Walking, Shopping and Rush Hour

On Monday, March 31, we rested. I don't think we even left the apartment all day. I began to do some work on the Paris website, otherwise we read and rested.

On Tuesday, we did a little shopping and a lot of html stuff. The pics I used of us eating lunch on our last email were taken this Tuesday on our way to the Marche Couvert des Batignolles, which is just down Rue Des Moines from Damiani. Here are a couple of shots of the market:

Here's Karen with our favorite vegetable seller (his stand is seen below), and at right is the man at La Caverne Fromagére. No pictures of the butcher, though there is one there that we like, also.

	We walked on down rue Des Moines to Rue des Batignolles to find Sur la Table, a cooking shop that Karen likes. We had plans to have osso bucco for dinner and she needed some tools. We took rue Legendre home, passing one of our frequented wine shops, Coté Cépage, though we didn't stop in. We had picked up a bottle of Chambolle-Musigny from Les Caprices del' Instant - so far our favorite wine shop - over by Bastille and we'd been dying to try it. The producer, Norm, was Ghislaine Barthod and she was highly regarded by the proprietor. Rightly so, as it was a very nice wine and lasted (with the air evacuated from the bottle) for several days. The osso bucco, by the by, was wonderful. The veal had been procured from one the several fine butchers on Avenue Saint Ouen near the Guy Moquet metro station. We had some smoked sausages and some paté from the same butcher and all were first rate.

Wednesday, April 2nd was crowded.

We decided to visit the Catacombs, at the Denfert-Rochereau metro station. The Denfert-Rochereau is one of the stations with the wonderful Art Nouveau entrances that simply scream "METRO" at you. It's very close to where our friend Florence Cestac lives, but we hadn't arranged a rendezvous. As it turned out, the Catacombs were "closed for repair." Perhaps someone had broken a bone? C'est la vie. What to do on such a nice day?

Well, it turns out that while we had taken our 13 Metro line to Montparnasse Bienvenue where we changed to the #6 line to get here, the other line serviced by the station was the #4 which went to Mabillon. And at Mabillon is our favorite Italian restaurant. So, at loose ends, we decided to have lunch. We actually did a bit of shopping first, since Oliviers & Co, a maker of excellent balsamic vinegar was along Blvd. Saint Germain. It took a bit of walking around the Latin Quarter, but we eventually (re)located it near the strangely named restaurant, Les Deux Magots - The Two Maggots. Don't ask us.

But all of the wandering around in search of vinegar DID serve to work up our appetites, so we hurried off to Rue Mabillon and lunch.

Here's Mimmo, our waiter, and the amazing brass oven where they make the pizzas.

And here we are with something OTHER than pizza for a change. I'm having the Fritto Misto and Karen's having Penne Basciola. I was so busy taking pictures that I forgot to take my beret off. How gauche, but then we were on the Rive Gauche, so why not?

Karen's knee, even with her custom brace, was giving out (not to mention the three glasses of wine she had with lunch), so from Mabillon it was the #10 line back to the Duroc and the #13 back home to La Fourche. That was enough for Karen, but for me, I think I was just getting my second wind (and I only had Badoit water with my lunch).

I like to walk in Paris and the last couple of days had been rather restricted in that regard, so I decided to take care of some "business." After dropping Karen off at home, I grabbed the very Parisian shopping cart and set off on a prolonged "adventure." First up, was the Passage Jouffroy... What looks like a small nook next to the Grevin Wax Museum is much more. Once you walk through the archway, you find yourself in a covered "mall" (for want of a word that can communicate more) with a skylight for a roof and a plethora of marvelous shops.

The Passage jogs up and to the left at the Hotel Chopin, which is at the rear in the picture to the right. As you go up the stairs, you're obliged to turn right almost immediately. At the corner is a pillar with a mirror, so you have this disorienting notion that you're running into yourself. It is just to the right at that corner where Librairie du Passage makes half of its home. The other half is in the initial passageway, but I needed to see the owner to try to make a deal for a couple of Mossa books.

However, I mentioned the variety of the merchandise in the Passage. Here are the windows of some of the shops I passed:

the large geodes in this display are nearly 3 FEET tall!

To make a long story short, Kinuko, I didn't get the deal (and the owner was pretty abrupt about it, too), but I did get your book! So now I can stop looking and you can stop worrying.

With my cart now a trifle heavier I went back to Bd Montmartre at the beginning of the Passage and began to walk. I had two more goals in mind. The first was a visit to Galler Chocolate, because our friend Jeri had sent us this LINK about six months ago. Since Ken Steacy and I had partaken of Galler Chocolate when we were in Belgium in the summer of 2007 (see photo above for the Brussles shop) and both we (and Karen and Joan) had pronounced it "tres bon," it only made sense to check out the Paris location. And I decided to get there on foot.

Here's the route I took and some scenes and streets along the way.

Here's the big arch where Bd. Bonne Nouvelle turns into Bd St. Denis for a couple of blocks - right about where the path from Passage Jouffroy jogs a degree or two as I was heading east.

Here's an imposing ediface along Boulevard de Sebastopol - the long south/southwest leg of the journey and a view of Centre Pompidou, which I passed when I again turned eastward on rue Rambuteau. And finally the Galler storefront at 15 rue du Blancs Manteaux. The total trip was only about two miles in a light drizzle, and I stopped once for a café, but it was just what I needed.

My final stop was The Red Wheelbarrow on rue St. Paul where I bought Karen some more reading material (three paperback books which cost 38 Euros - somebody could make a killing bringing cheap books to Paris!) and left four different issues of ImageS on consignment with Penelope, the owner. Then I did some quick grocery shopping (baguette, Orangina, and saveurs) and headed home - or tried to.

I grabbed the #1 Metro at St. Paul and took it to Champ-Elysées/Clemenceau where my efforts to transfer to the #13 were met with this:

A bit squashed, I did eventually make it home where Karen prepared some wonderful smoked sausages and paté to accompany my Orangina and tea. The fitting end to a perfect day in Paris-dise.