Paris

Paris! What a pleasure to be in a city that looks as if it is loved. Flat footpaths that are easy to walk on and aesthetically designed buildings.

View from the steps of the Palais Garnier

Central Paris, like central London, is noisy and busy but I don't find the noise and crowds oppressive here. I am trying to figure out why I feel so much more comfortable in Paris than London despite lack of language here. I guess I am simply more European than British.

Bollards at the Louvre

I have landed in a part of Paris with many Africans and African shops.  I took a Metro to  look around and landed in an area with five Japanese restaurants and a Japanese food store in one block.

The Metro is so well signposted it could be a model for other cities (I'm looking at you Sydney).

Paris

Zweisimmen, Paris, Hamburg, Maribor,

In a Paris Cafe

The landscape sketches and paintings done in August September as I train-tripped my way through Europe are now online.

Cafe La Cantine du Troquet

Paris: the #42 bus

I discovered buses belatedly in Paris and became in instant fan. You use the same tickets as the Metro but you stay above ground, don't have to struggle with stairs and long corridors and you see the sights as you go. I took the bus from south Paris to Gare du Nord (the station where trains leave for the north and for London) and saw all the sights I had not had time to visit during my stay.

The #42 takes you along the Champs Elysée where you catch a glimpse of the Arc d'Triump then along to Lafayette and the astonishingly ornate Opera. Paris is a living museum, everywhere you look there are grand buildings.

Gare du Nord

In the Gare du Nord there are no seats and departure tracks are only announced 15 minutes before the train departs, so the station is full of people standing around looking up at the announcement boards.

Waiting

Musée d'Orsay has it all

Art galleries today, like concert halls, are full of people taking pictures. Concert halls  try to limit their use but art galleries seem to welcome cameras and so they should since visual imagery is their reason d'être. The only exception I can recall is that small gem, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in New Zealand.

At the Musée d'Orsay in Paris  you can't resist joining the photographers when you see the originals of works you have so often seen in books and find they are different in real life.  You take a photo, once again consigning the image to a different medium, one which may or may not look more like the original than the ones you've seen in books.  So here are a few photos from the Musée d'Orsay and the reason why I took them.

Main hall, Musée d'Orsay

When you walk into the gallery after queuing to get in (there is a sign at the end of the cordoned walkway saying "queue takes about 30 minutes from this point', and it is spot on) you think you are in a railway station with sculptures and you wonder where the paintings are. I discovered only later that the building was once a railway station, rescued from destruction and remodelled to show art. There is a set of internal stairs accessible from the fifth floor which you are invited to walk down to admire the architecture. 

5th floor poster promoting the internal staircase.

The structure, with paintings displayed in rooms along the length of the main gallery works well as there are lots of 'entrances' where important works can be displayed on the opposite wall to great effect. There are a lot of iconic works at the Musée d'Orsay! 

Paintings are shown in a way that makes them accessible. For example in a poster about the importance of the Salon, it is noted that the critics taste of the time largely determined the paintings now hanging, as the chosen work would be acquired by the state. 

I couldn't help thinking as I watched the eager throngs, what a wonderful investment art is for the State.

The Burial at Ornans, with viewers

I took this photo of A Burial at Ornans complete with frame and viewers on the seat below to show how big it is. The painting made Gustave Courbet famous and knowing it was made for a Salon should have told me it would be enormous, but still I was surprised. 

There are a lot of similarly enormous Salon works at the Musée d'Orsay but also smaller, though sometimes even more controversial, work.

People take pictures of the paintings they like and most often those are the famous ones.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
Les Baigneuses (1818-1819)

There are a lot of less successful paintings by less famous artists or even by the well know artists themselves and I always like to see them on display because they remind us that making a successful painting is not so easy and seeing the less successful work helps us appreciate the work and practise that art requires.

I took a picture of Les Baigneuses by Renoir because, for me, it is a less successful work. In real life the painting makes the models look as if they are constructed from a set of pink tires.

Small crowd looking at small painting 

As I walked on through the galleries I noticed a small group clustered around a small painting positioned promenantly in front of an entrance. No one was looking at the paintings on the walls either side.

Yes, it was Gustave Courbet's cheeky L'Origine du Mond (Origin of the World) that was attracting so much attention.

L'Origins du Mond

The Bastille in Red

The Bastille - I aimed my camera, pressed the button and got a picture of red.

