Everyone seeks out the must-sees of Paris, but the must-smells can also be remarkable in June. That’s when the linden trees and jasmine shrubs are in bloom this year. No need to follow a guide, just follow your nose.

And not just in Paris. While you might not even notice a linden’s tiny yellow-white flowers within its full green mane of leaves, the smell—a limish honeysuckle scent, varying by weather and species between honey-lemon, gentle musk and sickly sweet—can catch you unaware as you explore the village- and cityscapes of France.

The flowering period can begin as early as mid-May in the south and may continue to mid-July in the north, depending on the weather, but June is when the scent of lindens typically lifts the nose and then the gaze with the question, “Wow! Where is that scent coming from?”

The scent has caught me by surprise when exiting the Lyon metro at Place Bellecour; it has followed me along broad streets in Chambery; it felt luxuriant during a stroll along Allée de Tourny in Bordeaux; it tasted like a floral sweetener in my espresso at Café Saint Sernin in Toulouse, and it has intoxicated me on streets and squares in Nantes, Dijon and elsewhere. Yes, I travel a lot in June.

Visitors long for lavender in Provence in summer, but I’ve got a nose for the lindens there in late spring. And at any time of year when taking travelers to the Landing Zone of Normandy, I invariably stop beneath the tremendous lindens on Place de Gaulle in Bayeux, many of which were already centenarian by the time Charles de Gaulle gave his famous speeches there, a first on June 14, 1944, a second on June 16, 1946. (There, the ancient trees have grown dangerously tall and for that reason several dozen were cut down last year.)

Various species of linden also grow in the wild, with major forests of them in Provence and Roussillon. And while you’ll come across broad or tall lindens in cities and towns, shorter, pruned lindens are the traditional obedient soldiers of schoolyards, village squares, palace gardens, city parks and broad alleys. In Paris and elsewhere, they’ve been planted in orderly rows to form leafy canopies as one of the triumvirate of urban greenery, along with the disheveled horse chestnut and the poised plane tree.

Silver lindens form an honor guard in Paris’s Palais Royal Garden while Crimean lindens shade the Place des Vosges. Lindens are part of the historic orderliness of the Tuileries Garden while they’re less constrained near the tennis courts and playground of the Luxembourg Garden.

The linden, le tilleul in French, tilia, has for centuries been a favored tree of European cityscapes, most famously along Berlin’s Unter den Linden, which leads from the Brandenburg Gate. France has its own Unterlinden, a beaux-arts museum in the Alsatian city of Colmar.

With so many lindens around, it’s only natural that linden tea is one of most common herbal teas in France, whether alone or conjugated into linden-mint and linden-verbena bags. And perfumers have a nose for the flower in certain fragrances and eaux de toilette. You might also come across linden flower honey.

When maintained in a village or city square, the branches of the linden are sharply pruned in February, and they begin to bud in March, but it’s as their leaves unfold with the arrival of spring that the romance begins. April can be a rainy month in Paris—you might walk around for two or three days with your collar up and your head down—but then the rain will stop and you’ll look up and find the linden’s young, pale green, heart-shape leaves decorating the branches. Like love, one half will be longer or wider than the other. By May, lindens cast full shadows, and in the south may begin to inconspicuously flower before the end of the month. But it’s typically in June that the white-to-yellow flowers blossom, releasing a fragrance that can reach you as a whisper or a scream. Eventually, the shade of summer gives way, in September or early October, to the brief yellow-brown flush of coloring of autumn in northern France before the leaves fall.

As to the jasmine mentioned in the lead to this article, the seductive scent of its little white flowers—more visually noticeable than the lindens because the shrubs are typically at nose level as you walk along the street—is a more recent addition to the smellscape of Paris. And what a pleasure to the senses it is as well.

Put your nose to the screen and you’re almost there.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

The post The Linden Flower, a Must-Smell of Paris in June appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

But beware—drama lurks within its historic geometry: you’ll encounter Cain hiding his face in shame after killing his brother, Medea avenging the unfaithfulness of her husband by killing her own children, Spartacus vowing to fight against slavery, Daphne fleeing the unbridled passion of Apollo, and more.

