Paris - Left Bank?
Steve
walk from St Germain des Pres? Good area to stay? Hotel Lindbergh (5
rue Chomel) is available - just checking to see if this would be a
good spot...
Thanks!
...Steve
Doug Holaday
Steve wrote
>Anyone familiar with the area around rue de Babylone, about a 3 minute
>walk from St Germain des Pres? Good area to stay? Hotel Lindbergh (5
>rue Chomel) is available - just checking to see if this would be a
>good spot...
This is a very good spot. You're just off Blvd. Raspail. St. Germain is
close as you say, Bvld. St Michel , Jardin Luxembourg are all well within
easy walking distance, and the central attractions on the Right Bank (Notre
Dame, the Louvre etc.) are all accessible by foot unless you have mobility
problems.
Note to Steve and everyone else: the link for IsMap-Paris at
http://gofrance.miningco.com/msubmaps.htm
gives you an interactive map of Paris, where you just enter an address and
you get a neighborhood map. Very easy to see where your hotel or restaurant
or whatever is.
Doug Holaday
France for Visitors
http://gofrance.miningco.com
Jack
>Anyone familiar with the area around rue de Babylone, about a 3 minute
>walk from St Germain des Pres? Good area to stay? Hotel Lindbergh (5
>rue Chomel) is available - just checking to see if this would be a
>good spot...
>
>Thanks!
>
>...Steve
>
>st...@advocate.net
The area around the rue de Babylone is very animated during the day.
You're at the border of the 7th and 6th arrondissemnt. Many good
restaurants, shopping is no problem and my walks pass a lot through
this section.
I copy here an excerpt about the 6th arr nearest to the rue Babylone,
to be continued in my web site.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
On to the musee Zadkine. One of my favorite museums, unfortunately
unknown to most tourists. But the real lovers of sculpture will find
it. Quite small, human sized. An interesting novelty: panels with
information in Braille are available for the non-seeing people, who
will have the opportunity to touch certain works of the artist. At the
end of a blind alley, you are welcomed by a forest of sculptures.
Ideal setting for meditation and serene contemplation.
Zadkine, from Russian origin, came to Paris in 1909. Influenced by
cubism, he threw away all conventions of the figurative while
expressing a painful sensibility in his works. He worked on wood,
bronze and stone.
Look at his "Pieta" of 1956. Restlessly he slashed, twisted, emptied
the forms to dramatize them even more without ever making them
abstract. For me his strongest works you see here are: the plaster for
the monument of Van Gogh ( for Auvers-sur-Oise), "Les Trois Belles"
model of rhythm and harmony, "La Ville Detruite" ( A City destroyed)
which he made for Rotterdam, superb " Femme à l'Eventail" and busts
in Brancusi and Modigliani style.
The rue du Cherche-Midi starts at the carrefour Croix-Rouge and is an
ancient Roman road, called Chemin de Vaugirard in the 14th century.
Elegant hotels with private courtyards. Nice facades at no.18, 19. At
the angle of Boulevard Raspail, homage to Francois Mauriac. At no.40
splendid hotel of 1710 of Rochambeau, victor of the battle of Yorktown
( American Independence War). In 1784 the French section of the
Cincinnati Society, war veterans of th Indep.War, was founded. At
no.44 l'Abbe Gregoire died in 1831, emancipator of the Jews and
Blacks during the Revolution. He founded also the Academie des Arts et
Metiers. At no.58 nice court with statue. At the corner of the rue de
'l'Abbe Gregoire is the hotel Laennec ( inventor of the
stethoscope!!). At no.72 and 86 also nice courtyards , gardens and
fountains. At no.85 hotel de Petit Montmorency, now the musee Hebert,
a French painter. One of the typical small Parisian museums with a
private collection of a painter. Great Italy lover, most of his work
depicts that country and his landscapes. At no.89 , hotel of the same
epoch, which housed Madame Sans-Gene, a mistress of Napoleon. Inside
an elegant staircase , iron ramp and statue of Napoleon. Today it's
the Mali embassy.
To finish our St.Germain trip, a few anecdotes about the famous hotel
Lutetia , 45 Boulevard Raspail. The hotel is fabulous. Certain
sculptures on the facade are from Paul Belmondo ( father of Jean Paul
Belmondo). It was Alexandra David Neel's hotel returning from her
oriental trips. General de gaulle and his wife had their honeymoon
there. During WWII the hotel was requisitioned by the German
army.Hence the owner walled the caves with the best wines in until
the day a German officer found an old menu where excellent vintages
were proposed!! Third degree for the whole hotel staff to find out
where this treasure was hidden......no one talked! In 1945 the Lutetia
was a reception center for the concentration camp deportees, the rooms
transformed into infirmaries. Lists on the sidewalk gave relatives the
opportunity to find their beloved ( or not)
Today the Lutetia became again a splendid 4 star hotel, completely
renovated.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
The same for an excerpt of my posts about the 7t arrondissemnts
nearest to the rue Babylone.
For the amateurs of religious happenings, there is something special
at 140, rue du Bac." The Chapel of the Miraculous Medal" . According
to tradition, it's there that the Virgin appeared to a nun, sainte
Catherine Laboure, on Nov 27 1830, giving her the task to coin a medal
who would protect the people. Since then , the chapel is always full.
You have tot see at the service of 12.30 pm, the whole panel of the
area population and visitors! Interesting chapel decoration. In 2
shrines, the corpses of sainte Catherine and sainte Louise, founders
of the Girls of Charity. In the courtyard, a curiosity! An automatic
distributor of rosaries and medals!! You insert 3 pieces of 5 FR. as
for a vulgar chewing-gum...
