Ceramic facade

Walking along the Boulevard St. Germain - from places I showed on my most recent posts (including maps) -, heading for the church Saint-Germain-des- Prés, (or Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots or whatever) I would suggest that you stop at the small garden or ancient church yard, just behind the church, and have a look at this spectacular ceramic façade which covers the gable of an adjacent building – very few people seem to pay attention.

I had great difficulties to find any information about it, but it seems that it was originally part of the Sèvres Pavillion during the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris and later put here. Why here, I don’t know, possibly that we are close to the Rue de Sèvres, which leads to Sévres and the Sèvres Manufacture? I even found the names of the creators (Charles Risier and Jules Courtan), but nothing about them. I think that this “monument” would be worth some more attention!

Let’s remember that the 1900 Universal Exhibition somehow was an “art nouveau” exhibition and that the Pont Alexandre III bridge (see my post of June 7, 2007), the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, the Gare de Lyon, the Gare d’Orsay (now the Orsay Museum) and many other buildings were created for this occasion. (Most of the pavilions were of course considered as temporary and disappeared after the exhibition.) During this Exhibition, the first metros started to run. … and the second Olympic Games took place in Paris.

(A few of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.)

Before closing for today, I wanted to show you some further spring progress in “my” park, although the weekend weather could have been better.

The weather was anyhow good enough to allow Paloma and Mattias to have some outdoor fun in the Jardin du Ranélagh.


My new “toy” is fairly new on the market and draws some attention to it!

Addendum:

Thanks to Maxime we have answers to my questions above:

Charles Risler was a Parisian architect who also designed the pavilion for the department store "Au Printemps" for the same Universal Exhibition.

Jules Félix Coutan has made several sculptures around Paris which can be found e.g. at the Palais de Justice ("La Clémence"), Opéra Comique ("Cariatides"), the National Library ("La Calligraphie"), the Bir-Hakeim Bridge ("La Science", "Le Travail"). One of his monumental works ("Les Chasseurs d'Aigles") can be found at the Orsay Museum. (You can se the Bir-Hakeim sculptures on one of my previous posts.)

Jardin du Ranelagh (3)

This is the last “chapter” referring to the Jardin du Ranelagh and La Muette. (It will be a bit long, but I wished to finish.)

I already mentioned that what remained of the old royal castle was destroyed in the beginning of the 20th century. The heirs (the family Franqueville) sold the land in different parcels and the area became full of bourgois apartment buildings and also, facing the park, a number of private residences. Some of these residences – “hotels particuliers” - are still occupied as private homes, some as embassy residences. This is one of the most expensive areas of Paris.
On part of what was sold from the old castle area, Henri de Rothschild, built a new castle, a new Château de La Muette, ready in 1922. Rothschild was an active person in many fields; he financed Pierre and Marie Curie, also wrote plays and novels under the name of André Pascal and gave a lot of elegant dinners and receptions here, until he was forced to move out due to the beginning of World War II. In 1940 the building became the headquarters for the German Naval Command and in 1945 the headquarters of the Allied Powers. In 1948 Rothschild sold the property to OEEC which originally was created to administer the Marshall Plan and later became OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) which still resides here. Thirty countries which are supposed to accept democracy and a free market economy are represented by delegations led by an ambassador. Important renovation work of the castle has been ongoing the last years, including also annexes (for a staff of about 2500).

Some of the buildings are older and were already neighbours to the royal garden. One of them, later owned by the family Marmottan, was in 1932 donated to the French State and became a museum, Le Musée Marmottan. . Different donations by e.g. the heirs of a major sponsor of the impressionists (their doctor) and by one of Claude Monet’s sons have contributed to make this museum to the world’s richest in Monet paintings.
It’s also here that you will find the perhaps most famous one, the one that gave the name to the impressionist movement, “Impression Soleil Levant”. (See my post mentioning the first impressionist exhibition - Grands Boulevards 3). You can also find a large number of works by Manet, Morisot, Renoir, Sisley, Degas, Pissarro… . The museum which too often is neglected has also one of the world’s most outstanding collections of illuminated manuscripts from the 12th to the 16th centuries as well a great collection of furniture, statues and paintings from the Napoleonic period.

Together with Paloma, I passed by the park again yesterday. The weather was much warmer than during my previous visit and a lot more kids were playing. A few of the pictures used in the three posts about the Jardin du Ranelagh can be found on my photo blog.

Aquarium visit

I picked up Paloma (For possible first time visitors; my grand-daughter.) at her school (kindergarten) today and we went to the newly reopened aquarium at Trocadéro.

It’s not an enormous aquarium, but it has the advantage of being centrally located and you can find some 15000 sea animals, 500 different species in 43 basins. Inside there are some cafés, some small cinemas (for nature or sea related films), a place for concerts, a playground for kids…We had a very nice afternoon together!

