It’s been unusually cold in Paris, mostly a dry cold though. It’s the damp cold that normally marks the Paris winter so, warmly dressed, it’s nearly a pleasure to be in the cold outside. It’s inside that things get dicey. I returned to Paris a few days ago after six weeks in the U.S. and have since spent a good amount of time winterizing the apartment: hanging curtains, plugging spaces on the edges of doors and windows, buying an electric heater.

The elderly woman downstairs used to heat a lot in winter, I could tell by the warmth of my parquet, but she now goes south for much of the winter. And a guy in his 20s recently moved next door and doesn’t need to turn on his own heat very often since most nights he warms his apartment by having a dozen friends over for a rave party. I’m left to heating my own space. So much for community.

The best place to find community these days is in the cafes and bars of the residential neighborhoods. They’ve been quite crowded, I’ve noticed, these past few days and evenings, smokers swarming by the doorways. Crisis, what crisis?

I love cafes in winter, the way people come in rubbing the cold off their hands. There’s more of a community feel to a café in winter than in summer. In summer everyone wants a piece personal joy, their own proverbial spot in the sun. You tolerate your neighbors at surrounding tables in summer, but other than the usual sexual attraction you’d rather have nothing to do with them. In winter, though, there’s more of a feel that we’re all in this together. On especially cold winter days, as in rain storms in other seasons, the café becomes a kind of genteel bomb shelter. It’ll pass, we think, or we’ll soon go out and confront the elements, but in the meantime un autre, s’il vous plaît.

I just got home from having coffee with a friend and I take back what I said a paragraph ago.

There isn’t much of a sense of community in the café after all. I now think that the difference between the winter café and the summer café is that in winter Parisians have even less of a sense of personal space than they do in summer. Their sweaters, scarves, and coats not only put a damper on the aforementioned sexual attraction but also make people unaware of where their space ends and others’ begin. Add to that the shopping bags now that the annual winter sales period is underway and oh the looks you get when you ask a woman to take her ankle-length duvet coat and H&M bags from an otherwise available chair so that you can sit down! Sometimes the bomb shelter feels less genteel, but once you and your friend have got your space it’s café society as holders of McStarbucks Cards can only dream about, even at McStarbucks in Paris.

Yesterday, after insulating window cracks in the morning, I went out to take photos in my neighborhood along the canal. There were at least a dozen people taking pictures within the same 300-yard stretch of the canal during the same 30-minute grey-day photo shoot, including a couple of guys with long lenses, one with a tripod. The thought that most of those photographers were going to put their pictures on blogs accompanied or not by text about the cold in Paris and the ice on the canal was rather disheartening. It’s one thing to compete for elbow room in a café, it’s quite another to think that we’re all competing for attention on the internet.

Truth be told, the canal is not a highly photogenic place. Oh, it’s a nice place to live, to hang out, to stroll, to café-sit, and, when the weather’s right, to picnic, but its color combination of dark green, grey, beige, brown, and black, with little sky in the frame and an uninspiring mishmash of architecture alongside, make the canal an awkward place to photograph. We all pointed our cameras towards the ice in the hopes that that would be evocative enough.

I stood on a bridge by a guy with a long lens to take the shot above of gull prints in the dusting of snow on the ice. The guy tried not show that he was annoyed by my “copying” him, but when I then followed him over to shoot a view from the side he gave me the same look as the women whose space I invaded in the café today. Why should his blog have better photos than mine just because he’s got a bigger lens?

The canal may not be very photogenic but the Eiffel Tower always is. That explains why one occasionally comes across some stunning photographs of the Eiffel Tower. Problem is, it’s hard to make the Eiffel Tower look like anything but the Eiffel Tower, by which I mean that it rarely evokes any other thought than: That’s the Eiffel Tower, I’ve been there (or I want to be there).

That’s why I love the joy that comes across in Va-nu-pieds’ Eiffel Tower photo that you can see by clicking here. In it he managed to capture the sense of ecstasy at coming upon a distant view of the Iron Lady. I’m honored that he gave me first dibs to use it on France Revisited’s Photography Blog.

A close look at the shot shows that he must have taken the picture in summer because you can see the sandal tan lines on his foot (unless those are shadows from the beams), but the Eiffel Tower is timeless enough that, unlike in my apartment, a difference of 50 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t matter.

One more winter photographic note: Not being much of a photographer myself, I do occasionally get lucky, as in this winter homage to Claude Monet that I shot a year ago.

A blogload of thanks to the many readers who wrote to tell me how much you loved France Revisited’s number one musical hit of the season “She Walked Along the River, a.k.a. The T-Shirt Song”! (If you haven’t yet heard the song you can do on this site by clicking here or on Youtube by clicking here.)

