Montorgueil (3)

Leaving Rue Montorgueil, there is much more to find round the corner, e.g. some very narrow streets, some other nice shops and restaurants... See especially the surprising cork-tree. There are different stories about the reason for this tree here, the simplest one is probably that there used to be a cork manufactory here. I would however especially like to draw the attention to some covered pedestrian passages. There are some 25 similar pedestrian passages in Paris. I have already posted about Passage Vendome, Prado, Jouffroy, Panoramas and Brady. Here we can find two other ones.

The first one is today quite modest and has no shops any more, but some interesting workshops. It’s called Passage Bourg l’Abbé and dates from 1828. The nice architecture is still there, you can find some old shops signs – which don’t describe the present activities – and a beautiful clock and barometer. The second one is called Passage du Grand Cerf. It dates from about 1830. Previously this was the place for a restaurant with the same name (Big Stag) which until the Revolution was the departure and arrival point of mail-coaches of the “Messageries Royales”, destroyed in 1825. This is the highest of all Parisian passages (some 12 metres = 40 ft) and you can find some surprising shop signs. It has been renovated the last decades and you can today find some nice shops, although it’s not the most visited one of the Paris pedestrian passages. ... but it’s a beauty for the eyes!

Some of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.

Montorgueil (2)

I’m coming back to Rue Montorgueil. Among a lot of nice shops and restaurants there are a few that are worth a special mention!

The pastry shop "Stohrer" was founded in 1730 by a retired “pâtissier” at the court of Versailles. Nicolas Stohrer invented, among other nice and sweet things to eat, the (at least in France) famous “Baba”, a brioche soaked in Malaga wine and filled with “crème pâtissière”. Stohrer is also the creator of the version “Baba au Rhum”. I guess that also the “Puits d’Amour” (Well of Love) is worth mentioning among his inventions. The original recipes are still made here, but there are also some more newly invented ones. Some 30 bakers are employed! The present decoration dates from 1864 and is executed by one of the decorators of Opéra Garnier (Paul Baudry). The shop is beautiful and is now classified as a historical monument. You can also note the ornament above the side entry gate! There is a very nice looking restaurant (which I have not tried), “L’Escargot” (The Snail) which dates from 1832. Their specialty is as the name indicates snails in different forms. Many celebrities have been dining here, including Sarah Bernhardt and part of the interior decoration comes from her home. At last I would like to mention “Au Rocher de Cancale” (The Rock of Cancale), knowing that Cancale is in Brittany; in former days this used to be the major street for oysters and other sea food. You can see the façade on the top photo. It may be interesting to know that during the 19th century the average yearly consumption of oysters among the adult population in Paris is estimated to something like 25 dozens! Oysters normally did not even appear on the menu, they were just some kind of cocktail snacks. Consider then also that oysters could then not be transported during the warmer months (the months without “r”)!

The restaurant moved here from a across the street in 1846 and the name of it is mentioned by Balzac (who was one of its customers) in his “Comédie Humaine”. The interior of the restaurant has some wall paintings by Paul Gavarni. (In the meantime, the present restaurant has been used for other activities and unfortunately part of the original decoration was destroyed… but a lot remains.)

Some of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.

Montorgueil (1)

(I mentioned in a preceding message that my PC seemed to give up, making some “funny” noise. I managed to buy a new one and to get it more or less functioning, so after all I made my Monday post!)

In some of my previous posts about e.g. Rue Saint Denis and Rue Réaumur we have already been very close to what is called the area of Montorgueil. There are several things to see around here, but let’s start with the street from which the area has got its name. Rue Montorgueil is one of the older Paris streets (13th century), has had different names before it got its present name during the 17th century; the name in English would actually be Mount Pride Street or something similar - it was the way to a rather lousy area which was called Mount Pride (Mont Orgeuilleux) by mockery.

You can join this street e.g. from les Halles, the old food centre of Paris, transformed to an underground shopping and cinema centre, maybe not the best one in Paris, but there are plans for rebuilding and modernising.

Rue Montorgueil is basically pedestrian and has today become very fashionable. Most of the buildings are old and so are also many of the shops, bars and restaurants. I will revert to some specific shops and restaurants and also tome side streets and covered pedestrian passages in one or two future posts; today we will just have a general look on the street and I also show a few examples of some old fashioned shop and restaurant facades and signs.Please note that the street is busy during the day, but very (too?) calm late evening.

