Bring: You know what to bring to Paris.. Clothes: inconspicuous, shoes: comfortable.. No Bermuda shorts, glowing sneakers and Hawaiian shirts. They don’t have Icy Hot or Ben Gay and you need it, perhaps also travel size foot powder, canned fish, peanut butter for baguettes, water bottle.
DAY ONE It is my objective here to suggest industriousness on the part of the intercontinental visitor in the city for a few days or more. Such a day begins in the afternoon or evening after one has moved away from an airport. If it begins at 6am then referencing the first full day is better.
The RER B line from Roissy-De Gaulle is a most unpleasant and often confusing experience and the cabs, much easier, are getting even more expensive. Of course, my last train ride from the airport was during a strike, but the complexity of the ride, which can be vindicated by parlaying your confused dependence into making new friends immediately, is not uncommon. Three people or two rushed people should get the cab.
People arrive in Paris and they inevitably make for the quay and walk around after attending to accommodations, which sustains low quality, overpriced eating establishments. It's never too early to develop your own system for getting completely lost and assign significance or insignificance to your absorption of happenstance, as to not do so would constitute an unacceptable break with literary tradition. Initial practical priorities are:
+ ATM
+ get a copy of Pariscope from a newsstand immediately. There is probably a choice of free classical concerts at churches to attend that evening which tend not to be religious affairs at all, a good way to relax after dealing with transport. Also you see what museum and gallery shows are going on and when they end. Get a new one every Wednesday morning... they cost a dollar or so.
+ Supermarket. Get cheese, pâté, a baguette, wine, and whatever else you want. I recommend one or two bars of cheap goat's milk cheese, the cheapest is often the most flavorful, and maybe a boxed version of one of the regional 'soft cheeses' (Camembert, Brie, etc). If you happen upon a fromagerie first, go for it but try to keep the non-pasteurized cheeses to two or three at a time as they'll get moldy soon. If you buy at a supermarket and then get more at a fromagerie you will surely eat it all. You will not get sick of different types of cheese and this is a great way to get cost/time effective protein knowing you'll work the fat off. Ditto pâté: get three or four different kinds at the supermarket right off the bat. You'll like one of them and want the same thing and here also there's a variety that will give you cost/time effective protein for your whole trip, dejeuner, petit dejeuner, & dinner. There's no bad bottle of wine in this town even if the lower prices seem to suggest as much, as table wines are better values and often more interesting than varietals.
+ You may want to get a Michelin map of Paris asap. They're as enjoyable as they take on necessity. There's the huge one that comes on one page or a handy book which is a little harder to find. The key to the one pager is to fold it so that it is roughly 8x11, honing in on the area where you are at that time. Printing out Google maps really only works if you get the size that has all the small street names, which means many, many pages as the print is larger than on Michelin.
+ Museum pass? Available at most metros, you can get it for 1, 3, or 5 days. The ideal 5 day period to use it is Wednesday through Sunday, as Monday and Tuesday are the least preferable museum days. It's not cheap, but you're on vacation and you want to be able to pop in anywhere you want without rationalizing the price by a long stay, and you don't want to wait in line for tickets, especially at the Orsay and Versailles.There's countless options for a red-eyed afternoon/evening so I'll try to hone in on one or two.
1. STRAIGHT TO A MUSEUM? This seems daunting and an Ian idea but I'm Ian. The Louvre has 6 euro admission after 1800 hrs Wednesday and Friday and the Orsay has reduced admission after 1615 hrs every day but Monday or Thursday; Thursday is better: reduced admission after 1800, open late. If you think that you won't appreciate the art under these circumstances, think that you will make repeated visits. The Orsay can possibly be done in one visit but the Louvre cannot be seen in three visits, so it's best to get started. The Pompidou is open til 9 every day but Tuesday but with no reduced admission; the contemporary galleries and café of the Palais Tokyo are open til midnight (not Tues) which come with views of the lit tower across the river.
2. The standard WALKING AND EATING plan: Metro to Censier-Daubertin, west on Daubertin to Rue Mouffitard, north on Rue Mouffitard. The Romans first entered Parisii coming north up Rue Moffetard, prime real estate when Phillip II established the Sorbonne in the 13th Century but most buildings suggest more modest origins: a foul-smelling river drained when the sewers were built in 1910 that still smelled when Beckett, Hemingway, Dos Passos and Joyce arrived to stay.
Amid the vestiges of consumerism that has replaced the animal waste is a buoyant, market-square evocation of a time that never existed, a buffer between the provinciality of chain designer stores and provinciality. Rue Mouffitard and Pot de Fer (where Daumier grew up) a few blocks north are a good place to get a solid three course old-school provincial meal with table wine for an old school price, in the heart of the old school. If you have more ambitious degustation in mind for the week this at least acclimates your weary palette to the traditions. Don't eat dessert unless it's included because that's later on the walk.
