A day around Montmartre
On May 11, my friend K. and I went drawing around Montmartre.
The Abbesses Metro station. Yes, now I know that Abbesses is spelled with two “b”s! Two people already pointed out the mistake to me. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, as usual.
A quiet area of Montmartre near the Espace Dalí.
The Maison Rose in Montmartre.
Drawing at lunch in Montmartre.
We tried to have lunch but it was 3 pm, the kitchen was closed, and all we could get was a large slice of pear tart with chocolate crust and whipped cream. We suffered through it.
There it is, the obligatory symbol!
The Left Bank
On Sunday May 10, K. and E. and I had a slow breakfast (after we drew the goodies K. had bought). Unfortunately I was only allowed to eat watery rice, which annoyed me. I’m not in Paris to be on a diet, quite the opposite!
At midday K. and I finally made it out, rented bikes, and rode to Jardin du Luxembourg, which turned out to be closed for a private function. But we found a nice plaza “Place de la Sorbonne” and drew a church-like building which turned out to be part of the university of the Sorbonne. Then went to the Latin Quarter and bought some chocolates, then back to the Jardin which was still closed.
At Place de la Sorbonne.
Dragon at Fontaine St. Michel.
We gave up on the Jardin for the day and found a small cafe where we had some drinks and I consumed a French Onion soup in spite of my supposedly all-rice-and-bouillon diet.
We did another drawing of a cool building that took up a whole city block at Rue Dante and Rue Galande.
Then we walked home via both the Île de Paris and the Île St. Louis, admiring the Notre Dame, and enjoying the music that was everywhere. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny spring day in Paris.
Once at home, we were exhausted, and just sat down and added some colour to our drawings from the day.
K.’s drawing in progress of the Place de la Sorbonne. She’s a professional illustrator, check out her finished drawing at flickr.com/muffintante
I thought this looked like a good motif for a vertical drawing.
A sudden onslaught of people on roller skates. They zipped through like a summer storm, and as suddenly they were gone.
Nice rusty typography. Has this sign been here since the 13th century when the Sorbonne University started?
After a week with several fairly cold, rainy and chilly days, everyone is out at the Seine, soaking up the sun.
Graffiti on a traffic sign.
The uncautious dinner
The couscous restaurant.
My friend E. from Germany arrived on May 9!
On May 8, K. and I had a couscous and merguez dinner at this restaurant above, which I probably shouldn’t have done, but it was before my doctor visit on May 9, when I got the official order to only eat rice.
On May 9, after the doctor’s visit in the morning, I picked my Vélib city bike card at City Hall, since it was Saturday, and none of the district offices were open. There are also always holidays in France. I think that each week of the year must have a holiday, because May 1 and May 8 were holidays, and May 14 and May 24 are also holidays. So when Paris seems surprisingly quiet on a weekday, you can be sure it’s a jour de férié!
I immediately activated the Vélib card (it’s great, you just touch it to the receptor right next to the bike you want and it’s yours instantly!) and borrowed my first city bike of the year. I went riding around Paris, always an exhilarating experience. I think I don’t really take the traffic here seriously, because it’s not home. It’s a tourist paradise, and I feel cocky and immune when I’m on the bike. I like to zip through traffic and people.
A bit later in the afternoon I met up with my Berlin sketcher friend K. at the Printemps rooftop terrace and I also checked out the Galeries Lafayette terrace. Then I raced home by bike to meet another guest, 20-year-old E., the daughter of an old German friend, but it was hard to keep biking due to the narrow roads being full of cars and narrow sidewalks full of tourists. I gave up at some point, returned the bike and caught the metro to be home in time to meet E.
The view from the Printemps department store rooftop terrace.
Getting sick in Paris but not yet needing a cemetery
Drawing at Père Lachaise Cemetery with my sketching friend from Berlin.
My Berlin friend drawing at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Père Lachaise Cemetery.
The week of May 4, a lot of work came in for me, as well as my first visitor, and I was keeping my head down. It didn’t help that I got a GI bug early that week which lasted about 10 days. My friend got it too, so it must have been something we ate. It may have been a ripe cheese that he forgot to take out of his backpack after shopping. I had wondered why the living room was smelly.
I waited 4 days to see if it would pass on its own, but when I didn’t feel any better on day 5, I called S.O.S. Médecin, an emergency doctor service, and a doctor came in on a Saturday to make a house call. They still do that here in France. It was a bit strange. I had to lie down on my bed, while the doctor took my blood pressure, and patted my stomach. He was inordinately impressed with my blood pressure, by the way, but I have no idea why. I know it’s quite low. I asked him, resigned: “Je ne peux pas manger des croissants?” and he laughed. “Non, seulement riz et bouillon.” So I tried that for a couple of days to give my stomach a break, but snuck in some chocolate anyway. He also prescribed some medicine to slow down my système, and some pain killers for the stomach. I’ve never had anything like this for so long. Welcome to Paris.
I had to make do with longingly drawing my second visitor’s pastries but I abstained for about 2 or 3 days after the doctor gave me the stern advice, then I slowly began to feel better. I had planned to drink a half bottle of wine a day in Paris. Now I am far behind on my drinking regimen.
Definitely not sick enough to stay home.
There seemed to be a main street of bigger grave stones, and then the smaller ones in the side streets.
Flowers in resin, detail on a grave.