It was a passing bus, but quite appropriate for the Bastille because this was where the Bastille prison was until the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789. It was subsequently physically destroyed, with nothing remaining.

Instead there is the July Column which I had been trying to photograph.

July Column

The July Column was built in 1835-40 of 21 cast bronze drums with an interior staircase. On top stands the 'Spirit of Freedom', a large gilded figure you cannot overlook. He carries the torch of civilization and his broken chains.

'Spirit of Freedom'

'Spirit of Freedom', I don't suppose it ever looses its relevance. Perhaps they could erect another when Chelsea Manning, Julian Assauge and Edward Snowdon are released from their respective confinements.

Getting around Paris

Someone told me recently they had been to Paris 30 years ago and had
 decided then that they never wanted to return.

Looking back down the stairs
I have just climbed up .....

 Perhaps they tried taking their luggage on the Metro system, because that would put anyone off. The Paris Metro is a really good system of interconnection lines with excellent signage but there are a great many stairs to climb or descend and very few aids. Sometimes there are escalators but as often as not the are out of action.  It would be a nightmare with a pram and impossible with a wheelchair. It is also impossible with heavy bags and I saw a lot of tourists struggling with luggage on my way into the center of Paris from Gare de Lyon. Some were sitting defeated half way up or down long staircases. People with heavy luggage are advised to take a bus instead of train, but you have to do a bit of research to find that out.

For the fit and unencumbered the Metro is fantastic. It is on time, regular,  fast and efficient. It connects with the bus system and lets you use the same ticket for everything. You can even get off, run an errand then get back on again. I think tickets must work for a certain amount of time but I haven't figured out what the length of time is yet.

Where there is a junction in a corridor on the way to a particular Metro line and you have to decide which option to take there are lists of stations where each of the trains will stop, so you can check you are on the right path. (Despite all this assistance I have taken the train in the wrong direction several times. I tell myself it must have something to do with being in the wrong hemisphere!)
The stations distribute very handy free  maps showing all the transport options and marking significant landmarks. It's as good as a purchased guide book for helping you get where you want to go.

They were clever in the 12th century

Notre Dame, Paris

We think we are pretty smart building skyscrapers nowadays and the higher they are the more we congratulate ourselves on our progress.

Enter a building like the Notre Dame in Paris though and you wonder if we have progressed or gone backwards in the 900 years since it was built.

The building was begun in 1163 and if you consider the tools the builders had at their disposal in the 12th century, the building of such structures surely beats anything we can manage today.

In the Cathedral there are a series of pictures showing the progress of the building as the decades passed. Bit by bit they put it together, and when it was finished they modified Ii, adding ever more features.

Build something beautiful and people will want to come and see it. The  queue stretches right down the large square in front and yesterday morning when I was there it was wet and blowing a gale.

Notre Dame in the wind

A lot of tourists were wearing those cheap plastic raincoats and the queue sounded like a plastic flapping washing line. The queue moves fairly quickly though and once you are inside the crowds disappear into the vast inside space. By the time I emerged the wind had blown away the rain.

Across the road is a warren of back streets with trinket shops and restaurants offering set price menus.

Saint-Séverin

There among the many restaurants is another  church which is also large but tucked between the surrounding buildings so closely it could easily be overlooked. It is the church of Saint-Séverin and it is almost completely empty.  

Its many glass windows are as beautiful as those of it's more famous neighbour. They are also closer to eye level so easier to see.

Window in the Church of Saint-Séverin 

Notre Dame window

Notre Dame: The north transept rose

Rather singers than cigars

Orchestras and choir at Notre Dame

Instead of listening to the 2014 Australian budget being read out by a treasurer who smokes big fat cigars,  I listened to the wonderful Berlioz Requiem Op 5, that was sung for Claudio Abbado in Notre Dame in Paris and broadcast by ABC classic FM.

It is such fantastic music produced by 220 musicians from two orchestras. Abbado was a nurturing and caring person and would have loved this tribute I am sure.

It is a pity the Australian Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey doesn't have even a little of those qualities.

Before the election he promised (cross your heart and hope to die) no cuts to health education or welfare. So what has he done? Cut health, education and especially welfare but also foreign aid, ABC, CSIRO. There are no cuts for the wealthiest, the carbon lobby, or defence. This tweet sums up the feelings of many.