People come from over the whole world to make a provision of
miraculous medals and, for that price, you obtain from 3 to 30 medals
guaranteed consecrated and holy and of which the drawing was
personally indicated to sainte Catherine by the Virgin herself: a "M"
surmounted by a cross, 2 hearts of which one is surrounded by thorns,
the other split by a sword. A plus to all that: the medals are also
effective if you forgot to ask the graces. What better could you dream
of? To obtain the medals, it's between 9 am - 12am and 3 pm- 6 pm
( from 10 am on Sundays)
At the corner of the rue du Bac and the rue de Sevres, stands the Bon
Marche building. It was the first department store of the capital. The
metallic structure is from Gustave Eiffel ( remember him?) The
founder, M.Boucicaut, invented the free entrance without obligation to
buy, the visible price tags and the principle of exchange and money
back guarantee. This was an absolute revolution in the trade customs
of that time. Until a few years ago, on the first floor, there was
still a " cassock" department for the priests. In fact, a walk in the
public park just in front of the store is, in my opinion, more
interesting. Indeed, an enormous statue represents Madame Boucicaut
( symbol of charity and kindness! ) "feeding the poor"!
And now to the rue de Grenelle, 59-61 the Musee Maillol, famous French
sculptor.This museum is the result of the extraordinary passion of
Dina Vierny for the arts and Maillol in particular. Being the
preferred model of the great sculptor ( as well as for Matisse, Dufy,
Bonnard, etc...) she will lead a fierce battle for 30 years to create
this museum. One of the lesser known but how fascinating! First, the
spot: a superb hotel particulier ornated by the Fontaine des Quatre
Saisons by Bouchardon. Then, the wealth of the presented collections.
Maillol, of course, with his " Monumentales" on the ground floor, but
also Marcel Duchamp ( admirable Boite en valise and La Mariee),
Russians with strong works as Oscar Rabin( the Passport), Vladimir
Yankilevski.
On the first floor: set in beautiful wooden paneling, nudes from
Maillol in charcoal, pastels, sanguines, little bronzes, a Pierre
Bonnard, small Gauguin, Renoir, Odilon Redon, Maurice Denis.
Second floor: more oils on canvas, tapestries, big bronzes and
terracottas. In another wooden paneled hall, a richly endowed drawing
cabinet: Picasso, Ingres, Foujita, Cezanne, Valadon... And in other
galleries, Pougny, Poliakoff, Kandinsky.
And in the basement, to have a light lunch, a cute cafeteria in blonde
stone, of harmonious proportions. Plat du jour, salads, sandwiches,
quiches, pastries and ice-creams. You can access the cafeteria without
paying the entrance to the museum, just tell it to the reception.
To resume, an absolutely exceptional museum, to visit with the same
enthusiasm that animated Dina Vierny all her life!
Suite at web site http://www.worldtable.com/Jack/Paris/Paris.toc.html
Jack
Loire,Provence, Cote d'azur,Languedoc-Roussillon,Belgium and Dublin
posts are now available on http://home.earthlink.net/~primos/
My Paris, Ile -de-France and Languedoc-Roussillon posts on
http://www.worldtable.com/Jack/Paris/Paris.toc.html
General URL address http://www.worldtable.com/Jack/guides.html
Keith Serry
location (as the other posters have indicated) and the owner is Canadian
(she speaks english if you're stuck).
Just one warning, there is a resto. just next door to the hotel (don't ask
me the name, I've forgotten) they have a whole pile of stickers indicating
that they were "mentioné en" this guide and that . . . DO NOT EAT THERE. I
had a langoustine at that restaurant -- thankfully on the last night of my
trip -- that had me sick on the plane and bedridden for four days.
Otherwise have a great trip.
K
Steve <st...@advocate.net> wrote in article
<36d589aa...@news.uswest.net>...
piper
...a great deal.
Jack, you really seem to know everything about Paris. You're
extraordinary! :-)
Michael
To reply by email, please eliminate "NOSPAM" from my address. Personal messages only! If you send a commercial solicitation, I will boycott the product.
Darren
>>Anyone familiar with the area around rue de Babylone, about a 3 minute
>>walk from St Germain des Pres? Good area to stay? Hotel Lindbergh (5
>>rue Chomel) is available - just checking to see if this would be a
>>good spot...
One of my favorite spots in Paris is the 7th.
piper
wrote:
>One of my favorite spots in Paris is the 7th.
I stayed in a small, inexpensive hotel on the Rue du Gros Caillou off
of the Boulevard (?) du Grenelle and close to Avenue de la Bourdonnais
in the summers of 1992 and '93. The 7ieme is a beautiful, quiet
residential area. I enjoyed eating breakfast on the Champ du Mars, and
there is a lovely brownstone on Ave. de la Bourdonnais dated 1727 or
something, with glass on the doors in the shape of faces. The Dome des
Invalides is one of my favorite buildings in Paris, and it's nearby.
The biggest drawback to the 7ieme is precisely that it's a quiet,
residential area. There's no nightlife other than a quiet walk with a
loved one you brought along on the trip, and if you want to do
anything late at night, forget it, because the Metro stops running
around 1 A.M.
For these reasons, I resolve to stay in a more happening neighborhood
like the area around the Place de la Bastille next time, whenever that
is.
Also, note that the 7ieme contains the Eiffel Tower, so it's easy to
find expensive, mediocre food in the area and harder to find cheap,
good food. I did have a marvelous meal on Rue St. Dominique on the
last day I was in Paris in 1993 for 108 FF, however. I think it may
have even been called the Cafe St. Dominique, but I'm not sure. It's
on a little place, about 1 block from the western end of Rue St.
Dominique on the south side of the street. A small fountain is on the
place, and to the south, one can walk, but access to vehicles is cut
off. Anyway, that was 6 years ago, so maybe the restaurant is no good
now. :-)