Okay, it may be a stretch to say that you “loved” the song. Rather, there were three general categories of comment.

1. The “I didn’t know you sing” comment. My response: Neither did I.

2. The “You and Jordan [Zell] should write more songs together” comment. My response: We are. We’ve written five already–his music, my lyrics–and if you’re in Jerusalem on Sept. 16 you can hear some of them during Jordan’s solo concert.

3. The “I liked the song until the f-word at the end” comment. My response: I sometimes feel a little bad about the use of the f-word, but in writing the song it felt like a natural ending to the story told in the song, so there you have it. (My deepest thanks to the ambitous reader who told me I could never get the song on the radio with the f- bomb in it. And my deepest sympathy to the high school teacher who told me that she can no longer recommend France Revisited to her students.)

Some of the above categories of comment came through the post office accompanied by a t-shirt, so I want to especially thank those dedicated readers by the following photos of their generous gift.

With thanks to the reader who went to London, here I am in your t-shirt in front of the statue of Henri IV on Ile de la Cité:

With thanks to the reader who had a t-shirt specially printed in honor of the fact that “The T-Shirt Song” was recorded in Israel, here I am in your t-shirt below the Pont Neuf:

With thanks to the reader in Paris who understood the cynicism and humor of “The T-Shirt Song” as soon as he heard it, here I am in front the Paris Police Headquarters.

With further thanks to all astute readers with a sense of humor, here I am sitting by the river in a second “I love rien” t-shirt:  

I look forward to any gifts I might receive once we’ve completed our France Revisited music video about prostitution in Paris.

Those visiting Paris in late July and August are well aware of the existence of Paris Plage, the 5-week beach that’s set up along the Seine in the very center of the city.

Much less well known and less visited is the Paris Plage extension along Bassin de la Villette in the once-far-flung and increasingly happening 19th arrondissment. The bassin is best approached via the Jaurès or Stalingrad metro stop.

Far from the constant, international crowds enjoying a stroll along the Seine, the “beach” area along Bassin de la Villette has a comparatively local feel to it.

So local, in fact, that at 7 o’clock yesterday evening families were going home for dinner as they would from a real neighborhood beach.

There were only a few stragglers on the lounge chairs on the beach (photo 1) and no one at the ice cream stand (photo 2).

Aside from the pleasantness of an off-center promenade, the main attraction of this little beach zone is the open-air dance space that’s set up from July 20 to August 20. Every day from 5 to 8 p.m., later on weekends, a public dance is held, led by a master or mistress of ceremony.

Couples and individuals take to the boards try out their steps, whether well practiced or just trying hard. You can, too.

Every night there’s a different type of music according to the following schedule:

Monday: Ballroom.

Tuesday: Rock ’n’ roll and swing.

Wednesday: Bal musette, traditional French dancehall.

Thursday: Tango.

Friday: Salsa.

Saturday: Grand Bal (Musette), traditional French dancehall.

Sunday: Country—yes, country!

I took the photo above on tango evening. That and ballroom draw the fewest dancers, which is why the dancefloor looks sparse above. But it can get quite crowded on other evenings, especially Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Bassin de la Villette may feel far afield, but a summer stroll actually offers an uncrowded, close-up view of the Eiffel Tower.

Well, maybe not quite the Eiffel Tower.

Sometimes, when the weather’s nice and I feel nature calling, I’ll take the RER out of the city, not too far, a half-hour ride from the center of Paris. Actually, it isn’t nature calling but a friend of mine who lives out there. He’ll pick me up at the station and drive us back to his house, about 15 minutes away.

He has a beautiful backyard, full of all kinds of trees and plants and a vegetable garden and a chicken-n-pigeon coop where he raises birds such as chickens, pheasants, and Texan and Hubbell pigeons.

I like visiting his backyard because I don’t have one of my own.

I see lindens from my window but no ginkgoes or beeches or pines, as he does.  

I see pigeons, but none like this, none I would want to touch.

Then we’ll have lunch, if possible containing something from the garden, like the zucchini that’s plentiful right now. Oh and those cherries earlier in the month!

And pigeon.

No, just kidding, we didn’t eat one of those beautiful pigeons on Sunday. We had rabbit.

U.S. President Obama, French President Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Brown, and Canadian Prime Minister Harper visited the Landing Zone in Normandy on Saturday but I beat them to the punch, spending a few days there earlier in the week before the crowds arrived. The photo log below shows many (but not all) of the main D-Day sights and cemeteries that one can see over about three days if setting out from Paris.