Restaurants are not as good a value in Paris as outside Paris, and you have the dilemma of French vs. ethnic for which there's no right answer. Eating at restaurants is not essential to a Paris trip at all, in fact, despite what guidebooks are compelled to say, but nonetheless fun a few times at the right places. This is among the best places to stock up on groceries, as there are several supermarkets, many specialized food stores and takeouts, and often open air markets at several locations, and sampling your haul in Luxembourg on a sunny day is preferable to eating in even if your lack of cups makes you drink wine from the bottle. A notable lit-historical eating option is Polidor, NE of the park at 41 rue Prince where Verlaine took Rimbaud and Joyce had a locker for his linen napkins, with interior, food, and prices relatively intact.
A block north of Pot de Fer is Place de la Conthescarpe. To the right/ouest there's an Ed l'Epicier supermarket. If you go there, return to rue Mouffetard which becomes rue Descartes going north.
Take a left on Rue Clovis. On both sides of the street are remnants of the 1st Century Roman wall. St Etienne du Mont comes into view on your right, with the Pantheon on the left. St Etienne is free and should be open til 1930 hrs. Go in and check out the rood screen across the nave, the stain glass windows and the wooden pulpit. Pascal and Racine are buried there (which may have prompted Lautreamont to say in Poesies I 'French literature is Racine followed by mathematicians') in the Lady Chapel with Leonard Gautier's Mystic Wine-Press windows nearby. Rest a little if you're feeling like a sweaty St. Geneviève pilgrim and then go check out the pediment relief in front of the Pantheon, which, despite marking the pre-Haussmann beginnings of the decline of Parisian architecture has the allegorical Patria flanked by Liberty and History surrounded by literary luminaries of days gone by. Val-de-Grâce is the dome visible to the south.
If it's light out, go west to Jardin de Luxembourg, if it's getting dark retrace your steps on rue Clovis towards the Pont de Sully and your ice cream.
2a. TOWARDS LUXEMBOURG (afternoon): From the Pantheon, you can walk right to the park on rue Soufflet or step south for a little pre-Haussmann rue Clotaire/ right on des Fosses, becoming Malebrance for a fromagerie and eateries. It’s best to enter the park through Place Edmond Rostand rather than where St Michel meets with rue de Medicis and make a right straight for the Fontaine de Medicis, a 17thC grotto with shady 19thC plane trees surrounding Auguste Otten's 19thC Polyphemus Surprising Acis and Galatea, since you are in need of relaxation. If you feel like walking around the park, there’s the kiddie yacht launch at the central fountain and Baudelaire's lonely bust awaits you in the pear orchard to the SW, just south of the puppet theater and the pétanque players.
If you are eager to get up and walk more, cross the park to Rue Bonaparte going north. You can first stop at St Sulpice where Baudelaire and the Marquis de Sade were baptized (their original sin was even worse) and Hugo was married. Check out the Delacroix murals.
Continue north on Bonaparte to place St Germain, where you figure to end up repeatedly. The abbey is time-worn but has Romanesque remains, especially the choir and a Last Supper lintel on the W porch. Librarie La Divan is at 37 Bonaparte, north of the abbey, the Gallimard showroom where you can check to see what’s up. If it's before 1630hrs, artists get in free at the Musee Delacroix north of the abbey, which adds some color to the Haussmann buildings and whetts your appetitite for his canvases at the Louvre.
As for the cafes, I like to go inside the Deux Magots, sit next to the wooden Chinaman and order a cheap food item, because they give you a paper tablecloth that you can write poems on. Another thing to do is find an artist and offer to treat them if they draw on the tablecloth and you get whatever they draw (eventually you can have a nice collection, and the waiters go from surly snobs to deferentially quizzical when you do this).
Then make for the river, getting as lost as possible on side streets, and cross the Pont Neuf for Vert Galant, the western tip of the island, which affords views and lively folk. Continue east on the south of the Island to the facade of Notre Dame. The cathedral is open til 1845 hrs and if you get there a bit earlier and have energy, a walk up the towers allows you look around at where you are and the gargoyles - definitely to be done at some point in your life. One of the best areas to view the light of evening is the Sq Jean XXIII east of the cathedral. You can cross the Pont St Louis for the Île Saint-Louis, which you should walk around asap.
When it's dark, one of the best places for wine and cheese in the world (hope you brought some) is sitting on the ground on the quay across the river south of Notre Dame, a great place to meet Parisians, people from the world over and the many literary ghosts that preceded you at this hobby. Do this the first night if it's warm so that you know the option that awaits you thereafter. The police drive by in boats and shine a light on you to make sure you're not being mugged.
