Another Paris

There is a new place in town ! The Experimental Cocktail Club opened a few weeks ago, rue Saint Sauveur.

As the name implies, this is a cocktail bar. And a very cool one : cosy armchairs, lounge music and DJ’s, friendly team behind the bar… The place is already a success, and can be overcrowded after eleven.

What about the cocktails ? We love the Lemon Drop, and the Experiment 1, but feel free to try the other cocktails, and let us know your opinion.

Experimental Cocktail Club
37 rue Saint-Sauveur
75002 Paris

The porte Saint Denis was built by Louis XIV (of course, he did not build it himself, you know, the kings are a little lazy themselves) when he decided that the walls surrounding Paris were no more necessary : he destroyed them (not himself neither), and a promenade was built (still not by Louis XIV. It’s good to be the King, they say), planted with trees. It was named “les grands boulevards“.

The Porte Saint Denis separates the rue Saint Denis from the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. The former is inside the “old Paris”, and the latter used to be the road to the Basilique Saint Denis, through the fields and gardens that still covered this area in the XIXth century.

Today, rue du Faubourg Saint Denis is a very lively and popular street. And rue Saint Denis, one of the oldest streets of Paris (the road to Saint Denis was a roman road) is still, as it was in the middle ages, an important spot for prostitution and for the clothes industry (in the area named le Sentier).

The photo on this post is taken from the rue Saint Denis, looking outside Paris. It was not easy to shoot, because I had to hide : prostitutes protested, fearing that I would photography them (and, maybe, suspecting that I work for the Police). One of them even tried to take my camera.

After I had taken this photo and walked a few minutes, a guy came to talk to me : Who are you ? Why did you take photos ? Where are you from ? He had a lot of questions for me, but I believe he doesn’t work for the police…

But nothing to be afraid of : walking on the rue Saint Denis is safe, and was recently largely transformed into a pedestrian area.

La tour d’Argent, that’s ok, but very expensive, and not as prestigious as it was a few years ago.

And you need a tie to get in. Personally, this single detail is enough to avoid the place.
A few meters only from la Tour D’Argent, we tried le Baba Bourgeois yesterday, and were delighted by :

• the 70’s design, in black and white and metal
• the excellent wines
• the kindness of the service
• the quality of the food for a very reasonable price range

This kind of restaurant is very common in le Marais, but not in this area of Paris, near the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Ile Saint-Louis.

Why le baba bourgeois ? Bimply because they serve a very good baba au Rhum.

By the way, did you know that the Baba au Rhum was invented in Paris around 1730 by Stöhrer, a pastry chef at the cour de Versailles, who established a patisserie rue Montorgueil, still one of the best in Paris (and with a marvellous decoration from the XIXth century).

Le baba bourgeois
5 quai de la Tournelle
75005 Paris

Patisserie Stöhrer
51 rue Montorgueil
75002 Paris

Paris is going to change for good, with Velib. The idea is simple and already works in other cities, like Lyon : to provide people with (nearly) free bicycles for daily use.

The municipality has just started building 750 stations, expected to work in july. At the end of 2007, 1451 stations and more than 20 000 bicycles will be available.

The prices are cheap : 1€ for a day pass, 5€ for a weekly pass, 29€ for a yearly pass. The first 30 minutes of each trip are free…

If you are planning a trip to Paris, wait a few months, and enjoy Velib !

Vagenende is a traditional french restaurant near Saint-Germain des Prés, with a vintage Art Nouveau decoration (created in 1904).

We had dinner here yesterday. We had oeufs en gelée, cassoulet, choucroute, profiterolles, and enjoyed the quality. The service is very kind, and the price very reasonable.

Of course, you can find much better quality in other parisian brasseries, at higher prices (La Coupole, Terminus Nord, le Wepler, Lipp, etc…).
The atmosphere is lively, but people under 50 years old are a very small minority. The ladie’s brushings and the gentelemen’s ties and shirts add colour and satiné to the already rich decoration.

A very enjoyable and somewhat nostalgic travel in the past, in our grand parent’s time…

Vagenende
142 Boulevard Saint-Germain
75006 Paris
Website in english : http://www.vagenende.fr/us/

Artist-at-large is a very interesting website, all about seeing and understanding culture around us. The section of Artist-at-large devoted to Paris contains a very original collection of small studies about monuments, graffitis and intriguing places (18 villa Seurat, Oscar Wilde’s grave…).

The section opens with “Five reasons to visit Paris”. In short, those five reasons are :

1. Energy
2. Gastronomie
3. Art
4. Surroundings
5. Cafés

But you should definitely have a look at the detail of those Five reasons … and see if the appeal grows irresistible. See you in Paris !

Born in 1165, Philippe Auguste (Philippe II) was king of France from 1180 to 1223. Concerning the history of Paris, his reign was very influential :

• The market that would later become “Les Halles” was founded;
• The Louvre was built;
• Notre Dame de Paris was consecrated;
• The main thoroughfares were paved (this concerns the four main streets of Paris at this time : Saint-Jacques, Saint-Martin, Saint-Antoine and Saint-Honoré);
• The construction of the “wall of Philippe Auguste” started. This wall has disappeared now, and only pieces of it can be seen, but for centuries it set the limits of Paris and the “Faubourgs”.
• Last but not least, the Hopital de la Trinité (now disappeared) was founded. I happen to live just where this hospital stood, between the rue Saint Denis and the Boulevard Sebastopol. The caves where I set my office are probably the ancient caves of La Trinité…

philippe-auguste.com is a very interesting website (in english). François Benveniste, the webmaster, has written a book about the topic, and tells you everything you need to know about Paris in the time of Philippe August (daily life, events). A very good resource if you want to localize precisely the remains of the wall and the contour of the medieval Paris.
See also : Wikipedia on Philippe Auguste 

Paris has undergone a lot of changes during the centuries : extensions, destructions, reconstructions, restructurations, speculations, ornementations, improvements… from the walls of Philippe August to the works of the present Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, from Haussman (the boulevards) to Pompidou (Beaubourg) or Mitterrand (Pyramide du Louvre; Grande Bibliothèque…), all the centuries, all the kings and Presidents have left their signature.
It is fascinating to trace those changes with old maps of the City. Fortunately, a lot of them are online now, in Flash, and zoomable.

The lexilogos website gives us a page with a lot of links to the best online maps of Paris, ancient and modern. The best ones are located on the very rich Gallica website, created by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France
If you visit Paris and want to buy a copy, a good place is the shop at the Musée du Louvre. The map of Turgot (1739) is beautiful and exists in various sizes.

Summer is coming, here is a place you’ll appreciate, at Denfert Rochereau : l’Apollo has a very comfortable and huge terrace, where you’ll find a table at anytime.

The food is very good, the atmosphere is friendly, the design of the place is a success (70’s pop style inside an old train station), the prices are rather high, but you’ll spend a delicious moment at the Apollo.

Things to do around Denfert-Rochereau : a walk in the lively rue Daguerre, a visit at the cimetière Montparnasse (Baudelaire, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Alfred Dreyfus, Man Ray, Maupassant, Proudhon, Jean Seberg).

L’Apollo
3 place Denfert Rochereau
75014
01 45 38 76 77
http://www.restaurant-apollo.com