We arrived in Paris on Monday, October 23, and took a taxi to our not-so-excellent rental flat on the Boulevard le Hopital. It's very centrally located: across the street from the Gare de Austerlitz (train, bus and Metro station), a short block from a McDonalds (free wireless Internet!, but toilettes are not impeccably clean), two blocks from a supermarket, and within 100 feet of two bakeries, a drug store, and just above a charming (and expensive) bistro.
Then on the other hard, it isn't called Boulevard le Hopital for nothing. We're centrally located also two blocks from a busy hospital and just behind the police station. And the Metro line at the Gare de Austerlitz is one of the few that has an above ground track. The flat has no air conditioning or fan and the two windows face the busy street. In a very unseasonably warm October, that means we get the city sounds of traffic, busses, pedestrians, ambulance and police car sirens, and the regular Metro arrivals wafting into our lives both day and night.
But it's also a fun and lively area.
Here's Karen near our rented apt, in front of the "Recycled Monster" in Jardins des Plantes, and Jim by a Dinosaur outside Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle - both quite literally just a block away.
On Tuesday (Jim's birthday), we met Tanya, our flat-hunting agent, to look at our first apartment. It was in the 17th arrondissement near where Tanya lives.
125 rue Legendre, with a For Sale sign in the window, just above a used clothing store and across the street from a 1950's record store (that's a picture of Gene Vincent in the left window, and Sun Records are by Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley.)
The rest of the building. Rue Legendre is a quiet, single lane, one-way street.
Actually, we then looked at six more flats in other areas of Paris before we came back to revisit this one - which we liked originally and still liked best six flats later. There were nice things about each of the other areas and each of the other flats, but none combined such a good layout, a nice quality building and such a special neighborhood. And all of the others were priced higher than this one!
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| The view across the street. | A small bookstore next door. |
The Batignolles neighborhood is very diverse and friendly. Lots of young people with children and an atmosphere of vitality that we found appealing. Walking back down rue Legendre to Avenue de Clichy, you can get a sense of the district.
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rue Legendre looking from the corner of Avenue de Clichy.
The arrow is pointing to our flat.
Pet shop on Legendre near Clichy (unfortunately, they do not offer two month rentals on wildlife).
Now for the flat.
It is on the first etage, which is what we would call the second floor. There is a small elevator (like a very small closet), that can barely fit the two of us. There are six etages, each with two apartments. When you reach the 1st etage, our door is just to the right of the elevator door.
The layout of the flat is in a "star" pattern. That is, all of the rooms radiate from the entrance-way - a design that does not waste much space. Since the building was constructed circa 1890, the flats are generally small (VERY small by comparison to American standards). It's about 540 square feet, so space must be utilized efficiently. Plumbing, electricity, windows are all upgraded.
When you walk through the door of the flat, there are two rooms directly to the left. In the picture, one of the bedrooms is on left, the living room on right. Above the doors you can see lots of French comic albums. Jim was immediately impressed by that (Love at second sight!).
The window faces rue Legendre. That's Daniel, the totally bored son of our agent Tanya, playing his little computer game. Each of the three major rooms has a fireplace with an elegant mirror above it.Towards the window on the left wall is a doorway into the left (bed)room.
To the right of the
fireplace are floor-to-ceiling bookcases which come with the flat.
All of the rooms have wonderful appointments like the crown molding
and the plaster decorations on the ceilings. There is a charm
about the place that none of the other properties we visited had.
The current owners are a young couple that are moving to a larger and newer flat in two months. He collects comic books.
Well, it really isn't listed as a "bedroom" by the real estate people, but it will certainly suffice for us. The fireplace is on the lefthand wall just to the left of the door. This window is the one with the "For Sale" sign seen in the "Love at First Sight" picture above. The far right picture is looking into the 2nd bedroom from the living room doorway near the windows. I guess we will have to install a real door to make the room into something with some privacy.
French bathrooms are generally
quite small, with the wc (toilet) in a separate (even smaller)
room.
The door to this bathroom is directly across from the door
into the flat. There's a combination washer/dryer installed with
shelving and some cabinets just out of sight to the right of the
shelves. The shower is really pretty modern (as are most of the
important appointments in the flat).
Turn right from the front door and you are looking down a short hallway to the wc and the kitchen. The bedroom is to the immediate left of this picture. The barely visible door down the hall to the right is the wc.
The stove is one of those glass-top thingies I guess I'll learn to love. It is hidden by the refrigerator (the big cow-thing in the foreground that is one of the few appliances they want to take with them - only Jeri could relate to that!). Storage accessible to short people will have to be designed and installed. Perhaps a smaller fridge would accomplish a lot. At right is the view into the courtyard from the kitchen window. (Scuttling back into the far doorway is a very startled and suspicious future neighbor who was unnerved to see a bearded face behind a camera poking out of a normally unthreatening window across the way.)
The bedroom is small compared to what we're used to, but it is easily large enough for a king-size bed. It has no closets, but that also is fairly typical of Parisian apartments until very recently. An armoire would be necessary and there is enough space for one - albeit not much more. There are some cupboards and one of them could be used for hanging some clothes, but not many.
Looking through the door you can
see the ubiquitous fireplace, the armoire, a few cupboards and
the other window into the courtyard.
As you can see to
the right, there is actually a TREE visible from somewhere in
the flat. One occasionally needs to see some greenery, right,
Jaime? As long as you don't have to eat it.
