Walk About the Neighborhood

We walked about the neighborhood of our apartment today, also known as the Marais.  We walked a bit to the north an west, past Le Marche de Halles, to the Church of Saint Eustache.  The original chapel was built in 1213, enlarged over and over, and the current church was built between 1532 and 1632.  The architecture is mostly Gothic, and grand.  It’s organ has 8000 pipes, and it is known for it’s stained glass windows.

We walked across the garden in front of Saint Eustache and around the Bourse de Commerce, originally built as a Commodities Exchange in the late 1700’s.  Currently it is in the midst of a 50 year lease, granted in 2016 by the mayor of Paris to Francois Pinault for E15 million, plus yearly fees.  He spent over E195 million for renovations and the building now serves as exhibition space for contemporary from Pinault’s private collection, worth over E1 billion.

We returned to Rue de Rivoli, walking by Le Centre Pompidou and Eglise Saint-Merry, built in the 1500’s in Gothic style.

We ate lunch in the neighborhood, just a block from our apartment, at L’Alsatien.  After lunch, we walked through a local market, next to the Hôtel de Ville, with it’s colorful displays of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.  Next we went to a pharmacie for Covid tests for our flight back to the US.  The Covid tests were negative, so we are cleared to fly.

We walked just a couple blocks north and through Place dès Vosges, originally known as Place Royale, it was built by Henri IV from 1605 to 1612.  A true square, it embodied one of the first European programs of royal city planning.  Place dès Vosges has been home to many famous people over the centuries.  We have stayed within a block of there on a couple of previous trips to Paris, and it’s a favorite spot on sunny afternoons.  We stopped at a local boulangerie/patisserie in the Jewish Quarter, nearby.  

As we walked back to the apartment, we passed Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais Church, built between 1494 and 1657.  It has a Baroque facade and a very high nave.  On 29 March 1918, a German shell fell on the church, killing 91 people and wounding 68 others, collapsing the roof during a Good Friday service.  It was the single worst incident involving loss of civilian lives during the German bombardment of Paris in 1918.  

Today was another good day in Paris.  It is an incredible city in myriad ways.  We are particularly enjoying this visit, walking in neighborhoods with the local people.  There are bikes everywhere, as new bike lanes have been added all over the city.  We see people biking with their toddlers in bike seats, taking them to preschool early in the morning, people dressed for work and school, all day every day.  The city of Paris has designated multiple streets as “pedestrian only” so there is much less traffic in the center of the city.  There was a street full of electric charging stations in front of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais.  Paris air is cleaner and it is easier to navigate than any previous visit.