Join me on this new audio exploration of the Carousel and Tuileries Gardens, as I, Gary Lee Kraut, the editor of France Revisited, lead you from the exit from the Louvre to the entrance to Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées beyond it. In fact, once you’ve taken this essential Paris strol with me through the Tuileries Garden, we can continue our walk together with my VoiceMap tour The Champs-Elysées: From Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. And/Or continue on the garden theme with my Luxembourg Garden, Paris’s most elegant park.

These audio tours, published by VoiceMap, are especially intended to be listened to with earbuds while visiting Paris since the VoiceMap app uses your phone’s GPS to launch the audio description from location to location as you follow my exclusive route. If used in situ, the walk can be taken directly after visiting the Louvre or the Orsay Museum or before visiting the Orangerie Museum or the Champs-Elysées.

Not in Paris at the moment? You can still enjoy the tour by listening on your computer at home or by iPhone or Android anywhere. I’ve uploaded photos for each of the tour’s 28 locations to allow armchair travelers to follow along as I tell about the various elements—historical, natural, sculptural—that make this an essential stroll for anyone interested in Paris or in the development of France gardens.

From your home computer, your tablet or your phone you can reach my Tuileries tour directly by clicking here.  You can take the initials steps with me at no cost as you consider purchasing the entire tour. On your phone, the VoiceMap Touring App is available from the Google Play Store or from the App Store for iPhone. If, after downloading the app, you don’t land directly on one of my tours, you’ll them in the list of Paris tours or by typing Tuileries Garden or Luxembourg Garden in the VoiceMap search block.

Once you’ve signed up with VoiceMap and purchased the tour, you can listen to it on either your phone, tablet or computer, or all three, on site, on the road or at home.

In addition to treating yourself to the tour, you can also offer it as a gift for your Francophile friends, would-be travelers and friends living in Paris. There’s a tab on each tour page that opens a link where you can request to purchase the tour as a gift. Specifically request “Gary Kraut’s Tuileries Garden Tour” and/or “Gary Kraut’s Luxembourg Garden Tour” and indicate the number of times you’d like to purchase it (in case you’d like to gift it to more than one person). VoiceMap will then create an invoice for however many tour vouchers you’d like to purchase, redeemable against my tour(s).

Whether on site in Paris or from home anywhere, I look forward to strolling with you soon through the Tuileries Garden, as well as through the Luxembourg Garden, along the Champs-Elysées, and into the Dark Side of the City of Light on the central Right Bank.

All of my VoiceMap audio tours can be found here.

Frequently asked questions about VoiceMap tours

How do VoiceMap tours work?
VoiceMap’s audio tour app for iOS and Android uses your device’s GPS to play audio automatically, at the right time and place. Just install the app and download your tour, then go to the starting point and begin your walk.

Do I need to follow a route, or can I start the tour anywhere I like?
Tours have a fixed starting point and follow a route to a fixed end location. This allows the tour to provide turn-by-turn-directions and improves the accuracy of automatic playback. It also allows me to tell a better story as one location leads to the next. But the VoiceMap app does have a Resume option, and this allows you to pick up a tour from the closest location and carry on with it whenever you like.

Can I use tours more than once?
You can listen to your tours as often as you like using both the VoiceMap app and the VoiceMap website. Your access to tours doesn’t expire.

Can I listen to tours at home?
Yes! That’s why I include numerous photos on my VoiceMap tours. So you don’t need to travel to a tour’s starting point to take this essential stroll with me in Paris. In the VoiceMap app, just select Virtual mode on the screen that displays after you download the tour. You can also listen to the whole tour at voicemap.me.

How do I access a tour using the VoiceMap app if I purchase it through the VoiceMap website?
Once you’ve purchased a tour, it’s added to your VoiceMap library. If you sign into the app using the same method you used at voicemap.me, you’ll have access to your full library of tours. This works the other way too: if you make in-app purchases using the VoiceMap app, you can access these on the VoiceMap website.

Do I need mobile data to do a VoiceMap tour?
No, VoiceMap works entirely offline if there’s no data connection, so you don’t have to pay roaming fees. Just download the tour over WiFi before you get started. And be sure that your phone’s battery is charged before you set out.

The post VoiceMap Tour: The Tuileries Garden, from the Louvre to Place de la Concorde appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

So how about taking a stroll in the park with me, Gary Lee Kraut, editor of France Revisited?

