Today started out with a walk to Notre Dame Cathedral. Of course, we couldn’t go in, since it is still very heavily under renovation, but the display outside was well worth it.
It’s an astonishing feat of project management, to say the least: organizing stone masons, conservators, carpenters, even aerial workers who rappel up and down as they work on saving and restoring the stones, gargoyles, carvings, organ and other myriad pieces of the cathedral. Truly a magnificent effort that they aim to finish in 2024. We’ll see.
We walked along the Seine, with another view of Notre Dame swathed in scaffolding,
stopping at the memorial to those deported from Vichy France to the camps. Most of it is underground, and it’s quite moving.
Across the Seine we found an elegant little cafe, almost deserted at 11 a.m., where we had expensive orange juice, tea and a croissant. We strolled by the bouquinistes and on to Shakespeare & Company, the English language bookstore founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, frequented by every writer you’ve ever heard of. It’s now so popular that they actually limit the number of people who can be inside at the same time.
We browsed about and came back with little souvenirs, including this Jerome K Jerome that I’ve never read!
And they offered to stamp the book, too, which was ridiculous but makes a great souvenir:
We stopped by Ste Chappelle to check out the lines (still long) and realized that the Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette was jailed, was right next door with immediate entry, so we went on in. They are using technology to show you what the building would have looked like back then, so as you move your tablet around, you see fires flickering, view the uncomfortable beds, and hear people walking by. Not entirely successful, but interesting. It turns out Marie was there for only a few months, while thousands of other people spent more time there, so they sort of downplay her presence. But look at this striking Gothic ceiling!
Dinner tonight was back in the Montorgueil neighborhood, with its rows of restaurants, food stores and wine shops. We had another good dinner – mine was salmon and green beans, which does not in any way convey how delicious it was.
BUT after dinner, we came home to sounds of breaking glass, police sirens, trash burning in the streets, and other signs that the people are not happy about the change in retirement age from 62 to 64 (which seems ridiculously generous to many Americans but has enraged the French). We had seen lines of police cars with flashing blue lights as we came home from the museum, but it was not until after dinner that we heard the sounds of breaking glass, the sirens going up and down, and saw the trash smoldering in the street.
Luckily we are on a narrow street with shops on the bottom floors and apartments above, so we can feel safe above the fray. Several waves of protestors (though only scattered groups of three or four) came through for about an hour, with a few neighbors hauling trash cans inside and admonishing them. As of now, 9:00, things on our street seem to have quieted down, though there are still random sounds of breaking glass and motorcycles revving their engines. We still feel very safe in our apartment on the third floor and hope that things will quiet down for good soon!
Here’s a short video of the “social action” at this link:
Caroline's Garden and Travel Record 