Some of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.

Grands Boulevards (3)

Time for the last part of the Grand Boulevards, including the Boulevards des Italiens, des Capucines and de la Madeleine. (See maps on previous posts.)

This boulevard changed name several times, but the present name comes from the “Opéra Italienne”, now called the “Opéra Comique”, a theatre created at the end of the 18th century and mostly used for lighter type of operas, operettas… From the boulevard you only see the back side of this theatre.

In the upper part of Boulevard des Italiens you find some bank buildings, including the headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais (LCL). The building, enormous when it was built at the end of the 19th century, was seriously damaged by fire in 1996, but restored. Among other things you can admire the clock on the façade.Another building here, today also occupied by a bank, called Maison Dorée (the Golden Building) housed during the second half of the 18th century the most exclusive and expensive Paris restaurant, visited by kings and all kinds of prominent personalities. Here was also held the last impressionist exposition in 1886 (for the first one see further down) and the first “art nouveau” exhibition in 1895.

At the end of Boulevard des Italiens and the beginning of Boulevard des Capucines, you will find a concentration of cinemas and restaurants, including one of the typical Paris brassieres which remain open all year, 7/7, 24/24, Le Grand Café des Capucines, opened in 1875. Do you feel for some nice oysters at 5 p.m. or 5 a.m.?To continue on Boulevard des Capucines we will first cross the Place de L’Opéra with a view of Opéra Garnier to the right and Rue de la Paix and Place Vendôme to the left. We will find the Grand Hôtel with Café de la Paix.Further down Boulevard Boulevard Capucines, at no. 14, downstairs, in 1895, the Lumière brothers made their first paying audience to what can be considered as the debut of the cinema and shortly later Roentgen demonstrated his invention of X-rays.

At no. 35, in 1874, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Morisot, Degas, Monet… organised their own exhibition with few visitors. The Monet painting “Impressions…” gave the name to the movement “Impressionism”.

Close to here you have also the oldest, still existing, and most famous music hall in Paris, Olympia, opened in 1889 by a Mr. Oller, who also created Moulin Rouge. Among the performers here: Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Gilbert Bécaud, Amalia Rodrigues, Céline Dion, Judy Garland, Led Zeppelin, Petula Clark, Luciano Pavarotti, Dionne Warwick, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Jackson 5…

We have now reached the end of the Grands Boulevards and, after a short walk on Boulevard de la Madeleine, we will find the Madeleine Church with a view of Rue Royale and Place de la Concorde.

The impressionists made several paintings around the boulevards. Here you can see a Renoir from Boulevard des Italiens and a Monet from Boulevard des Capucines.

Happy walk during the weekend! See you Monday!

As usual, you will find some of these pictures on my photo blog.

Grands Boulevards (2)

Let’s continue the walk along the Grands Boulevards, this time from Place de la République about half way to the end point, the Madeleine Church. We will follow the boulevards St. Martin, St. Denis, Bonne Nouvelle, Poissonière and Montmartre. (You can find maps on the previous posts.)

First I would like to show some normal street views, day and night. We are now approaching the part of the boulevards that still today offer some real nightlife with theatres, cinemas, restaurants…A few facades were there already when the boulevards were opened after 1670.There are a number of theatres along these boulevards, most of them from the 19th century. Sarah Bernhardt played and directed as well at Théatre de la Renaissance as at Théatre de la Porte Saint Martin (the middle top photo), where also Edmond Rostand presented the Cyrano de Bergerac. At the as a historic monument classified Théatre des Variétés (the photo to the right) a number of Offenbach’s comic operas were performed for the first time.I have already referred to the perhaps most famous Paris - and Europe’s biggest - cinema, Rex, inaugurated in 1932 as some kind of “Radio City Hall”. The main theatre can house some 2800 people and is not only used for films, but often for concerts.Along our walk we will also see two Arches of Triumph, Saint Martin and Saint Denis, both built under the reign and to the glory of Louis XIV. They were then on the border of Paris, on the way you then entered Paris from the north via rue Saint Denis (see post January 3) or rue Saint Martin. There are some nice and typical Paris streets to the right and to the left of the boulevards…… and you can also find some interesting pedestrian passageways:

Passage Prado, opened already in 1785, but covered only in 1925. Today it houses a number of Indian, Pakistani and Afro type of shops, hairdressing salons, a hotel… Passage Jouffroy, neighbour to our Mme Tussauds (Musée Grévin), created in 1847, with more fashionable shops, hotels…Passage des Panoramas, the most elegant of the three, in its present shape there since 1834 with some very old shops, restaurants…and neighbour to Théatre des Variétés, meaning that it was especially in fashion during the glorious Offenbach years (see above).Pissarro made a number of paintings from a hotel room at Boulevard Montmartre.

