Saturday, September 27, 2014

Well, I spent the first twelve days doing the main stations and I've left Saturday and Sunday to walk around the non-tourist spots of Paris.

The gutter has been streaming water all night. This used to occur on each side of each street for an hour at a time thirty-five years ago as the Algerian sweepers swept the dog-poo and cigarette butts into the gutters.

It looks to me as if a shopkeeper has swept the butts off the sidewalk in front of the shop.

The stream carried the muck into the sewers and then, I think, into the Seine. Who would want to live at Thun-le-Paradis?

Here I am in Gare De Bercy, just five minutes walk from the hotel. I must say I'm not impressed at all. Half-past nine on a Saturday morning and nothing. Rien de tout. (Nada, if you were thinking of travelling to Spain)

It's the same in all directions. Reminds me of the Leonhard Cohen song “Closing Time” “The place is deader 'n heaven on a Saturday night”.

Except this is Saturday morning and I am sane and sober.

In the distance a train is pulling into Gare de Lyon, as if Gare de Bercy has the plague!

I walk onto the outside platform and take a shot of the ends of the lines. Nothing happening here; it hardly looks like it would carry any important traffic.

I take a panoramic shot right across all six(? Eight?) platforms. Zip.

And it's not just that the trains haven't pulled up short.

There are no trains!

Air France went on strike the day I arrived, and ever since then every main-line train has been a teeming mass of Humanity. Yesterday's Le Monde would have reported massive increases in prices in hotels, and standing-room only on trains had the paper not been On Strike. Again. Still.

So where are all the passengers scurrying to get a seat?

Here are two of them. The guy in the distance has a suitcase on wheels. (It is illegal to walk anywhere within 100 metres of a station in Paris without trailing one of these ankle-chopping devices).

Although he might have decided to walk to where he wants to be. Me I'd walk to Gare De Lyon. They have real trains there: TGV!

The guy in the foreground is on his portable, so he might just be asking a friend where he can get a coffee; he sure can't buy one in Gare De Bercy this weekend!

I have found two more passengers, or perhaps they are wannabes.

Two minutes after I took this shot, the clerk at the far counter went home, I think. They close early on a Saturday at Gare De Bercy. He might have gone on strike.

Outside is hardly a hive of activity. Where are the buses? The Taxis? The parents with screaming bewildered children? The pickpockets?

I could pitch a tent here and live in peace for evermore.

With Air France on strike, its not as if everyone in a hurry has decided to skip the trains, either.

I might email this photo to La Presse; an aeroplane in the sky!

Well, there you have it. I hope that Hans knows all about this!

I switch back through my hotel room to re-evaluate my plans for the day.

I will walk down Daumesnil and catch the T3 tram and change trams to head to Port des Lilas; it won’t be a real exploration, but not once did I walk for an hour around my neighbourhood.

It dawns on me that the Tram is an express bus service. It doesn’t stop every hundred yards or so; it stops only at the Portes, in a manner of speaking. The seven-car units pass about every five or seven minutes, but they just gallop along their right of way from say, Porte d’Orleans to Porte de Vanves.

I change trams at Porte de Vincennes and hop off at Porte de Lilas, skipping the cafes and brasseries and starting the hike up Rue de Bellville. How come so many “strolls” start off with a hike up the highest hill in miles?!!

The Metro ride from Porte des Lilas to Place des Fetes is but two short hops on line 11, but it feels more like four long stops, what with the hill.

Turns out that Telegraphe is arguably the highest point in Paris, and the site of very early experiments in modern army signaling.

By asking directions I steer myself to Place des Fetes. I have bought a currant bun along the way, so I’m not famished, but I settle down in the Village Café, a place I did not once enter in the 1½ years of my stay in Mouzaia and passage by the Metro here

I treat myself to a lazy last Croque Monsieur with a bottle of water.

These “carafe d’eau” that I order are plain tap-water, and they arrive in a wine bottle of some sort. Frequently the bottle is a clear glass 26-ounce wine bottle, but sometimes it is Ricard Pastis bottle or other, and on some occasions it has been a delicately-hued real carafe.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is the absence of pin-ball machines. The noise was unwelcome, and it is an aspect of Parisian life I’d like to know about but haven’t made the opportunity to ask.

What happened to the pin-ball machines? Did they become uneconomic in terms of repairs? Was a law passed banning them?

After drifting around I take lines 7, 2 and 6 back to Dugommier and as I walk past the café Tournier at the station the waiter calls out hello to me; I am recognized.

I collect my laundry; the man asks shyly if THIS is my last visit. Yes it is, I tell him, I fly out Monday morning. He smiles and hands over my clothes in a promotional canvas bag, promoting not only the 12th arrondisement but also the street Rue de Reuilly. I am impressed and humbled. It seems to be a token, but a significant message of thanks for my business. This business has saved me perhaps €250 at its humble rates for washing shirts.

