montmartre, and we hopped off the bus.  We hadn't been there since the first time we were in Paris, in 1999, when our son and his wife married in a ceremony performed by the Communist mayor of Montmartre in that city hall.

This is on the less touristy side of the hill where Sacre Coeur is located, so we worked our way around to the side of Sacre Coeur where we found the bakery that won 2nd place in the 2013 Best Baguette contest.  After buying today's baguette we decided to go to lunch at a place our son recommended, Tartine, near the Marais.  We went there by Métro and had a delicious meat and cheese plate with our wine.  From there it was a leisurely walk home.

More Heritage Days

Before leaving our neighborhood today I took the glass jars, which formerly held sheeps' milk yogurt, to the recycling bin down the street.  The recycling bin isn't beautiful, and it's quite noisy, but it provides a convenient way to recycle glass.  We recycle plastic in the bins at our apartment complex.

Today's Heritage Day tour was of the Regard de la Lanterne, part of the ancient aqueduct system of Paris.  It was constructed between 1583 and 1613 and has been a historical site since 1899!  It's usually closed to the public, but for Heritage Days we were able to go down inside and see the aqueduct draining into it.  The photos I took inside didn't come out very well, but here's a photo  of the outside.

Afterward we walked down rue de Belleville, through a working class neighborhood with lots of Asians, and stopped at a small restaurant whose menu was primarily limited to pot stickers (raviolis) and soups.  We were seated next to a very nice young man from Israel, Yoel.  He's studying for his PhD here.  We had a very pleasant conversation with him while enjoying our delicious pot stickers.

Then we took the Métro out to the 16th arrondissement, in the southwest corner of Paris, where we bought our baguette from the winner of 7th place in the 2012 contest.  They also had some tempting pastries, so we bought a couple of caneles (custard baked in a small mold) and a couple chocolat fondants (a small chocolate cake with a liquid chocolate center).  Here's a picture of them along with a couple of figs that we bought at the market a few days ago.  They were delicious!