Montparnasse

Bonjour!
Today I decided to take advantage of the mostly sunny weather to see some outdoor attractions.  I decided to head to the south of the city to the Montparnasse district, in the 14th arrondissement.  First I checked out le Jardin Atlantique, or the Atlantic Garden, which was constructed on top of part of the enormous Gare du Montparnasse (a huge train and subway station).  I read that it was named the Atlantic Garden because the plants there are typically found along the Atlantic coast.  I'm not sure that this park particularly called the Atlantic Ocean to my mind, or at least not the part where I grew up!  But for being built over a busy train station, it was surprisingly quiet and tranquil.  (I think the big walls all around helped block out a lot of the city noise.)

Then I walked over to the nearby Cimitière de Montparnasse, the local cemetery which is the final resting place to many people, some of whom were famous.  For example, I stumbled across the graves of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Charles Baudelaire, Susan Sontag, and Samuel Beckett there.  And there were also some really interesting graves for people who were less well-known.  Parisian cemeteries are really a totally different creature than American ones; not only do they have more interesting tombs and more stained glass than American ones usually do, but all the graves are squished together, not spread out like they are at home, really bringing to mind the idea of a cemetery as a city of the dead, but not at all in a morbid way.  The cemeteries here are more like museums!  And they also tend to be tranquil, sheltered from the usual hustle and bustle of Paris.

stained glass from a family tomb

Sartre (philosopher and writer)
and de Beauvoir (writer and feminist)

This was one of many weepy ladies on people's graves.

another weepy lady 

Is it a grave or a cat?

This bust graced the top of another grave.

I've never seen a statue of a centaur in an American cemetery.
(Or anywhere else, ever, for that matter.)

Sontag (American writer)

Beckett (Waiting for Godot)

Is it a grave or a giant bird made of mirrors?

This last photo was of a funny sign I saw on a store near the cemetery.  I think something was lost in translation...

Paris 16th

Bonjour!
I spent a lovely afternoon today wandering around the 16th arrondissement, where I haven't really spent much time until now because it's mostly a residential area, so I haven't really had any reasons to go there.  I didn't really have any reason to go there today, either, but it was rather sunny, and I'm trying to visit all 20 arrondissements during my stay here, and I'd read about at least a couple of interesting (because of the shops that line them) streets in the 16th, which is in the west of Paris.  So I took the metro over to le Pont Mirabeau, the subject of a very famous poem by the French poet Guillame Apollinaire, which also happens to be one of my favorite poems.  (Here is a link to a clip of the author (as far as I can tell) reading the poem himself; listen to it even if you don't speak French: it's one of my favorites because of the sounds and rhythm of the words, as well as the meaning, so even without understanding it, you can appreciate how the words flow--rather like the waters of the Seine evoked in the first line--as well as the beauty of the rhymes.)

detail of le Pont Mirabeau

What a skyline!  Yes, that's Lady Liberty (well, a replica) and the Eiffel Tower in the same shot, as seen from le pont Mirabeau!

After traversing the bridge, which joins the 15th and 16th arrondissements, I headed up Rue d'Auteuil, which my handy Fodor's Paris 2011 mentions as worth seeing as yet another example of a cute, small, windy, traditional, quintessential, quaint Parisian street.  But they never get old!  Then I followed Avenue Mozart north through the 16th until I came to La Muette, where I stopped for lunch in les Jardins du Ranelagh this funny, triangular park.

Eglise d'Auteuil

Rue Auteuil

This is what I love about Paris: you get art like this on regular buildings!  This was on the side of an apartment building on Avenue Mozart.

Exhibit B: this was a parking garage only a few yards away!  How beautiful!

Part of the Jardins du Ranelagh, which are bisected by a few streets, making the big triangle into a bunch of little ones!

a statue in the Jardins du Ranelagh

Another statue in Ranelagh--I wish there had been anything explaining what this was a statue of!

the view from where I ate lunch in Ranelagh

I found everything about this poop-scooping sign funny...  The dog and the human are both walking with such a jaunty gait!  And then the dog is just waiting patiently, leash dragging on the ground, while its owner uses a shovel to scoop poop into a plastic bag somehow staying conveniently open!  From my many years of dog walking and poop scooping, it's never this easy.  But maybe I don't have the magic Parisian touch...

another unexplained statue at Ranelagh

Then I continued my trek north through the 16th, via Avenue Victor Hugo, also lined with pricey shops (the west of Paris homes some of the wealthiest neighborhoods) which runs through la Place de Victor Hugo, which is like a smaller version of L'étoile Charles de Gaulle, where avenue Victor Hugo ends, except minus the Arc de Triomphe.  (The avenue and the circle are named after another French poet, who was also the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.)

More palm trees!  But these ones were in pots, and I assume the owner brings them in at night... 

Place Victor Hugo

a church on Place Victor Hugo

L'Arc de Triomphe as seen from Avenue Victor Hugo

Next, I headed south along the border of the 16th and the 8th, away from l'Arc de Triomphe, along Avenue Marceau, which ends at the Seine in the Place de l'Alma.  If that name rings a bell for any of you, it's because that's also the site of the car crash which killed Lady Diana.  I didn't realize that until I got there (remember, this was in August 1997--I was six years old) and found an informal tribute to her combined with another tribute to the Statue of Liberty: an exact replica of the flame she holds.

Then, I thought I'd head over to the Orsay, since it was getting rather chilly with some increasing cloud cover and the setting of the sun, but the line was enormous, and, according to the employee I asked, I can't wait in the shorter line for people who already have tickets even though my student ID means that I don't need to buy a ticket or even wait in line for one, as I found out the last time I was there.  I think she might have been wrong, but I decided I'd figure that out another day, and instead head home via the metro from Place de la Condorde, since the setting sun there always provides a stunning view of la Tour Eiffel.  And as far as I'm concerned, seeing the sun setting behind the Eiffel tower is always a pretty good end to an afternoon!

one of the statues at Concorde 

So many things pointing to the sky!
(part of the Ferris wheel, the Eiffel Tower, a lamp post, the obelisk at Concorde)