One resurfaces at this point over and over which isn’t a problem. Across from Notre Dame is the atmospheric St Julien de Pavre built at the same time as Notre Dame with carved capitals inside. Its exterior as well as neighboring St Severin are dramatically viewed from Rue Galande. Upon entering St Severin walk to the chancel for the Flamboyant Gothic ambulatory and the stained glass. Just north of here is Shakespeare and Co. on rue Bucherie, which still brings with it one of the lit expat scenes of the neighborhood, and to the west, you don’t need me to tell you that the book browsing on the quays is about the moment, not the books, but there can be good finds there.
2b. TOWARDS ICE CREAM (evening):
After you've retraced your steps on Clovis to Cardinal Lemoine, take a right at rue des Fosses St Bernard. You'll walk by a big university building and the Monde Arabe museum. Cross the Haussmann-era Pont de Sully (go right for it if you stayed on Lemoine). Île Saint-Louis was the original Celtic settlement Parisii from the 3rd Century BC, and retains its 17th century look since no one wanted to live there from the 18th century to after WW2, allowing Baudelaire to live there much of his life. Crossing Sully continue til the bridge is about to go to the Right Bank, then turn left where you'll find the Hotel Lambert, which once hosted the George Sand/ Chopin circle. Continuing west on Rue St Louis you get to Berthillon (ice cream) at the center of the island.. when in doubt choose between Agenaise or Marron on the glaces menu (pdf). If your favorite flavor is coffee then they have your number.
Ice cream in hand, walk north on the rue des Deux Ponts, where at the corner is the wrought iron exterior of the cafe Au Franc-Pinot which was closed for sedition in 1716. East of there becomes the quai d'Anjou. Ford Madox Ford published the Transatlantic Review out of 29, back when this was still cheap and Baudelaire lived at the Hotel Lauzun at 17 when he started writing Flowers of Evil. Apparently the Lauzun, described well in Edmund White's The Flaneur, is now open for tours on some days which is worth asking about. Walk around the island and cross Port St Louis for the cathedral, which you want to see lit up. Then you can hang out across the river (see above) or go to sleep.
FIRST FULL DAY Take metro to La Madeleine, arriving there at 8 or before and climb the stairs of the eglise's facade. This walking route is designed for sight lines. Here you can see Pl de la Concorde and Hotel Invalides in the background. The church interior is not a must-see. Walk down the steps where there's a bank machine across the street and be sure to look for a stairwell leading underground to Art Nouveau public toilets, perhaps the best public toilets you'll see anywhere. Head down Royal to Concorde. This is the center of upscale hospitality and if Laduree's open that means you’re late so don’t get a croissant for two euros enabling you see the 19th C interior. You are trying to get to the Louvre by nine. Stay on the east (left) side of the road so that you don't have to cross over at Concorde.
The highway gaper delay is the contemporary equivalent to the mob surrounding the gallows on the town square, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Place de la Concorde, where you risk a beheading if you try to cross the street to get a better look at the obelisk from 1300 BC. The square was a swamp that Louis IV hired Jacques-Ange Gabriel to design in the mid-18thC with an equestrian statue of the king in the middle. As it happens the statue was torn down during the revolution and his grandson Louis XVI was beheaded on the spot along with 1300+ other historical luminaries and also-rans but much of Gabriel's design remains, including the neo-classical hotels on the north side and the allegorical statutes of the regions of France. After the revolution a special canal was dug to transport the obelisk to France from Egypt. The Horses of Marly, which frame the entrance to the Champs Elysses, were carted in from a destroyed Louis IV chateau. The Louvre comes into view, lined up with the Arch de Triumphe. Cross left for the Jardin de Tuileries.
Even as the Louis IV design over the Medici imprint is not a romanticized concept for many, the Tuileries are perhaps my favorite gardens because of the play of light between the trees and sculptural mishmash of Maillol nudes and Rodins with modern works snuck in here and there. They are urban and diversely peopled where the Versailles gardens are a rural expanse. It's a half mile walk in which the Louvre gets bigger and bigger.
IS IT TUESDAY?
Then the Louvre is closed, but it's 9 am and you've already had a good walk. Get on the 1 Metro line at Louvre-Rivoli east to St Paul, or better yet the 74 bus from Rivoli by the Louvre east to rue de Turenne, getting you closer to your destination - Place des Vosges - and affording you views of the Hotel de Ville. Get off after Rue de Rivoli becomes the Rue de St Antoine around 62, the Hotel Sully where Voltaire once had the crap beaten out of him.
IS IT TUESDAY AT 10AM, AND YOU'RE STILL IN YOUR HOTEL ROOM?
