Ce qu'on fait le dimanche à Paris

It was a slow morning, but (1) it is extremely cold here right now and (2) virtually everything is closed on Sundays. Apparently Sarkozy's plan to make it easier for stores to stay open on Sundays was overwhelmingly shot down. One of the pluses to this is that lots of streets are closed to cars on Sunday to make it easier to stroll or bike around the city. Anyway, at noon I rendez-voused again with Michel and 3 other CUPA girls at the Hotel-de-Ville (the mayor's residence) for an historic walk around Le Marais. It's the neighborhood of Paris that best shows the city's trajectory through history from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. Some of the streets, still named for their medieval purposes (like rue du Fauconnier), bend at odd angles, and the houses lean. Michel led us first into a quiet cobbled street where the first pinkish blossoms of the 'spring' had emerged, and further down an abbey and house dating from the fifteen century. There are still monks today, and they make jam.

The next two houses we saw are the oldest in Paris, dating from the 14th century and leaning on each other in a way that would be very worrisome had they not already survived 700 years. Nearby we saw a portion of the city wall built between 1190 and 1209 by Philip II before he left on the Third Crusade. It was discovered when the metro was constructed at the turn of the century and no longer holds anything in -- but on one side 'tower' later apartments (still very old), and on the other is an open space where children were playing soccer. As with the Arenes de Lutece, the very old is both picturesque and practical, there to view and remember but not on display. Our meanderings then brought us across the Rue de Saint-Antoine to the Hotel de Sully, the imposing mansion built in the 1620s and owned by Henri IV's minister of finance. Moving through its carefully sculpted gardens and courtyards, we arrived at the Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris. It is almost dizzyingly symmetrical, from the pink arcaded buildings on all sides down to the patches of grass in the park -- that's what they were into in the 17th century. 

Even though the Marais (which means swamp... what it used to be) is now pretty ritzy, it was for a long time the dirtiest and poorest quarter of the city. For that reason, it was where immigrants settled in the 19th century -- in large part Jews from Eastern Europe. Although the events of the 20th century emptied the Marais of much of its Jewish population, there are still quite a few kosher eateries, Hebrew signs, bookshops, etc. It was really bustling as it is one area where things are closed on Saturdays for Shabbat rather than on Sundays. 

The other girls and I had a great lunch on Rue de Saint-Antoine at a place called Dôme, where the waiter insisted on escorting me to the bathroom because "I might encounter lions and tigers" if I went alone. I eventually found my way to 38 Riv', a tiny concert space on the Rue de Rivoli. It turned out to be a cellar (the French word, "une cave", is a better description) that held only 40 people, so the baroque concert I showed up for was a very intimate experience. The proprietors were a small owl-like woman with a massive knit shawl and a guy with a bag full of baguettes who in both demeanor and appearance bore an uncanny resemblance to one of the characters in Monty Python. It is really striking how similar the audience for baroque music is around the world... I must have been the only audience member who lacked that 60+ professorial look. The music was fantastic: a harpsichord, cornet (not brass, a bizarre wood/resin/something), and soprano performing pieces by Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Marini, Barbara Strozze, and a couple others that had something to do with Venice. It's nice to have these little discoveries, the chance to bask in small moments of perfection as I walk home, moments I would not have time for as a tourist trying to hit the highlights of Paris in a week. But with the whole semester ahead, I can only imagine many more!