Detail in a grave monument. Everything here is pretty much left to rot, I am sure the bigger, fancier monuments get fixed up, but a lot of smaller ones are decaying, which is just as it should be.
A jungle of grave stones.
Drawing with a Paris meetup group
What I liked most about this museum were the display cases, beautifully crafted out of wood, glass and metal, and the way they were so precisely lined up in the rooms, creating strong lines of perspective to draw.
The museum had a lot of scientific instruments to measure stuff, and some early airplanes, and bicycles, and a Foucault’s Pendulum, which I promptly read up on Wikipedia. I had heard of it before, but couldn’t have explained what it was. Now I know a little bit.
I drew some objects that I didn’t really understand at all, still I thought they were beautiful. Sometimes I don’t really want to know how a thing works, I am happy to be ignorant, I just appreciate it for its aesthetic appeal.
On May 3, I went to the Musée des Arts et Métiers (that means something like “Museum of Arts and Industry”, I think) to join a meetup group called “So sketch — carnets de voyage” that I joined and drew with last year when I came to Paris. So I recognized at least one person, the organizer for this event.
After about two hours of touring the museum and sketching, we reconvened in the lobby and moved on to the very nice museum cafe to have a drink and talk more about sketching and what we are all doing in Paris. Out of the 7 or 8 people, there was probably only one French person present, but most of the other people live in Paris permanently.
Read MoreA long walk along the Seine
Even on a rainy day, you can still take your wedding photos along the Seine with the Notre Dame cathedral as a back drop. I did it slightly differently, Jeff and I got married in a 70-seat British Columbia pioneer church in a Salmon Arm outdoor museum, the RJ Haney Heritage Village & Museum.
The famous cathedral, it’s rather quiet around it on this day.
This photo of R.J. Haney Heritage Village & Museum is courtesy of TripAdvisor. This is where Jeff and I got married.
On Saturday, May 2, I had a late breakfast in small bistro near the Marché d’Aligre. It was so late that they were out of croissants, I had to make do with a chunk of baguette. That’s the problem with my Paris schedule, I work from about 6 pm to 2 am, go to bed around 3 am, and get up around 10 am. It’s not a schedule conducive to catching the freshly baked batches of morning croissants. But luckily, many bakeries continue baking them all morning until noon or even later. So one can often find them, even with a night shift schedule.
I then walked for five hours, almost to the Eiffel Tower and back. It was a rainy, drizzly, chilly, but somehow lovely day. I had the bank of the Seine almost to myself. I stopped for pastries at Eric Kayser behind the Musée d’Orsay and had beyond a doubt the best chocolate éclair of my life. (Did I mention I came to Paris in large part to eat?). I also popped into the Louvre (I love saying that) to apply for an annual professional pass to the Louvre, but no success. They said that my VCC faculty card with my photo had no validity date, which is true. So I will request a letter from human resources. Being an instructor in a fine arts field, I get the opportunity at a reduced rate pass.
I picked up more food at Marché d’Aligre on the way back, and after a day of eating and looking at great food, made myself an anti-climactic sandwich for dinner.
Still no drawing this day… but the banner at the top shows a view of the Seine on a later, much sunnier day.
Now walk with me through rainy Paris:
On a day like this, you can have Paris all to yourself.
There are boats moored along the Seine, some are tour boats, some are available for events, some house restaurants or bars. I found a good one later, when I went out with some Paris urban sketchers: Rosa Bonheur, near Pont Alexandre III. A casual floating bar to have some food and drink, with benches inside and no table service; you just walk up to the bar and get what you want.
Even groceries can look picturesque in Paris.
Narrow side walks, Parisian poodles, women wearing foulards.
A lot of people still smoke here, and this shop woman’s behaviour is clearly in direct contravention of the Vancouver Health By-Law restrictions that say “smoking is prohibited within 6 metres of an entryway, opening window or air intake of a building or within 6 metres of the perimeter of a customer service area.” Not in Paris.
You’d think this would be a shop window for a shoe-maker, right? Well, I’m not sure it was. That is the mystery of some Paris shops.
Taking a break at one of the excellent Eric Kayser bakeries that dot Paris. Did I mention how great the chocolate éclair was? I’ve never had anything like it. But then I’ve probably eaten less than ten chocolate éclairs in my whole life. It’s not really a thing with me. But this one was.
Read More
Turn left at the Louvre
Presque là!
The building where I'm staying.
I arrived in Paris on Friday, May 1. I am going to be here for two full months! I rented a 1-bedroom apartment on Airbnb, and invited all my friends to visit me. And many are coming.
After landing, I took the Air France bus from Charles de Gaulle airport, to avoid having to lug my suitcase off and on trains and metros. Everything went smoothly. I checked into my apartment at noon, then walked around the neighbourhood. I checked out the nearby daily farmers’ market, Marché d’Aligre, and got some groceries at a store. In Paris, there’s a grocery store, a cheese store, a butcher, a bakery, a wine merchant, a bar, a restaurant, a book store, a realtor, a falafel place, and at least one completely unidentifiable business in every block. Or so it seems.
Since I came mostly to consume things on the spot, I brought a small suitcase only. It has no room to bring much of anything back. I didn’t want to be tempted to buy stuff. Okay, maybe one pair of shoes.
No drawing yet. It was only my first day.
Marché d’Aligre, the famous street market in this neighbourhood. It runs every morning until 1:00 pm or even later, and longer on weekends.
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