If this happens to you for some reason, skip the Concorde-Tuileries walk and head straight for Vosges. L'As du Fallafel opens at ten (34, rue des Rosiers, off Vielle dT) so go straight here if you're hungry, or else save it for later if you select the Marais option... whenever you go there be sure to see the Hotel de Rohan relief at 87 rue Vielle de Temple.
OK BACK TO THE LOUVRE
The entrance is at the pyramid, and hopefully the bag check line won't be too bad and you have your museum pass. You can enter straight through the Louvre/Rivoli Metro station or via the Carrousel shopping mall at Rue de Rivoli 99, a good thing to do when stopping in for reduced admission after 6, which means you have an ambitious crossover to get to the Italian Renaissance but Vermeer, Durer, and the tapestries are right there.
The first time you go, though, after any period away, you should enter through the pyramid, turn right for the Denon wing and don’t head up the escalator without going into the sculpture gallery to the right for Michelangelo’s slaves as well as Donatello, Bernini and Verrocchio, a good spot to hit first thing in the morning. On that floor there’s a world class Greek antiquities collection known to most as a hallway enabling them to take photos of their family members in front of the Venus de Milo. This is best seen on a subsequent visit.
Go up the stairs at the west end of the sculpture gallery and head for the French large format rooms and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa, Delacroix’s Death of Sardinapaulis, and David’s Oath of the Horatii. You don’t have to look at every painting because you have quite a lot ahead. Turning right into room seven you have that La Giaconda canvas. For Chrissake don’t take a picture, we believe you were there, and slowly work your way to the front and stare at it oblivious to the crowd around you. There are Titians, Veroneses and Leonardos around you. Go through room six and make your way back and forth the long hallway at your pace.
When you’re done with Italian painting, go past that damn Victory statue to the Sully wing and take the elevator or stairs to the second floor asap. Again, the rest of the first floor on Sully is for another visit. Head counterclockwise around second floor Sully to go backwards in time at your own speed from the Corots and Delacroixs in rooms 71-73 to the star of this show, Watteau. You’re not in Florence, you’re in Paris: this is Watteau’s house and you’re just drinking café creme in it. Further along you get to Poussin who also reveals himself to you here like nowhere else. Your head is full of French painting and now Richelieu awaits you with German, Dutch and Flemish.
You have to go here many times, of course. On the first floor of the Richelieu is the Napoleon III apartments, the tapestries in rooms 19 and 20 and the chapel in 27-28, all of which provide an atmospheric break from canvases, or if taking a break means sitting down, there’s the Marly and Puget courtyards on the ground floor, steps away from the Assyrian winged bull reliefs. You can devote further time to the Egyptian and Greek wings in Sully. One thing about going here instead of specialized museums for a particular period or place is that you can change gears quickly if you get bored.
You can leave and come back, sit in the gardens, check out the gargoyles at Saint-Germaine des Auxerrois, or go east to the panorama on top of the Samartine department store.
TUESDAY AT LE MARAIS
Make way to the Place des Vosges, which was constructed in the 17th Century and fell into decline in the 18th which lasted til it became a historic district in the 1960s. Victor Hugo moved here in 1833 and he happened to be a visual artist well before his time. If you don't believe me, go in to the Musee Victor Hugo, one of the places in town I always enjoy visiting, which also includes many etchings by artists of his characters.
After this, you read the Pariscope in the square to see what art shows are going on in the Marais.Galleries are a good Tuesday activity because the main museums are either closed or overcrowded, and you’re here to see the new stuff, right?, not just the old stuff. You can also wander around the Marais when you see the Picasso Museum, which is closed Monday and Tuesday. Musee Carnavalet is good history if you like antiques. See earlier Marais entry.
ORSAY: S, W, Th, or F.
Thursday is the best day because you can reenter for the night hours, or you can go Wednesday morning and Thursday night on the Museum Pass.
What I like to do is wait at the museum while it opens in the morning, then walk around the line and flash my museum pass to the guard, walk in, run almost, up the stairs and straight to the Van Goghs. There are two staircases, the one on the left which is closer to the Van Goghs and the one on the right which will force you to walk by Gaughin to get to the Van Goghs. Being delayed by Gaughin is ok since this is his native country and Amsterdam has more Van Goghs. It’s your call. After Van Gogh and whatever Cezanne you need at this time, cross the next hall to get to the Impressionist rooms.
Don’t feel obligated to stop at every painting but cherish the moment with some of the all-time classic canvases even if you’re sick of hearing the artists’ names. Go to the end where Pissarro shows you what the streets look like and make for the stairs beyond. Don’t stop at the middle level! Go back down to the first floor and make for Manet, then back to Monet, then around to Courbet. Look at each Courbet, then sit, then look and sit again.