In an article to appear next week on France Revisited I’ll be outlining a series of possible itineraries, but for now I invite you to join me on a portion of my own itinerary last week.

I lucked upon a string of sunny days, hence the blue skies in the photos, which is a rarity in Normandy, as anyone who has read about the events of June 1944 knows. Though my own trip also included a visit to Deauville and Honfleur before visiting the Landing Zone and Le Mont Saint Michel, Saint Malo, Le Mans, and Chartres afterwards, this photo log focuses on sights along and inland of the Landing Zone of June 6, 1944.

However, I can’t help but begin with images of Monet’s Garden and House at Giverny since it’s only a slight detour on the way to Normandy. In a sense, the day was too blue when I took the picture below left of Monet’s water lily pond since there was nothing in the sky to be reflected in the water as there often was in Monet’s work. The garden, below right, was in full bloom.

The road to Normandy from Paris more or less follows the Seine downstream towards the English Channel. After Giverny I backtracked upstream along the river to visit La Roche Guyon. I planned it that way because if visiting both it’s advisable to arrive early at Giverny. Furthermore, La Roche Guyon makes for a better lunch stop between the two.

La Roche Guyon naturally rings far fewer bells than Giverny, but it’s an interesting stop for a WWII tour because the chateau in the photo below left is where German Field Marshall Rommel set up his headquarters when he was appointed by Hitler to oversee and reinforce defenses along the Atlantic Wall. Many of the Landing sights that you’ll see in Normandy were personally inspected by Rommel from January to May 1944. The chateau of La Roche Guyon has a 1000-year history that I won’t go into here. The main marks from Rommel’s period are the casements where ammunition was kept, which now present an exhibit about that period. Otherwise, the chateau is a wonderful mishmash of periods with a beautiful view over the Seine. I typically think of Giverny as a pain for a daytrip on its own from Paris, but I do like the idea of a day combining Giverny with La Roche Guyon, though it’s necessary to have a car to do so or good biking legs from Vernon. La Roche Guyon is a pretty Seine-side town. The photo below right is a view upstream from the town.

Approaching the D-Day sights from the east, i.e. with the British and Canadian Landing Beaches, the first stop is Pegasus Bridge, which was rapidly taken by British airborne troops arriving in three gliders on the night of June 5-6, 1944. The bridge was taken in order to cut off German troops—and especially tanks—that might arrive from further east once the landing started and to prevent them from crossing the Orne River. The bridge that now goes over the Orne (below left) is a higher tech replica of the original bridge, which has been moved onto the grounds of the Pegasus Memorial Museum a few hundred yards away, which tells about the British airborne landing.

The Merville Battery was also captured by British airborne troops arriving by parachute and glider on the night of June 5-6, 1944. This was a major German battery between the coast and the right bank of the Orne whose guns were capable of firing on Sword Beach, the easternmost of the Landing Beaches. I won’t tell here the heroic and bloody story of how it was taken, but I will say that after reading about it and visiting the site several times before I was fortunate to hear first-hand last week when I met Alexander Taylor, who landed on a glider that night.

The Landing Zone is worth a visit at any time of year, but those who visit in the days surrounding June 6 may well encounter visiting some of the men who took part in the landing. During the 20 or times that I’ve visited the Landing Zone, beginning in 1992, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with visiting veterans on various occasions, but this is the first time I actually stood at the very spot where a man landed on D-Day and had him describe the event to me as he lived them. When I asked him his name also told me his dog tag number, 22543202. Here is Alexander Taylor, 22543202 standing tall at the Merville Battery, which he helped capture and render unusable at the age of 20.

I am sorry to say that I gave the Canadians short shift on this visit. Though I did stop at Juno Beach (where pit bulls and rottweilers are not allowed, I note in case you were planning on traveling with one), I didn’t visit the June Beach Center, Canada’s Second World War museum, which is by the beach at Courseulles-sur-Mer. Nor did I visit the Canadian Cemetery, which is a few miles inland at Riviers. Apologies to my Canadian readers. If anyone has a photo of the Canadian Cemetery I would like to post it here.

Arromanches is the town at the center of Gold Beach. It was here that the British built the artificial harbor known as a Mulberry. Some remnants of the harbor still remain just offshore. (The photo below, with clouds, was one that I took last year on June 6.) The D-Day Museum at Arromanches shows how the harbor was built and how it operated, along with other displays about the landing and the various nationalities that took part.

The only German battery along this coast with its canons still visible are those at Longues-sur-Mer. The photo below is one of four 155mm gun emplacements at Longues that were a danger to the landing of British troops at Gold Beach as they could fire up to 12 miles. Visiting the complex you’ll also see the position of its command center by the cliff and other concrete elements of the Atlantic Wall. Three of the four canons were put out of commission by naval fire within the first hour of the landing, but one was occasionally operational until about 5 p.m. The garrison here of 184 Germans surrendered to the British the following day.