Whether you’re able to visit the Luxembourg Garden anytime soon or not, you can now join me on an audio tour that I’ve published with the VoiceMap touring app. It’s one of four Paris walking tours that I’ve created for the app.

My Luxembourg Garden tour is especially intended to be listened to with earbuds while visiting the 62-acre garden since VoiceMap uses your phone’s GPS to launch the audio description from location to location as you follow my exclusive route. But you can also listen on your computer at home or by iPhone or Android anywhere. I’ve uploaded photos to allow armchair travelers to follow along as I tell about the various elements—historical, natural, sculptural and sporting—that make the Luxembourg Garden such an elegant and pleasurable gathering place for Parisians and visitors alike.

From your home computer, tablet or phone you can reach my Luxembourg Garden walking tour by clicking here. On your phone, the VoiceMap Touring App is available from the Google Play Store or from the App Store for iPhone. You’ll find my Luxembourg Garden tour in the list of Paris tours. You’ll also find my Tuileries Garden and Champs-Elysées walking tours there.

Once you’ve signed up with VoiceMap and purchased a given tour, you can listen to it on both your computer and your phone. That means that you can listen to it a first time at home or while out jogging or a walk in your own neighborhood, then, using the same activation code, follow along a second time with your phone when you’re eventually able to visit Paris and the Luxembourg Garden. No need to wait.

In addition to treating yourself to the tour, you can also offer it as a holiday gift for the would-be traveler on your list. There’s a button on the tour page that opens a link where can request to purchasing the tour as a gift. Specifically request “Gary Kraut’s Luxembourg Garden Tour” and indicate the number of times you’d like to purchase it (in case you’d like to gift it to more than one person). VoiceMap will then create an invoice for however many tour vouchers you’d like to purchase, redeemable against my tour.

So whether on site in Paris or from home anywhere, I look forward to strolling with you through the Luxembourg Garden… as well as in the Tuileries Garden, along the Champs-Elysées , and on a unique exploration of the Dark Side of the City of Light on the central Right Bank.

Find all of my VoiceMap tours in one place, here.

Frequently asked questions about VoiceMap tours

How do VoiceMap tours work?
VoiceMap’s audio tour app for iOS and Android uses your device’s GPS to play audio automatically, at the right time and place. Just install the app and download your tour, then go to the starting point and begin your walk.

Do I need to follow a route, or can I start the tour anywhere I like?
Tours have a fixed starting point and follow a route to a fixed end location. This allows the tour to provide turn-by-turn-directions and improves the accuracy of automatic playback. It also allows me to tell a better story as one location leads to the next. But the VoiceMap app does have a Resume option, and this allows you to pick up a tour from the closest location and carry on with it whenever you like.

Can I use tours more than once?
You can listen to your tours as often as you like using both the VoiceMap app and the VoiceMap website. Your access to tours doesn’t expire.

Can I listen to tours at home?
Yes! That’s why I include photos on my VoiceMap tours. So you don’t need to travel to a tour’s starting point to take this essential stroll with me in Paris. In the VoiceMap app, just select Virtual mode on the screen that displays after you download the tour. You can also listen to the whole tour at voicemap.me.

How do I access a tour using the VoiceMap app if I purchase it through the VoiceMap website?
Once you’ve purchased a tour, it’s added to your VoiceMap library. If you sign into the app using the same method you used at voicemap.me, you’ll have access to your full library of tours. This works the other way too: if you make in-app purchases using the VoiceMap app, you can access these on the VoiceMap website.

Do I need mobile data to do a VoiceMap tour?
No, VoiceMap works entirely offline if there’s no data connection, so you don’t have to pay roaming fees. Just download the tour over WiFi before you get started. And be sure that your phone’s battery is charged before you set out.

The post VoiceMap Tour: The Luxembourg Garden, Paris’s Most Elegant Park appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The view from the King’s Pavilion at the Royal Estate of Marly is forlorn. Just over four miles from the relentless restoration of Versailles, all that’s left of what was once Louis XIV’s most precious secondary residence is fragments: a cobblestone ramp framed by a stone wall, an outline of a pleasure palace, an alignment of naked trees, a small trooping of trimmed evergreens, water basins without ornaments—scarcely a hint of splendor.

Some of my sense of desolation undoubtedly comes from visiting in the grey-brown damp of winter. I imagine that in warmer, drier seasons one could spend a wonderful morning here playing Frisbee with a Labrador or golden retriever. But I don’t have one.

