Paris Spring!

Our friends, Ami and Lena, were in Paris for a conference so we traveled on the Eurostar on 21 March, the first day of spring. We stayed in the Bibliotheque Quality Inn on the left bank in the Tolbiac, an old working class neighborhood that Francois Mitterand hoped to gentrify by building the  Bibliotheque de France, Site Francois Mitterrand (also known as TGB, Tres Grande Bibliotheque).

Most of the old buildings have been torn down so there are new amorphous skyscrapers everywhere, with the TGB looming over them.

The view from our hotel window with the TGB in the background behind the cranes.
The four buildings that make up the library look like open books

To get into the Library, you must first go up.
Friends say that on windy or rainy days, climbing the wooden stairs can be treacherous. 

And the handrails are on different sides forcing people
 to go back and forth to cling onto them.

Once on top of this huge space the size of 2 football fields, you have to find the entrance
and go down an escalator to a subterranean garden.

Here is the garden seen from the rooftop.
The reading rooms are downstairs.
But the books are stored in glass towers.
Wood panels had to be built to protect the books from sunlight!

No wonder this library is called a Francois Folly (there are others).

We were happy to see the Shillonys and we walked to have tea in a bar on the Seine.

It turned out to be the Red Bull! How Serendipitious is that! Our neighborhood pub in Cambridge is the Red Bull and we had memorable pub meals together there in 2006.

We crossed the Seine onto the Right Bank and Bercy neighborhood into a huge Park where grass was hibernating.

There were beautiful flora and wild life there.

 Of course, the best part was catching up with our friends.

Lena explained that this area, the Bercy, is where all the wine for Paris was once stored. Now they have turned these wine storage cellars into trendy shops and restaurants, a stroll-shop-and-spend-venue.

Looking through the park toward the wine storage.

Nice display of children's poetry and art when walking into Le Village Bercy.

The track in the middle shows how the wine came into Bercy from French winerys.

We enjoyed our dinner there!

And a stroll back across the Seine to our hotel

And breakfast together the next morning in our Hotel.

Lena and Ami had meetings so Kevin and  I took a long morning walk along the left bank.

Austerlitz Train Station

Along the Seine

Through a sculpture garden

Passing River Boats, even a Blues Cafe Barge 

Beautiful View of Notre Dame and Ile de la Cite

Not sure who these Saints are but I like them and the Gargoyles that surround them.

The Samaritaine Store is being restored. The faces are
all different and all interesting. The man on the horse is Henri IV who converted to Catholicism and wanted every Frenchman to have a chicken in the pot on Sundays!

A nice window and behind you can see the green box
where a bouquiniste sells  books on the quayside,  still not open as it is morning.

This gate allows a peep into a courtyard.

We had a delicious lunch here.

We watched as cameras filmed this young woman, perhaps an ad, maybe a film?

Here he is on a Paris wall!

We joined Ami and Lena at Cafe de Flore

Next door to Les Deux Magots

Lena picks up a copy of Le Monde

Nice Music

 Lena and Ami under Sartre and Beauvoir marker
 (Thinking about Kate's Thesis here) 

We walked along a beautiful old street of art galleries, maybe rue de Seine. My camera battery died so I could not take any more photos.) But we had a lovely dinner that night and breakfast the next day. Then au revoir to Lena and Ami....

Kevin and I walked across the Seine and found the Promenade Plantee, an elevated parkway developed in the 1980s on the old 19th century railroad line.

Under the Promenade Le Viaduc des Arts houses craft warehouses, boutiques, cafes, and restaurants.

 

While on top, the Promenade is three miles of landscaped pathways, gardens with lavender and daffodils, cherry trees, cobbled paths,  statues, arboretums....

Providing excellent views down and up

And all around--seeing Paris from different vantage points!

We returned to our hotel passing the Palais Omnisports and through the Parc de Bercy 

We collected our bags and took a taxi to Chez Michel near the Gare de Nord where we had a memorable, delicious, and expensive lunch with Sancerre wine.

Then back to UK, London, and Cambridge to Morrison House for supper.