Americans tend to visit only the American Cemetery but I think it’s important to visit those of other nationalities so as to have a sense not only of their loss and sacrifice but of their approach to their war dead. Here’s a section of the British Cemetery at Bayeux.

The American connection with Normandy begins with D-Day, but the British connection goes back much further, beginning with William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, who took the crown of England after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. William is buried at the Abbaye aux Hommes (Men’s Abbey) at Caen.

The tapestry was made in about 1080 to be hung during Christmastime in the Cathedral of Bayeux. Inside the cathedral a plaque honors British troops who fought in the WWI.

In visiting the American sector, i.e. Utah and Omaha Beaches and related sights, I generally recommend starting out to Utah Beach, the westernmost beach, then visiting your way back towards Omaha rather than the other way around. On the way to Utah you might first stop, as I did, at the German Cemetery by the village of La Cambe. This cemetery contains the largest number of dead of all of the cemeteries in the region, over 21,000, including 207 unknown soldiers buried beneath the mound that dominates the cemetery.

I neglected to take any pictures at Utah Beach but here are pictures of the nearby village of Sainte-Mère-du-Mont, right, where men and women were playing soldier and parading around with their wartime jeeps. You’ll come across these collectors (I suppose that’s the word for them) at any time of year but especially around the anniversary of D-Day. Hundreds were gathering for the 65th anniversary this weekend. Few of them are American or British. I mostly heard French and Dutch last week.

I was in a little bar in Port-en-Bessin one evening when a jeep sporting a U.S. flag parked right out front. Out popped a big man with a long gray beard and a short plump women, both dressed in U.S. army uniforms, looking like Mr. and Mrs. Claus on a Bob Hope special. They entered the bar and the man demanded beer. That’s all he said, “Beer,” and he held one hand about 18 inches above the other to show that he wanted it big. The bartender asked where he was from. He said, “Czechoslovakia,” and he meant it.

The photo bottom right is of Sainte-Mère-Eglise, the town taken by American airborne troops on the night of June 5-6 and securing the bridges and roads of the western edge of the Landing area. The parachute hanging from the steeple is a wink to paratrooper John Steele who got stuck there. The Airborne Museum at Sainte-Mère-Eglise is quite good and has an excellent introductory film to both the overall landing operation and the specific events in and around Sainte-Mère-Eglise. 

The guns at Pointe du Hoc were a danger for the landing at the two American beaches, Utah and Omaha, and even though the Rangers who climbed the cliff discovered to their surprise that the guns had been moved inland and weren’t operational, the site is nevertheless one of the most dramatic of those in the Landing Zone. In addition to the drama of the events of June 6-8, 1944 that took place here as the Rangers took and held the battery, the site also reveals the construction and workings of the German battery complex and the extent to which it was bombed. The bomb craters here, unlike most craters elsewhere along the coast, have not been filled in. The top photo below shows the Pointe du Hoc and the cliff that the Rangers scaled. The bottom photo shows some of the bombed out landscape.

The American Cemetery is about 15 minutes east along the coast from Pointe du Hoc. The cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach, the bloodiest of the five Landing Beaches. I’ll be writing about Omaha Beach, the cemetery, and all else that’s mentioned above in a separate article. For now I just point out the three images below: a view of the cemetery (top left), the memorial to American youth rising from the waves (right), and Omaha Beach (bottom left).

As noted above regarding Alexander Taylor, 22543202, encountering men and women somehow related to the events of the war—whether veterans, their children, Normans who lived through it or their children—is enormously enriching in exploring this zone. Below is a photo of Bernard Lebrec, whose apple farm produces the three main alcoholic beverages produced in the department of Calvados: cidre, pommeau, brandy. His farm, originally purchased prior to the war by his grandfather, is located in Englesqueville la Percèe, a village between Pointe du Hoc and the American Cemetery. You might stop in for a tasting, and if you do so be sure to inquire into the wartime history of the farm. As with many of the large farmhouses along the coast, that of Mr. Lebrec’s grandfather’s was requisitioned by the Germans during the war. Then, after the landing, it was occupied by the Americans. The American 147th Engineer Combat Battalion made it their headquarters and built an airstrip in the family’s apple orchard in the early days of the Invasion of Normandy. I photographed Mr. Lebrec below standing in front of the monument erected on his property in honor of the 147th.

So ends my photo log from the Landing Zone. More detailed articles will follow on France Revisited’s France/Northwest section this month.