I continue walking up the street and as I walk past the green café the waiter calls out hello to me; I am recognized again. I stop to shake hands and say I’ll be in again tonight or tomorrow for another great meal. We are closed tomorrow. OK, I’ll be back in an hour or two. And I am.

It is a very nice steak frites, and I’ve reminded the waiter that I’m holiday and in no rush, so I get to read my newspaper and listen in to the conversations all around me.

Five or six tables at the back of the restaurant have four card-players each, and I ask the waiter the name of the game. He said, I think, “Tarot”, but I don’t think that they were predicting any futures except an evening of fun and drinks and food on a Saturday night.

On my way out I pause to take a shot of my favorite corner in Paris.

I hop on the Metro and ride to Liberte but instead of tackling the Bois de Vincennes I just skirt the edge of it.

There’s nothing I *have* to do today, nowhere I *have* to go.

The path is nice enough; shady on a hot day, but the undergrowth is very dry.

Here is the canopy of the tree whose base was shown in the previous photo. The tree is heat-stressed, hence the fallen leaves. It is not yet really autumn here.

This looks like the children’s wonderland mountain at Billy Butlin’s holiday camp at Filey in Yorkshire.

I’m walking along the boulevard towards the Tram stop at Port Doree and come across the long flat series of waterfalls.

The statue appears to be gold-plated.

I have got off the Tram at the end of its run and I will cross the street to get the northbound tram out of Porte de Vincennes.

In the meantime, here’s my previous tram, switching tracks to head back to Port du Garigliano.

I surreptitiously checked out the transfers on the doors. They adhere from the outside, resisting the impulse of bored passengers to chip away at the edges. Clever!

Here is my walk from Mairie de Lilas up Rue Belleville around Place des Fetes and back along Rue de Mouzaia to the metro Pre St Gervaise.

Walking up Rue de Belleville from Porte des Lilas, the car slogan says “Free as the air”.

We are plugged into kerbside recharging points.

There is a small market near Telegraphe.

And these, I think, are doggy-poo places, but I’m not sure. It was the wrong time of day to see dogs being walked in any number.

A little bit of the history of technology.

Remember back on Tuesday, September 16 we saw the power-hose washing posters off the walls? And we don’t see Algerians sweeping dog-poo into the gutters?

Nowadays a water truck trundles slowly up the street and a co-worker blasts debris into the gutter.

Doorway alcoves get a cleansing blast, too.

I am climbing, climbing, ...

And now I think I am at possibly the highest point in Paris Proper.

Here an old building is being demolished to make room for what?

An over-exposed shot of the spigot cavity that is used to spew water into the gutters to carry street debris into the Seine.

A piece of cloth or carpet lies ready to divert the water either down this hill, or down that hill.

I thought this was ingenious when I was here in ’78.

That is, after I stopped being horrified that “Some vandal has left the tap running”, coming as I did from the two driest states in Australia.

Look on the footpath just beyond the bicycle. Our friend has lifted and laid down two or three posts that inhibit parking so as to allow the removals truck access to the sidewalk.

Chez Moi encore!

These high-rise buildings were recognizable landmarks over thirty years ago. They are still so today.

They mark Place des Fetes.

From within the village café.

I watched the stalls beings set up for tomorrow’s market.

First a set of poles is dropped into iron sockets embedded into the square.

Next a set of poles with a hinged horizontal are dropped in.

The horizontals are hooked onto adjacent poles. Next a set of poles with two horizontals are dropped and hooked up.

Finally the roofing rolls are in place, in case it rains.

Supermarkets still sell booze.

A last long look up Mouzaia towards Rue des Lilas.

The café is on the right, my building is on the left.

Now just as Place des Fêtes has what is probably the highest escalators, Pre St Gervais has what is probably the most steps. And note that there we are on a short branch line of the Metro, and there are NO escalators or Elevators.

In the shot above I am about to descend the first flight of steps from street level.

After the landing partway, a second short flight of steps leads to the turnstile entry to the Metro proper.

After that, two long flights lead down to a landing. Note the chairs in case you need a bit of a rest on the way up.

Another two flights take you down to another set of chairs. This is a different flight; there is no garbage receptacle fitted next to these chairs!

Then its down another flight. I kid you not.

Then another flight.

And finally you reach platform level.

It makes the five steps out of College Subway into the food court seem quite trivial, doesn’t it?

So here I am waiting for the next little-train-that-could.

These trains are only three cars long; short compared to the regular 5-car Metro trains.

And here we are at Jaures, where I transferred each day to get to Courcelles.

The seats where I left my sac-poche are gone, presumably to allow the ceiling gantry to move freely up and down the platform.

To my right as I walk across the second courtyard in the hotel a patch of fine creeper. How had I not noticed this in nearly two weeks of walking past it?

Here I have walked through the door from the verandah, past the low creeper, and am on the balcony.

To my right, more greenery.

The characteristic skyline of Paris.

The bag offered to me after my final trip to the Laundry.