{"id":230,"date":"2007-10-31T11:39:50","date_gmt":"2007-10-31T19:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2007\/10\/getting-to-know-some-places-of-paris\/"},"modified":"2007-11-01T11:26:01","modified_gmt":"2007-11-01T19:26:01","slug":"getting-to-know-some-places-of-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2007\/10\/getting-to-know-some-places-of-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting to know some places<\/em> of Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

A place<\/em> in Paris is a pedestrian walking area, like a\u00c2\u00a0square or large patio. Sometimes a place <\/em>is hard to get to, such as the Place Charles de Gaulle<\/em> at the Arc de Triomphe,<\/em> which you enter and exit through an underground passage.\u00c2\u00a0France’s Tombe du soldat inconnu<\/em> (Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) contains the remains of a soldier from the First World War. This memorial with an eternal flame is right under the arch. Faded floral arrangements are taken away and new floral arrangements are placed here every day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

A place<\/em> can have benches, or not. A fountain and sculpture, or not. What all the places <\/em>have in common is a respite from the motorcycles, buses, cars, and bicycles. Or not. Some places<\/em> become congested with parked vehicles.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Place Colette<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0is on my walking route to the Louvre. It boasts the most fanciful metro entry I’ve seen in Paris (shown below left), fashioned after, perhaps, the crown jewels displayed at the Louvre. This place<\/em> also has an entry into my favorite Parisian garden:\u00c2\u00a0Le Jardin du le Palais Royale<\/em> (Garden of the Royal Palace, seen below right). Totally blocked from motorcycles and car traffic, this large rectangle is a perfect getaway on a sunny day.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

Place Sartre-Beauvoir<\/em> is\u00c2\u00a0on Boulevard\u00c2\u00a0St.-Germain-des-Pres and Rue St. Benoit. This intersection is where you’ll find Les Deux Magots <\/em>and Cafe de Flore<\/em>, two\u00c2\u00a0cafes where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir did some writing (they’re shown in the photograph below) and a lot of talking and drinking. Jean-Paul Sartre was an existentialist, famous for writing Being and Nothingness<\/em> and Nausea<\/em>. De Beauvoir is best known\u00c2\u00a0for her feminist tract The Second Sex<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

The Place Franz Lizst<\/em> is disappointing.\u00c2\u00a0This small Right Bank square has only an overgrown hedge and could have been so much more to honor this musician. A bust, a piano score,\u00c2\u00a0or a stone piano would have been lovely.\u00c2\u00a0Lizst played the organ in\u00c2\u00a0my neighborhood church, St. Eustace.<\/p>\n

Place de la Concorde<\/em> (Place of Harmony) is home to a giant white Ferris wheel,\u00c2\u00a0a gold-topped\u00c2\u00a0obelisk from Luxor, a plaque commemorating the\u00c2\u00a0guillotine beheadings during the Revolution, and two outlandish fountains. One guide described this place <\/em>as “the most beautiful\u00c2\u00a0square in Paris,” although its windswept pavement and lack of\u00c2\u00a0trees\u00c2\u00a0make it just a large and open paved plain.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Place St. Michel <\/em>(images below) is\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0crowded\u00c2\u00a0meeting place for hippies, students, and revolutionaries. The place<\/em>‘s original granite cobblestones were replaced with large, impossible-to-dig-up pavers after the 1968 student riots when cobbles were\u00c2\u00a0the weapon of choice.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

The Place de Parvis de Notre-Dame <\/em>is one of the busiest in Paris. Tourists from around the world stand, gape, and take pictures here in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral. For me, however, walking around the cathedral is a much more satisfying experience, especially the southside gardens on a sunny day. If you’re really lucky, however, it will start\u00c2\u00a0raining, and you’ll get to see water streaming from the mouths of the gargoyles. A name change to Parvis Notre-place John Paul II<\/em> was adopted in 2006, although demonstrators protested the change (with 50 arrests) and the change has been\u00c2\u00a0a hard sell.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

The place<\/em> in front of Notre-Dame also contains Kilometre Zero<\/em> (shown below), the road medallion indicating the Parisian geographical center from which all distances outward are measured.<\/p>\n

\"Kilometre<\/a><\/p>\n

The Place Vendome<\/em> is unique in that only jewelry stores, perfumeries, design houses,\u00c2\u00a0and expensive hotels are allowed to operate around its square. The Ritz Hotel, the hotel where Princess Diana spent her last night on earth, is\u00c2\u00a0on Place Vendome<\/em>. In the middle of this square is a giant column (shown twice below), modeled after Trajan’s Column in Rome. The propaganda is that the column was made from all the cannons melted down from armies defeated at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805.\u00c2\u00a0Napoleon is\u00c2\u00a0standing on top. This statue is the second<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0one of Napoleon, since the first statue of him was pulled down in 1871.\u00c2\u00a0 Place Vend\u00c3\u00b4me<\/em> is also a 1998 French film directed by Nicole Garcia and starring Catherine Deneuve.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \"La<\/a><\/p>\n

La Place Dauphine<\/em> is next to the Pont Neuf. Although all sand and gravel, several interesting restaurants and tiny hotels face this out-of-the-way square.\u00c2\u00a0One owner had hung\u00c2\u00a0lap blankets in different colors over the back of each outside\u00c2\u00a0chair.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of my\u00c2\u00a0favorite quiet places<\/em> in Paris is Square Barye <\/em>at the eastern tip of the Seine island\u00c2\u00a0Ile St. Louis. This little park is named after the sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye (see\u00c2\u00a0the book cover below featuring his artwork). The park is hidden and tranquil (below right). Perfect after you’ve spent time in other noisy places<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A place in Paris is a pedestrian walking area, like a\u00c2\u00a0square or large patio. Sometimes a place is hard to get to, such as the Place Charles de Gaulle at the Arc de Triomphe, which you enter and exit through an underground passage.\u00c2\u00a0France’s Tombe du soldat inconnu (Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) contains the remains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}