Saint Séverin and Saint Julien le Pauvre

I'd read about a couple of very old churches on the Left Bank, Saint Séverin and Saint Julien le Pauvre, so we headed over on a cold but sunny December morning. We started at Place du Châtelet, a place that's very dear to us because it's right where we stayed in the summer of 2010 when we came to Paris for the first time with the kids.

Place du Châtelet is a square built under Napoleon III. The square is named after the Grand Châtelet, an ancient fortress (destroyed under Napoleon I) that was located there and guarded the northern end of the Pont au Change. In the center there's a beautiful fountain decorated with sphinxes and a tall column that was erected to celebrate Napoleon I's victories. At the top of the column is a gilded figure of the goddess Victory holding a laurel wreath in each hand.

Next to this square is Tour Saint Jacques, which is all that remains of the 16th century Church of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie, which, like many churches in Paris, was desecrated and looted during the French Revolution (this one was completely destroyed). The ancient church and its tower welcomed pilgrims headed to the major pilgrimage destination of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Crossing the Seine at this point always offers a great view of the Conciergerie, a former royal palace initially known as Palais de la Cité, the seat of the medieval kings of France, and much later a prison during the bloody Reign of Terror (where many were held before going to the guillotine, including the infamous Marie Antoinette).

The square tower on the left is the Tour de l'Horloge, or Clock Tower, which received the first public clock in Paris in 1370. In the center, the twin round towers used to command the entrance to the royal palace. The tower on the right, the Bonbec ("good beak") Tower, obtained its name from the "robust" way of interrogation that was practiced there, in which victims were encouraged to "sing." The Concierge, or keeper of the royal palace, gave the place its eventual name.

Just a bit downriver is the north span of the Pont Neuf, and further west the dome of the Invalides and the Eiffel Tower appear in the background.

Saint Séverin is located on the crowded Rue Saint Séverin, so crowded that there's no room to take a good picture. It's one of the oldest churches that remains standing on the Left Bank, built and rebuilt in stages since the 6th century on the site of an old oratory built over the tomb of Saint Severin, a hermit who spent much of his life praying and meditating, and who influenced many Parisians to become his disciples and live a life of piety and humility, among them Clodoald—the Merovingian prince son of Clodomir and grandson of Clovis I, King of the Franks—who renounced all claims to the throne and lived as a studious hermit, and eventually became Saint Cloud.

The church was destroyed in the 11th century by the Vikings, and in the 13th century the bell tower and the first three bays of the nave were rebuilt and the rest in the second half of the 15th century. One of its bells, cast in 1421, is today the oldest in Paris. Saint Séverin is also known for its unique palm tree-shaped pillar in the ambulatory and its crazy gargoyles.

Just down the street is Saint Julien le Pauvre, one of the city's oldest religious buildings. It was built in stages from the 12th to the 19th centuries, and in 1889 was granted to the Eastern Catholic Melkite community. Not sure what those orange palm trees across the street were about, but they sure looked awkward in the middle of December.

Saint Julien le Pauvre does not look like your typical Paris church and is quite a contrast with its imposing neighbor just across the Seine, Notre Dame de Paris, which next year celebrates its 850th anniversary and will get a new set of bells.

Saint Julien shares a city block with the Square René Viviani, home of the oldest tree in Paris, a locust tree planted in 1601.

Just off Square René Viviani is Shakespeare and Company, an English-language bookstore George Whitman, an American, opened in 1951 as Le Mistral. Whitman later changed his store's name to Shakespeare and Company in tribute to the original Shakespeare and Company, another English-language bookstore opened by Sylvia Beach in 1919. Many writers and artists of the "Lost Generation," such as Hemingway, Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein, spent a lot of time there; James Joyce used it as his office. Beach initially published Joyce's book Ulysses in 1922, which was banned in the US and in the UK. 

The original store closed in 1940, during the German occupation. The new store still operates as a bookstore and a reading library, and is frequented by Anglo tourists (and will be even more, since it was featured in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris).

