The Hotel de Ville, the main Paris city hall continues to be the most beautiful building in Paris, my opinion. It's difficult to photograph because from the front, it is very, very wide. To get it all in, most detail is lost. This year it is decked out in bunting and some very ugly trucks are installing a large flagpole in front of one side. Gives me the perfect opportunity to shoot only part of it.
All those statues still fascinate me. Never, ever again would such a building be built. It is a 19th century value, never to be repeated. It took 19 years to be completed...we don't to that these days.
Here is a closeup of just two of the 338. The upper tier has been sandblasted, the lower waits its turn.
Paris was occupied by the Germans in WW2. The history is interesting. When it became inevitable they were coming, work needed to be done. Art treasures to be removed & hidden. The citizens took down every street sign. Paris is hard enough to get around with the signs (anyone walking the back streets can testify) but all is fair in war.
After D-Day, the end of the occupation was also inevitable. As the Allies got closer, the resistance started an uprising. 1,500 French fighters died. There are monuments scattered all over Paris to those who died in the skirmishes.
OK, enough background. What I'm about to tell you is pure speculation on my part. You can judge for yourself. This statue is around the corner on the Rue de Rivoli side. Note the pock marks made some time ago. My guess is they are bullet holes from the battles inside Paris leading up to the liberation.
In Jerusalem you can see pock-marked buildings from the 1948 & 1967 wars. That's why this is familiar to me.
OK, major change of topic.
Would it be fair to say that the most succinct translation of the first menu item would be "horseburger with fries & a salad"?
Speaking of food, yesterday for lunch Susanne & I wanted something light, cold & crisp. So we stopped at one of those Asian takeaway/eat-in places & just bought (by the 100gm) from left, cabbage salad, shrimp salad with bean sprouts, & a fruit salad. Total cost with the drink: 8.18 euros, just under $11.00. Ditch the drink & opt for carafe d'eau (as a lady nearby did) & the cost drops to $8.20.
I have been craving pho but there is currently a dearth of Vietnamese places in Paris. Strange, given the history of Viet Nam. I mean, lots of Indonesian places in Amsterdam. I'd easily trade away some of the numerous Subway franchises for a phew pho joints.
For dinner, we headed to Madam Tan's Korean hibachi place. We were hungry, the food came in courses (always very good), LSS...no photos.
Housekeeping Note:
Comments to the blog are always welcome, BUT you can only make comments & see other comments at the blog website. If you have an email subscription, no comments possible.Back to our regular programming.
We went to Place d'Aligre to find Susanne's friend Rachid. We saw him talking to a group of friend, didn't want to disturb him do we did some browsing in the flea market. By the time we looked back, he was gone. One of the men wearing a hat was still there so we approached him, knowing he wouldn't speak a word of English. We asked in French where is Rachid, he pointed vaguely in a direction while out came a torrent of French.LSS, we found Rachid's brother...I forgot his name.
Brother is on the left. But we still couldn't quite get across what we wanted. The young man in the middle had the misfortune of strolling by so we corralled him into the conversation. His English was just enough to get by. It turns out Rachid is not working this week but returns next week. We asked brother to tell Rachid we'll be back next week.
We then remembered Rachid's son Salim works at a fruit/vegetable stand in the market building.
In we went & there he was. We caught up, his grandparents Zina & Ali are well, we understood. Behind Salim is the owner "le patron", also Salim. A very nice man, we chatted with him last year but he was busy today.
Very close to Marche d'Aligre is a wine bar, Le Baron Rouge (aka "Snoopy's Nemesis"). It has high ratings in all the food blogs.
The main features are small glasses of wine (10cl for 2 to 3 euros) and snack plates. It was lunch time so what the hell.
Here's a plate of sausages, pate, & cornichons...a nutritional travesty but we ARE in Paris. Only one glass of wine (a Muscadet) cuz Susanne said wine at lunch makes her sleepy. That is until she tasted it. LSS, we had a 2nd glass. The carafe d'eau was chilled, the patron drew it from a tap that was next to the beer taps.
The wine was fresh because a new bottle was opened.
Sitting at our table & gazing towards the bar this is what we see. The lady on the left is a customer. Talking to her is the bartender, very nice, very friendly of course. And two customers.
I have more but this is probably enough for one post.
No comments:
Post a Comment