Sunday afternoon...

Today I had the intention – and had yesterday started to prepare - a post on the Grands Boulevards, as promised. However, I decided to make a short break and first report on my Sunday.

We decided after lunch to meet with children and grandchildren in front of the Grand (Ferris) Wheel which was temporarily installed on Place de la Concorde, just in front of the Tuileries Gardens, a couple of weeks before Christmas. It will be dismantled today, as well as – quite late – the Christmas decorations on the Champs Elysées. We had first a walk in the Tuileries Gardens. Both Paloma (now five years) and Mattias (now 16 months) were happy to be able to walk and run around freely. After a warm chocolate (and coffee for me), and the daylight disappearing, we decided to make a tour on the wheel. This gave me the opportunity to take a photo of the Champs Elysées in the opposite direction, compared to the one I recently took from the Arch of Triumph. When leaving the family, starting to walk, I stopped at the Madeleine Church (five minutes from Place de la Concorde), as I was surprised by a small demonstration with banners and torches organised in honour of the poor King Louis XVI, who was guillotined on Place de la Concorde 215 years ago (January 21st, 1793). There are still some fervent royalists around! Some of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.

Tomorrow we will start the walk along the Grands Boulevards… promised!

Break for Christmas

I believe I will now make a break again. I’m a bit annoyed with my network connection, but there are also some other priorities the next couple of days. Before receiving family on Christmas Eve and visiting family on Christmas Day, I have still some final shopping to do (illustrated by the below pictures), some preparation of my flat, some…… , actually quite a lot.

I will try to be back with a post or two before the end of the year, but I take the opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas (God Jul, Hyvää Joulua, Joyeux Noël, Feliz Navidad, Frohe Weihnachten, 圣诞快乐, Buon Natale…)!!!

Also on behalf of Paloma who prepared the Christmas card!

Paloma - again!

Paloma. Not my granddaughter this time; the bird in “my” park which I discovered some two months ago. I think she starts to like being pictured. She followed me yesterday until I took her portrait with my new camera. Then she left. See you again soon Paloma!

Around Place de la Bastille - bis

Referring to “Around Place de la Bastille”, I actually went back to la Bastille end last week for a rather surprising walk together with my son, his wife and my two grandchildren.

Where you today can find the new Paris opera house, Opéra Bastille, used to be a railway station, Gare de la Bastille, for trains heading east, the Strasbourg line. The last – steam engined - train left the station in 1969 and it was demolished in 1984.






Where there used to be rails, there is now a green, park like, promenade, some 4,5 km (3 miles) eastwards. At the end you reach the green area Bois de Vincennes. This creation has clearly created added value to the surrounding quarters (including the price for a flat).

To start with you walk on a viaduct; the underneath 72 arcades are today used for some quite fashionable shops, restaurants and cafés.My granddaughter Paloma took the lead and the rest of the family had to follow.She got fascinated by all the flowers and decided to have a closer look at most of them and of course ask for their names. (She did not learn very much due to lack of knowledge of her promenade partners.) Anyhow, we had a nice walk. To go back home, I took a municipal bike.

Palomas - again!

A nice start of the weekend. This morning, my granddaughter Paloma was singing wih her classmates and then the paloma in "my" park kindly posed for a photo! Now I will make a break until Monday. Nice weekend!

PALOMA

Is this a paloma, dove of peace, colombe? I’m not a bird expert, but I know that there are quite a few among the bloggers, so we will hopefully know. At least to me it looks like one! I saw it yesterday among some pigeons in “my” park.

Let’s here “forget” about this bird as a symbol for peace, its significance in religion etc., known by everybody.

La Paloma is also a song, which is supposed to have the world record of number of recordings, several thousands. You would possibly believe it’s a folk song, but it was composed around 1860 by a Spanish composer (Iradier or Yradier). By the way, George Bizet thought that another song by the same composer was also a folk song and used it as basis for his “Habanera” in Carmen.

Many artists have pictured “palomas”, but here I will just mention Picasso, who liked to represent “palomas” as an artist and was also the father of a Paloma.

My granddaughter is called Paloma. I believe I have already said this somewhere, but one reason for this name was that the whole big family saw the Almodovar film “Hable con ella” (“Talk to her”) a couple of weeks before Paloma’s birth and were extremely touched by the film and by Caetano Veloso’s performance of “Cucurrucu Paloma”.

Paloma

Yesterday Paloma, my granddaughter of 4 1/2 years, made a drawing, when I visited her and her parents.

Grandchildren

Once again a wonderful spring day, with visit by Paloma (4 years) and Mattias (7 months) - and their parents.