At this point, you have the choice of sticking around the neighborhood and checking out Daumier and Corot or going back up to look at Gaughin, and the SW and SE corners: Redon’s pastels and Toulouse-Lautrec. When it gets crowded you can sit in front of a painting you like and watch the people go by it.
POMPIDOU (closed Tues)
This is open later than other museums so you might want to do this second, entering in the evening after a late lunch by the Stravinsky fountain or first thing in the morning so you’re fresh. If you have a pulse then you’ll want to set aside a large block of time for my favorite art museum. Take the scenic escalator to the fourth floor and look at the Ernst sculptures as you make your way to the north side and work your way back south. That’ll be plenty. Make sure not to miss the back wall of André Breton’s apartment, put there against his will but the best curatorial arrangement anywhere. Then hit the third floor and whatever special exhibitions are there.
Check the schedule at IRCAM for concerts in the evenings which can be a highlight or an irritation. Just south of the fountain duck into St Merry church for some stained glass at the first three bays of the chancel and transept, woodwork in the pulpit and an organ played by Saint-Saens.
MONDAY TREK
A good Monday trek (also good for the weekend or W-F) takes in fruitful tensions of the 'boulevard culture' and the more utopian passers through. I've had a moving experience at the Opera Garnier museum but subsequently it's been curated with less enthusiasm. At its best it suggests the many narratives that have made their way to these streets in high and low forms, but to find drama at its most magical one makes their way north a few blocks to the Gustave Moreau Museum. Moreau was championed by the surrealists specifically for his stubborn exoticism "I believe in neither what I touch or what I see" while Impressionism became fashionable, and his narratives become abstractions through your senses. As it retains the artists' studio feel: "I have always dreamed of breaking into it at night," said Andre Breton, "armed with a lantern, to take the Fairy with Gryphons by surprise amid the surrounding shadows, to intercept the messages fluttering from the Suitors to the Vision, exactly halfway between the outer eye and the white hot inner eye."
East of the Moreau are the arcades which inspire the opening of Walter Benjamin's 'Paris, Capital of the 19th Century' and his Arcades Project. Early malls enabled by iron and gas lighting.. "these wish-fulfilling images manifest and emphatic striving for disassociation with the outmoded.... direct the visual imagination.. to the primeval past." Open til 10. Walk south from Moreau to St Lazare, turn left/east, then down Notre Dame de Laurette which becomes Faubourg Montmartre and enter Passage Jouffroy right after Rue de Provence.
Another relatively out of the way art trek that can be attempted the same day or whenever (not Tues) is to then head west to Passy (do not passy go, do not spend $500 at the stores on Ave Montaigne, take the subway). This is an art tour, if you don't like art don't see art, but I'm telling you what an extended set of priorities are. In a cluster across from the tower is the Musee Guimet which hosts a world-class collection of Asian art and the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (free) at the Palais Tokyo, along with the new Palais Tokyo contemporary galleries. This is high quality, less trafficked bliss. The Pompideau is obviously a first priority but it can't possibly hold everything, and the Moderne de la Ville is a special place. The Guimet-Moderne visit can be combined with a climb up the Arc de Triumphe, which is usually not so crowded since you actually have to climb it. Or if you crave more Monet there's the Marmottan to visit further west.
Even tho Guimet and Moreau are on the museum pass, this is good for when you're not using the pass, or walking through Passy just for Arc de Triumphe-Moderne-Marmottan. As opposed to some parts of the Left Bank where you'll be reminded of the imperialist foregn policy you the American is personally responsible for, in Passy they'll cut to the chase and play up your inherent inferiority. Seriously, Parisians are wonderful if you don't act superior or like an idiot.
A MONTMARTRE walk is not a requirement and evokes the arrested spirit of Utrillo more than its more influential easel-wielding inhabitants including Van Gogh followed by starving Cubists Picasso, Braque and Gris and the Surrealists further down the hill, who were careful to leave no pilgrimage sites. Walking into a building and looking at things is best done elsewhere, so this is for enjoying the day amongst steep inclines.
Since opportunities for exercise are in abundance one can take the metro to the hilltop at the Lamarck-Caulaincourt metro exit and proceed downward, by the small St. Vincent Cemetery where Utrillo, Ayme, and Honegger’s memorials to quaintness aren’t outdone by bigger fish. If here you must make your way on the Rue St Vincent to des Saules, where the exterior of the famous Lapin Agile recalls the age of small buildings in neighborhoods of individual character long since bulldozed in flatter terrains.