Many of our walks end up in neighborhood restaurants, of which there a million in Paris. This is one of the things I love about this city, that you don't have to think about where to eat because no matter where you are you'll find a nice café, bistrot, or brasserie. And despite being an expensive city, you can have a low-budget lunch if you go with an item on the menu of the day. After our walk we had lunch at Peres & Filles, a quaint restaurant on Rue de Seine we had read about on someone else's blog, which we loved and look forward to going back to.

And on the way to our metro station we stopped for a picture at Le Procope, the famous cafe and brasserie founded in 1686 and called the oldest restaurant of Paris. It was the meeting place of the intellectual establishment throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, like Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac, and Victor Hugo, as well as the U.S. founding fathers Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Winter is here

We had a beautiful and warm fall, but winter had definitely arrived. There's a sense of melancholy and stillness in Paris in winter, yet with so much to see we follow our common impulse to get out and walk. Walking is a way of life here.

We'd read that besides the one on Champs Elysees, there were many more Christmas markets in Paris, at La Defense, Trocadero, Hotel de Ville, Saint Germain des Pres, Saint Sulpice, so one day we decided to go see two that were close to each other.

First we went to the one in Place Saint Sulpice, which wasn't there. But it gave us an excuse to see the church of Saint Sulpice, with its mismatched towers, and the beautiful Fountain of the Four Bishops.

Quite a contrast with some pictures of the church and the fountain that we had taken in early October and hadn't published.

From there we went to see the market in Place Saint Germain des Pres, by the old church, and fortunately that market was there. It was nice to see so many people out on a cold Sunday. Some of the merchants were offering what looked like handcrafted products, such as embroidered little bags, soaps, hats and mittens, jewelry and little jewelry boxes, and table runners, which made nice Christmas presents for the kids' teachers. Of course there were also the hot wine stands and the crêpes, that wonderful French invention, which certainly warmed our tummies.

We decided to head toward the Hotel de Ville, so we started walking down Rue Bonaparte towards the Seine. Halfway down Rue Bonaparte we took the narrow Rue Visconti, which showcases some of those slightly inclined old buildings.

We then took Rue de Seine, ending up at the Pont des Arts, a favorite among locals and tourists. Built originally in 1804, it was the first metal bridge in Paris. Its wooden deck is for pedestrians only, and on the railings couples used to place locks, presumably so their love remained locked forever. As more and more people did this, the weight of the locks started causing structural damage so in 2015 the city of Paris removed the "love locks" and replaced the railings with glass panels.

The Pont des Arts bridge offers a great view of the Pont Neuf (the New Bridge), even when the day is this grey. The Pont Neuf, which consists of two separate spans, is currently the oldest bridge in Paris. It was inaugurated in 1607 under the reign of Henry IV and was the newest bridge at the time, hence its name. The false bastions, which give the Pont Neuf a fortified look, actually were balconies fitted on each of the columns that were used as boutiques by merchants and artisans. The boutiques disappeared in the mid-1800s.

At one end of the Pont des Arts is the Institut de France, home of the Academie Française, with its imposing cupola in the background and the Bibliothèque Mazarine in the foreground (initially this was the personal library of Cardinal Mazarin, who succeeded Cardinal Richelieu as chief minister of France under Louis XIII and XIV). At the other end is the "old Louvre," the palace built to replace the old medieval fortress of King Philip Augustus. to which subsequent wings and pavilions were added to extend the Palace to what it is today.

After crossing the Pont des Arts we headed to the eastern façade of the Louvre, famous for Perrault’s Colonnade, with its 52 columns overlooking the Place du Louvre and, across the street, the church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois and its distinctive bell tower. Way back when the Louvre was the royal palace, Saint Germain l'Auxerrois was its church. During the infamous Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, the church bells rang to signal the beginning of the slaughter of French Huguenots who were in the city for the wedding of the King Charles IX's sister Margaret to the protestant King Henry III of Navarre (future King Henry IV of France).

It was nice to see this side of the Louvre, since we rarely come this way (the main entrance to the museum is on the opposite end). By then it started raining and we had to cut our walk short and look for cover and lunch in the nearest café, where we enjoyed our first cassoulet of the season.

O Christmas Tree

Last month we were wondering how and where people in Paris got their Christmas trees. Well, now we know: they magically start popping up all over town, including in front of our local grocery store. So today we went en masse and got our Sapin de Noël and then we merrily hauled it back home.