One small curiosity: When I looked closer on the photo of the street sign of Boulevard St. Martin, I noted a number of bullet impacts, obviously quite fresh, not yet rusty!

And tomorrow we make the last part of the Grands Boulevards.

Some of the above pictures can be found on my photo blog.

Rue Saint Denis

Rue Saint Denis is normally not part of the immediate family tourist attractions in Paris. It always had, and still has, a reputation related to prostitution and linked activities. The last decades it has also been a street full of sex shops, but all this seems now to be declining and there are a lot of more “normal” activities.

It’s one of Paris’ oldest streets, already traced by the Romans. It used to be the main road in direction of Rouen and Normandy and on the way of course also to the Royal Abbey of St.Denis and its basilica where almost all French kings are buried, as from Clovis (511).

It started to take the form of a street with houses and churches during the 12th century. It used also to be the official road of entry to Paris of new kings (and road of exit of deceased kings) and also of royal visitors. An Arch of Triumph was added during the 17th century. Queen Victoria was the last royal visitor to make her official entry under this Arch (in 1855), which actually served as a model for the Arch of Triumph at Place de l’Etoile.

From the Google map, you can see where to find the street, which starts at Chatelet and ends at the Arch. It is surrounded by some remarkable places to visit like the Place des Innocents, which used to be a cemetary, and the Centre Beaubourg (Pompidou). I will revert with posts about these places soon.

To “prove” the long existence of the street I added a few old maps, the first one from 1525, the second one from 1705 and the third (in relief, the famous Turgot map) from 1734.The street has different shop arcade openings, more or less fashionable. If you look behind the facades you can, especially in the northern part, also see some quite old court yards today to a large extent occupied by clothing manufacturers and wholesalers.There are some old interesting buildings and some interesting facade decorations.The street is now to a large extent pedestrian, full of bars and restaurants, and the night life, especially in the southern part of the street, is very active.
There is a famous Monet painting from Rue St. Denis (1878).

You can find the large sized pictures on my photo blog.

Along Rue Réaumur (2)

Here comes the second part of our strolling along Rue Réaumur, leaving the 3rd arrondissement for the 2nd.

The buildings here mostly date from the very last years of the 19th century. The architects seem to have been allowed some more freedom than what you usually find with the pure Haussmannian style. Several of the buildings have partly a metallic structure. You can sometimes find a touch of Art Nouveau.

Several newspapers used to have their headquarters in this area, some on this street. Most newspapers are now in the suburbs.

No. 100 previously housed “France Soir”, which used to have an important circulation of some 2 million, but today has left the premises (now “just offices”) and has become a very insignificant newspaper. Originally, the building was occupied by an other newspaper called ”L’Intransigeant” (still visible on the entrance hall mosaic) and for a few years after WW II by the during the war clandestine “Combat” (with names as JP Sartre, Albert Camus, André Malraux..).

Another important newspaper, Le Parisien (Liberé) occupied no. 124 as from the end of WW II until the 70’s. (This newspaper belongs to the same group which organises Tour de France and also owns the sports newspaper “L’Equipe”.)

Along the street you will also find a different type of metro entrance, Le Sentier, which you access via a building. Even the metro sign is here different from the today used one, which is the one you see here. In the surrounding streets you will find a concentration of textile and clothing manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers.

You also cross the charming Rue Montorgeuil, a pedestrian market street.

Rue Réaumur ends (changes name) when we reach the Paris Stock Exchange (la Bourse), which also goes under the name of Palais Brogniart. It dates from the beginning of the 18th century.

Some small details:

- When I took these photos last week, it was quite cold. You can see how even the pigeons were freezing and searched warm air from the underneath metro.

- There is an obvious lack of decent apartments for the less fortunate Paris population. Just opposite to the Stock Exchange, there was an occupation / demonstration ongoing. … in the meantime I continue painting. Sorry, for still being rather absent as blogger.

You can find most of these photos on my photo blog.