I want to get you to Montmartre Cemetary to your right, and you see that there’s a large, white basilica to your left which people like to sit in front of and look at the view, flanked by the Place de Tertre, currently occupied by pickpockets and bad artists to the point that it needn’t be witnessed. You have the choice of heading that way, or down des Saules and a round a bend or two to Place Emile Goudeau, a shady snacking spot beside the Bateau Lavoir which is nothing to see, and then turning right to the cemetery.
Perhaps the best walk from the Metro station is to head southwest to the descent on rue Girardon, take a right on the inclined rue Dereure and then left when it ends at Av Junot. Then take a left and at 15 Junot encounter a plaque marking the 1926 residence of Tristan Tzara, designed by influential Viennese architect Adolf Loos known for his early critique of ornamentation whose other Paris design was a house for Josephine Baker that was never built. Inside, all the floors are split level. Take whatever staircase you like the looks of south to Rue Lepec which includes the two remaining windmills out of 14 that were once here before the focus of the neighborhood shifted from agriculture in the mid-19thC as well as today’s French and North African eating. Really what I enjoy around here are the staircases which are more relaxing in descent.
Montmartre Cemetery stands on the site of a former gypsum quarry which closed before the Revolution, at which time the poor began to bury their dead in the abandoned tunnels. In 1825 a cemetery was founded which quickly became filled with 19th Century luminaries. Near the entrance is a memorial to Zola, and proceeding up de la Croix from Rond Point, Stendahl. The Avenue Montmorency is perhaps the most characteristic stroll of old Montmartre, which involves a staircase leading up north to Degas and a soulful collection of statuary including what looks like Dumas taking a nap.
I have included coverage of Montmartre in the hopes that you will assist me in keeping Francois Truffaut’s grave clean. Like Tzara’s it is flat marble and needs to be cleaned on the side as well as with a swipe over the top. Across the path from Truffaut is Heine. Elsewhere on the map are Berlioz and Nijinsky.
EIFFEL TOWER AREA
I recommend walking up the tower as I explain later in the panorama-rankings.
New in 2006 is the Quay Branly ethnography museum by the architect of the Arab World museum, a building I find unimpressive for reasons also covered later. The problems that come with the curatorial methods of the Branly have been discussed by others, going to the heart of the dilemmas of Western Civilization. If regional context is more complimentary than an ‘attic of other’ it’s only because the Branly’s not juxtaposed by European work as with Breton and Barnes’ curating, both of which have been trampled on by the law courts. This is not as significant as the colonial histories that inspired the collecting. These are, nonetheless, the same works of art that Picasso and the Surrealists took inspiration from at the previous Museum of Man and other places, so the quality of the collection should more than reward a visit. Also check for a 'world music' concert of interest. Closed Monday.
ARCHITECTURE TOURS
The display of wealth over character, a series of reactions to populism (Baron Haussmann, Sacre-Couer, Mitterand’s library and other monstrosities) and populist ransacking of churches means you have to go elsewhere (Rouen, Amboise, the Dordogne, Colmar, Chartres, Bourges, etc.) for quality French half timber and church interiors but there’s a few things to see here.
I mean, there’s churches here but not like elsewhere in the country. You know to check out Sainte Chapelle for stained glass which is on the museum card as you’ll walk by it over and over and Eglise Sainte Eustache in Les Halles.
16e-15e ARCHITECTURE TOUR
This short jaunt takes in Le Corbusier, Hector Guimard, and more successful Mitterand-era urban planning. It’s good to start on a weekday mid-afternoon since the only place you have to enter is the first, which is open til 5 or 6 weekdays. If you do this in the evening, you don’t have to go in, and you can do it in reverse after the Eiffel Tower area.
Metro to Jasmin where outside the metro at no. 3 Sq Jasmin there’s a late Guimard with some interesting windows and cast iron. Elsewhere on the sq the building with the women sitting beside the doorway is a turn of the century J Broussard; look through the glass at the mosaic in the foyer.
South on r Jasmin gets you to the Foundation Le Corbusier, located on the site of two villas in his Purist style of the 20s, a prettified Cubism of the object rather than its representation with an interior deftly utilizing light, colors, and sight lines before his isms got more troublingist.
This area is where Guimard became a popular architect in his early 30s after doing some early buildings a little further south and right before the metro entrances. Guimard didn’t invent the French Art Nouveau version of William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement but he had a particular vision for the style in Paris that drew from French traditions as well as the Japanese models that others had employed. It’s interesting how French Arts and Crafts traditions evoke splendid decadence while American Arts and Crafts evoke modest, austere religious cults, but I digress....
At 122, the 1913 Hotel Guimard which he built for himself and the artist Adeline Oppenheim: dig the corner which looks like its held up by a column and supports a balcony on top where her studio was. Continue to Rue Fontaine and take a left; Proust was born at no. 96. No. 60 is Guimard’s opulent 1909 Hotel Mezzara which looks like a faded desert palace but the railings are the auspicious result of much tinkering. At 40 there’s an orphanage left over from 1866 before gentrification which has a garden worth taking a break in. 17, 19 et 21, rue La Fontaine - 8,10, rue Agar - 43, rue Gros is a major Guimard apartment complex.
