Place des Vosges

We are now in the area called “le Marais” and will start with a look at the central place, Place des Vosges. Here used to be a royal residence (Hôtel des Tournelles) with a garden where the king Henry II was killed in a tourney in 1559, after which his widow, Catherine de Medicis, got the building destroyed.

Henry IV decided to build a square, which was finished in 1612 (after his death) and then became a very fashionable place, originally called Place Royale. It got its present name, Place des Vosges, in 1799 to honor the first French provincial department to pay taxes to support the Revolutionary army.The place looks a bit empty and dull on the pictures I took last week; as a comparison you can see a photo I took last summer.

It’s a true square, 140 x 140 meters (460 x 460 ft), all the buildings are in the same style with the same design and measures, except two pavilions with slightly higher roofs, designated as the King’s and the Queen’s pavilions. No king or queen ever lived here, but a lot of aristocracy and other prominent people. Among those, you can mention Sully, Cardinal Richelieu, Madame de Sevigné, Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier, Alphonse Daudet...

Under the arcades you find today a number of art galleries, shops and a few cafés and in the middle of the place you can find a statue of Louis XIII - the original one was melted down during the Revolution and replaced in 1825.Behind no. 9, where you find the top restaurant “l’Ambroisie”, you will find another open garden or square (the gate is normally open). It’s surrounded by the Hôtel de Chaulnes and the Hôtel Sully, today housing respectively the Academy of Architecture and the “Caisse nationale des Monuments Historiques”. As usual, some of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.

I made an extra post today - see below!!

Ile Saint Louis (3)

Let’s finish the tour of Ile Saint Louis by a visit to the narrow main street, rue Saint Louis en l’Ile. This is where we find the church with the same name, but also a multitude of shops, restaurants, bars.

Several of the commentators on the previous posts on Ile Saint Louis have immediately referred to “Berthillon”, Paris’ most famous house for ice-cream and sorbets. This manufacturer and retailer has its primary store here, but you can also find their products in almost all the bars along the street – and elsewhere. Their products are said to be completely natural; milk, sugar, cream, eggs and different flavours.

Among the restaurants, there are several good ones, but also some tourist attractions, like “Nos Ancêtres les Gaulois”, where you eat and drink as much as you like for a fixed price. The menu is supposed to offer more or less Asterix – Obélix type of dishes.

There is also what must be considered as a top restaurant, “L’Orangerie”. It used to belong to a popular French actor (J-C Brialy), but was in 2006 taken over by Michel del Burgo, who was chef at the three macaroons (stars) restaurant “Le Taillevent”.

There are certainly other quite good restaurants (“L’Ilot Vache”, “Le Relais de l’Ile”, “Les Gourmands de l’Ile”…), but unfortunately I haven’t tried them all. Maybe some of the readers have some recommendations?

You can also find a multitude of boutiques and a few surviving old-model grocery shops, butchers etc… (see top picture).

Please not that I added two extra posts today – see below!

Ile Saint Louis (2)

Next episode on Ile Saint Louis will be to visit the central street of the island, but today let’s make a quick visit to the church “Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile”. It replaced a chapel where (the later saint) Vincent de Paul was active.

What is a bit special is that the church is completely squeezed in between other buildings on the island’s main street and not so clearly visible from the outside, except for the tower and the clock on the wall.

The construction of the church started in 1664 and was basically finished nine years later, but several modifications took place and the church was officially inaugurated only in 1726. As most other churches, this one suffered also from the Revolution and it was restored during the 19th century. This is a typical Jesuit type of church in baroque style.
The interior of the organ was also destroyed during the Revolution, but it’s now (2004) completely rebuilt in a combination of old material and modern technology. It is said to be an excellent one. The church is actually known for a summer music festival and is also in general frequently used for concerts. The doors are often closed for repetitions.

A few of these pictures can also be seen on my photo blog.

Have a nice weekend! See you Monday with the last Ile Saint Louis episode.

Ile Saint Louis (Post # 300)

Ile Saint Louis which is just east of Ile de la Cité is a combination of what previously were two smaller islands and it started to be really inhabited only in the 17th century. I have again made a comparison of what the island looked like around 1730 and today. Actually, still today most of the buildings are from the 17th century including a beautiful baroque church. The narrow central street is full of restaurants and shops. As there is quite a lot to see and visit, I will make three different posts on this island, today rather making the tour of the exterior streets, river banks and small parks at the extreme ends. To give you a more clear idea of the surrounding geography I made this additional plan. Close neighbours are, in addition to Notre Dame, one of the most famous Paris restaurants (Tour d’Argent), the Arab World Institute (clearly worth a visit), la Bastille.

Coming from Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame, you will use a pedestrian bridge, mostly occupied by some street musicians.

On the island there are a lot of remarkable buildings including, on the eastern corner, the Hôtel Lambert with a lot of famous successive owners (today a Rothschild). During the 19th century it belonged to a Polish prince and was some kind of centre for Polish emigrants. Chopin was a frequent guest and most of his “polonaises” were created for the annual “grands bals” held here. The “hôtel” was designed by Louis Le Veau (or Le Vau) who during some 25 years was Louis XIV’s chief architect and contributed at Versailles, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Vincennes, Louvre, Institut de France (French Academy)…Another building designed by Le Veau is the Hôtel de Lauzun (or Lausun, front gate closed), now belonging to and restored by the City of Paris. You can here see the gate together with some others. The island has had a lot of illustrious occupants, in the beginning mostly French nobility, but later also Marie Curie, Baudelaire, Daumier, Blum, Chagall, Pompidou… and still has (no names here).

One of them was Camille Claudel, who lived and worked here during 14 years after she had left Rodin and until 1913 when she was forced to leave for a mental institution where she spent her last 30 years. The gate was closed, but a nice lady let me in to take a photo also from the court yard. The apartment cannot be visited; today occupied by a well known personality (no name).

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

This is my 300th post (on this blog) in 315 days - my first post was made March 22nd last year.

Place du Châtelet

Châtelet means “small castle”. The name of the place comes actually from a fortress which was built here in the 9th century to defend Paris from the Vikings. From the beginning built in wood, it was rebuilt in stone during the 11th century. Its military function soon disappeared and it was later rather a prison and law-court. The fortress was later surrounded by different buildings and you can only see the top of it on this illustration from 1580. … as you can also see the top of the tower of the Saint Jacques church. The tower (from 1522) is still there (under restoration, so again you can only see the top), but the church is gone.

The Châtelet fortress was destroyed in 1802 and Napoleon I (I’m sorry, it’s he again) decided to convert the place to an open place, including the construction of a column, later placed on a fountain, the one we can see today. It got the name “La Fontaine du Palmier” (The Palm Fountain) because of the palm leaves that can be seen in the top of the column, just under the statue “Victoire”. The column is full of names of different Napoleon victories (of course).

The place got its present aspect under Napoleon III. Two theatres were built, Théatre de la Ville (or Théatre Lyrique) and Théatre du Châtelet, both from 1862, and the fountain was slightly moved to be in the centre of the place. The theatres have changed names several times. Theatre de la Ville got the name of Sarah Bernhardt from 1899 to 1923, when she was in charge and regularly performed here. They now belong to the City of Paris.

The comparison between 1876 and today shows hardly any difference except for the express road (Voie Pompidou) which was built along part of the river in the 1960’s (transformed to Paris Beach in August each year).

The bridge in front is called “Pont de Change” and dates from about the same time as the renewed place (1860).

To find the place on the Paris map, I suggest you go to my previous post about Rue St. Denis. Some of the above pictures can be found on my photo blog.