And Dianny was smart enough to bring a few lights and decorations from Seattle, so we got home and decorated our tree. We were done in like 5 minutes.

Letter to Santa

The other day Daniela was doing some writing in her bedroom. Occasionally she would poke her head out of the room to ask me how to spell this or that word in French. When she was done she showed me what she did: her letter to Santa, which I'm proud to say she wrote in French all by herself.

When I read the word "fillette," I pronounced it "fee-let" (as in filet mignon), but she corrected me: fillette (fee-yet), which means little girl.

Les Halles

Paris Walks is a company in Paris that does walking tours in English. They have a special arrangement with the school's parent association and every month we get invited to a tour of a specially designated area of Paris. We were able to join November's walk around Les Halles on a beautiful day and we got to see some interesting places that are otherwise easy to miss.

Les Halles is nowadays known for the Forum des Halles and the underground shopping mall and train station, but for years—centuries—it was the traditional central market of Paris.

Due to severe circulation and hygiene problems, in the 1850s the entire neighborhood was demolished and a new market was built. The black and white picture below, "Les Halles de Baltard" (© Roger Henrard, 1955), shows the ten massive iron and glass Baltard pavilions (halls)—the first buildings in France to display their metalwork—for which Les Halles became known for. This was the Les Halles that's brilliantly described in Emile Zola's The Belly of Paris.

In 1971 the market was relocated to the suburbs and subsequently the pavilions were torn down, giving way to the modern Forum des Halles, which was so ugly it was recently demolished and rebuilt.

The tour started with a walk down Rue Etienne Marcel to see the Tour Jean Sans Peur, a little tower built in 1409 by John the Fearless, the Duke of Burgundy, as an extension of the mansion (which is no longer there) and where he installed his bedroom. Contrary to his name, he was a bit paranoid.

We then went back down the narrow Rue Tiquetonne, where at #10 still remains the L'Arbre à Liège (the Cork Tree) sign, one of the few preserved medieval store signs.

We crossed Rue Saint Denis and looking south got a glimpse of the spires of the medieval church of Saint Leu and Saint Gilles. Saint Denis is one of the oldest streets in Paris; its route was laid out in the 1st century by the Romans. Today it's known for its sex shops and sex workers.

We took the Passage du Bourg l’Abbé, and then the Passage du Grand Cerf, a pretty glass-roofed arcade that was built in the 1820s. Today these passages are home to small shops and ateliers, many of them small designers selling original jewelry or housewares, but they're not what they used to be.

From there we walked down Rue Greneta till we hit Rue Montorgueil. On the corner is Au Rocher de Cancale, founded in 1804 and very famous in the 19th century for its oysters and frequented by Honoré de Balzac. Indeed, this is where some of the characters of Balzac’s The Human Comedy paraded.

We then strolled down rue Montorgueil, a fashionable pedestrian street with old-fashioned bistrots that used to serve onion soup to the market employees and now is filled with upscale vendors, such as Stohrer, which opened in 1730 and is Paris' oldest (and possibly priciest) patisserie. Allegedly, Nicolas Stohrer, the original owner, invented the dessert Rum Baba (or Baba au Rhum), which you find on many menus in Paris. The shop is beautiful, with elaborate wall and crown mouldings, frescoes, and a chandelier in the interior, and is now classified as a historical site, but it's the pastries inside that are worth the trip.

Other stores on the street sell traditional foods, fish, produce, cooking equipment, and so on.

We ended up in beautiful Saint Eustache church, which was adjacent to the original market and is the only building from that era that remains. The church is relatively short in length, which may be why it seems so tall inside. It was built between 1532 and 1640 and because of its proximity to the Louvre and Tuileries palaces was where many kings and notables worshipped, had their funeral, or were buried. Louis XIV's first communion was in St. Eustache. And the organ, with 8000 pipes, is supposed to be the largest in France.

Impossible to miss are the tomb of Colbert, Louis XIV's famous Minister of Finances, which is a work of art, and "The departure of the fruit and vegetable market from the heart of Paris," a cartoon-like artwork done by Raymond Mason to mark the day the merchants left Les Halles.