Guimard’s most famous house, completed right before the metro entrances at the end of the 19th C, is the Castel Beranger at 14 rue Fontaine, where Guimard had his workshop and Signac lived for a time. Walk all around it and, if possible, inside. Not only is this Guimard at his most inspired, flamboyant, arts ‘n’ crafty, and Japanese but this suggests to me the half-timbered country house so notably missing in most of Paris.
If it’s before five and not Monday, you can continue north on Fontaine as it becomes Raynourard and where on the first block to the right, Maison de Balzac is open for tours. Balzac moved into what was then the outskirts accessible by horse-drawn omnibus in 1840 when he decided that he’d have a better chance making a living writing for the theater than planting pineapples in the country and lived there for seven years. Etchings of his characters and personal effects; the street behind the house is named for Proust.
Detour or not, return to rue Gros which you’ll take south to Gautier, take a right, left on to George Sand which takes you to the most famous bridge in French poetry: "Under the Mirabeau Bridge there flows the Seine/ Must I recall/ Our lives recall how then/ After each sorrow joy came back again." If you don’t bring the book this, Zone, and many other Apollinaire works make great printouts for park benches. The bridge was built concurrent with early Guimard with the crest of Paris on the railings and statues of maritime allegories.
After crossing a few steps south gets you to the Parc Andre Citreon, built in the early 90s when the car offices moved, which became a magnet for new trends in fountains and landscape architecture arranged around themes. There’s no benches so you sit on the grass which you can’t do anywhere else in town.
ARCHITECTURE TOUR 2: Basilica of Saint Denis. You can take the metro north 15 minutes to the oldest major Gothic structure in the world which sustained much damage during the Revolution. Be sure to check out the stained glass by the ambulatory. The tombs which contain almost all the French kings costs admission but is covered on the museum pass.
For an international spice market go straight up r Republique and take a right at rue P to get to the Halle du Marche. This is especially a good thing to do on the first or second day. Going south on d’Honneur, taking a right on Franciade and the first left on to Gabriel Peri gets you to Musee d’Art et d’Histoire (01 42 43 05 10). I list the phone number because their web presence is minimal, but it’s supposedly open and excellent, housed in a 17th C Carmelite convent, containing modern art and exhibits on the Commune.
MONTPARNASSE
Unless you’re there for social or business reasons, a visit to Montparnasse revolves inevitably around the dead, as the Cemetery, the Catacombs, and historical cafés make for a worthwhile half day. I have never actually been inside the Catacombs though I’ve gone there to find it closed at least twice. It seems to be closed often, but if you get in, many people from the past await your visit. My formula for a Montparnasse visit is:
1. Attempt to go to the catacombs;
2. Eat crepes;
3. Look for writers you like at the cemetery;
4. Enjoy a beverage at Le Sélect.
So we’re at no. 2.. look around or consult current guidebooks for your crepe experience, which can be had around the Denfert Metro where the catacombs are or further north at Blvd. Montparnasse. Eating crepes here is only recommended if you are not going to Brittany on this trip as like all Parisian food your choices are but compensation for not being elsewhere. Two crepe courses followed by a dessert crepe washed down with a Breton cider and you’re ready for the graveyard.
I don’t need to tell you that cleaning off of Tristan Tzara’s grave at the cemetery will bring only good fortune and inspiration. You need to bring a paper towel or several napkins, clean off the top first, and then get to the sides, which are often caked with dirt. You can consider this not only a service to yourself but to me, as this is my sole incentive for taking the time to write this touristic overview on the blogosphere.
Tzara is on the southern end of the West Ave near the SW entrance. Further up Ouest is Baudelaire, who cedes top billing to his domineering stepfather that he only outlives by ten years. After Chaim Soutine and where Robert Desnos is, I think, supposed to be though I couldn’t find him, you take a right for the Jean-Paul/Simone nest. I did find César Vallejo’s faded memorial there once after much effort. Finding Beckett involves moderate difficulty.
Le Sélect is the best preserved Montparnasse café and a good selection for a drink or their Croque Select. Among the Sélect, Lenin and Trotsky planned the overthrow of the Czar here while Hemingway was getting plastered and courting his second wife at no. 159. Tour Montparnasse costs admission for the view while Samartine, just east of the Louvre, doesn’t. Why don’t I
RANK THE VIEWS
As you’ll see I’m not really ranking the views as such as I am more phenomenologically ranking the experience of the view...
1. Tower of Notre Dame... You find yourself here often but how often do you feel like climbing stairs while here? If you get here when you’re up to it, you have the museum pass or there’s not a line, this is a great way to see the many stages of construction from the perspective of quirky Victor Hugo characters as well as an admirable 19th C restorations of Medieval gargoyles.
2. Pompidieu Center escalator. If you stand at the right place you can see Ernst’s King and the Queen in front of Sacre-Couer. It’s not really a comprehensive panorama compared to the others but I enjoy putting it high on the list.
3. The Eiffel Tower isn’t touristy so much as waiting to go up the elevator is. Climbing the stairs is only a few bucks and no line at all. I hear there’s an escalator there now but I’m not sure. Taking the elevator deprives you of the many perspectives of the structure seen at different points of the climb.
4. Arc de Triumphe. Another one where you have to walk up. The one time I was there you couldn’t go up all the way, but it’s well reviewed and there’s supposed to be a pleasant museum.
5. Sacre-Couer. Here the people around you are festive rather than preventing you from walking onto the elevator.
6. La Samartine, just east of the Louvre. It’s free and open til 10. That I can report. I’ve never been there. Elevator and two floors of steps. The best way to get a view of the city with the help of an elevator.
7. Arab World Museum. This is the first building I saw by Jean Nouvel, the architect of the new Quay Branly Museum, and I disliked it even though others disagree though this hasn’t been transferred into an overall dismissal of Nouvel on my part. There is a balcony which almost utilizes the view but really doesn’t that you get to using the hallway that isn’t big enough for anything but an architectural statement.
8. Tour Montparnasse. Pompidieu is lucky he got his name on Renzo Piano’s art museum rather than this other legacy of his presidency. If this had won over Parisians upon construction there would be more skyscrapers in the city center. Look at it that way, but try not to look at it. Admission charged.
PERE LACHAISE
You have to take the initiative to Metro out there but it is an unmatched graveyard experience. If you have had enough after Montparnasse then save it for another visit, but there’s plenty of names to merit your pilgrimage and it opens at 8 when other stuff is closed.
Getting off the Père Lachaise Metro, enter at the NW of the cemetery where Ouest becomes Peupliers and Seurat awaits you to the right. Take a left at Allantes.and continue to its end til it becomes Thuyas at the middle of a fork. Just past Thuyas is Delacroix on the left. Go down Thuyas and Balzac will be on your left. Take a right at Transversale 2 and Proust will be on your left. Transversale takes you to the Columbarium, but first take a right on Nouvelle Entree and make your way back from the footpath to Apollinaire’s grave which is delightfully handwritten. The Columbarium includes Max Ernst, Isadora Duncan and Maria Callas and a Paul Landowski sculpture in the basement.
After the Columbarium, make your way east to Circulaire, then head south to find Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas right before Pacthod. At the end of Circulaire is the Mur de Fédérés, where 147 communards were lined up and shot right after the fall of the Commune, after they had been cornered here from the center of the city.
Another area I call your attention to is av. de la Chapelle just south of St-Marys, where Gericault has a sculpture of himself reclining on a relief of the Raft of the Medusa. Given the choice I’d rather see the painting but this is neat if you’re there. Then take that left to the south where Dore, Corot, Daumier, and Moliere are on your left. Don’t see Poulenc unless you’re cool with the police presence around that rock singer, what’s his name -- best to skip it altogether.
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The main bit of advice regarding Versailles is to bring food and definitely have the museum pass in hand, because you don’t want to wait in line to get in. Food for before and after or else wait in line at McDonald’s. Tour guides charge a lot and then have to discourage freeloaders from joining the tour, some talk softly but some can’t help themselves. If you’re not sure whether to go, you don’t have to go. The novelty of the place is the scale of the building and grounds rather than the architecture itself, and you should see it once, but the whole thing sort of makes me sick. There’s one David canvas of Napoleon.
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I stayed once at the Gare d’Est area which is fun and cheap and has a lot of Turkish and Egyptian eateries which can make you forget you’re in Paris. One inexpensive walk that shakes the tourists is to eat at the Passage Brady and then stroll and sit by the Canal St. Martin, or reverse order in the morning. Turkish places here are atmospheric counters with great coffee and lots of fresh, free bread sitting out, so you go here to stuff your face in the morning or for a gyro later.
Passage Brady is a good place to fill up on Indian food, sort of like 6th Street in the Lower East Side but more interesting in that it’s a passageway with no traffic and there are doormen that, like 6th, try to coerce you to go to their restaurant. They’re not annoying and you may find the attention amusing especially after that waiter kid at the café ignored you for a half hour. The food is solid and very cheap for Paris, not great but a full, flavorful meal in the midst of a passage-wide price war.