Still, I’m glad that I’ve come, even in January and despite the complication of getting here. I’ve come to understand the rise and fall of Marly.

The Royal Estate of Marly, located on the edge of the town of Marly-le-Roi, is only 12 miles west of Paris, but it takes an abundance of historical curiosity and a suburban adventure to get you here. Worth it? Not worth it? You be the judge. The bleak landscape certainly has atmosphere. Ruins put grandeur in perspective. And the little museum that recently opened just within the entrance to the estate tells of Marley’s heyday. Other evidence of Marly’s splendor can be seen in Paris, as I’ll explain later. First some background.

Marly is situated nearly midway between Versailles to the south and Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the north. Saint-Germain-en-Laye has a much older royal castle. Louis XIV was born there in 1638. He was born in the “new” chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to be precise, while only the “old” chateau remains today. By the mid-point in his adult reign, the king had three major residences within a short distance: Versailles, Marly and Saint Germain. Add to those the royal residences of the Tuileries and the Louvre in Paris. Also noted on this map is the location of writer Alexandre Dumas’s Château de Monte Cristo.

The Creation of Marly

King since the age of 4 years and 8 months, Louis XIV took control of the reins of power at age 23, in 1661. He immediately set about developing the palace of Versailles. In 1682, after two decades of construction and landscaping, he declared Versailles the official seat of the monarchy. Though intense construction would continue at Versailles after 1682, Louis XIV simultaneously then set his sights on developing the more private residence of Marly, an easy carriage-ride away.

Corresponding with this period, in 1683, Marie-Theresa, his queen, died, and several months later, Louis married Madame de Maintenon in secret.

As with Versailles, Louis XIV gave much input to plans for the pleasure palace of Marly and to its gardens, basins and fountains. As at Versailles, he followed the construction closely. The lead architect was Jules-Hardouin Mansart, who also marked the latter decades of the 17th century with such monumental works as the Hall of Mirrors, among other developments, at Versailles and the Dome of the Invalides and Place Vendome in Paris. Charles Le Brun, who provided the decorative elements for the Hall of Mirrors, among many other rooms at Versailles, also had a hand in decorating Marly. However, Marly’s brilliance was not of the in-your-face kind as at Versailles but of the luxuriant get-away kind.

Louis first stayed at Marly in 1686, and from then until his death in 1715 this was his primary second home. While the king reveled in the glitz and glamour and omnipresent public at Versailles, he enjoyed frequent breaks at Marly, sojourning at the estate on average every couple of weeks for several days. Here he would spend time with the royal family and with Madame de Maintenon and a relatively limited number of courtiers. The etiquette and the dress code at Marly were more relaxed than at Versailles. “Sire, Marly,” courtiers would plead to the king to allow them to counted among the lucky few. In his final years he would come more often and for longer stays, spending more than one third of the year at Marly.

Garden walks, card games, lawn games and fairground-type rides were among the royal pastimes and especially hunting in the surrounding forest, before his health declined.

Unlike Versailles and other palaces and castles built as a single structure, the constructions on the estate of Marly had a fragmented layout. The king’s pavilion, containing a central reception area and apartments for the royal family, was surrounded by a constellation of 12 smaller pavilions for selects guests.

The Machine of Marly

The pavilions of Marly have been largely forgotten, other than a few glimpses in the Marly Museum. When the history of Marly is evoked today, it’s less to speak of the estate than of its sculpted horses, now in Paris, and its Machine, long gone.

The Machine of Marly was a massive engineering project involving a complex array of pumps and lifts that carried water from the Seine River to feed the insatiable thirst of the fountains and basins first at Marly then also at Versailles. Though pumped from the Seine only two miles away in the town of Bougival, the great feat was to use the force of the river to lift water 531 feet so as to carry it over the hillside and onto an aqueduct that sloped gradually toward Marly, then to Versailles. It was late-17th-century engineering at its finest and likely noisiest.

The quantity of water supplies by the Machine allowed for the operation of cascading fountains at Marly, including one called “The River” that flowed toward the royal pavilion before feeding lower fountains, basins and ponds within the estate’s formal gardens and precisely edged groves. Though in constant need of repair, the Machine as it was more or less designed operated until the early 19th century, when a steam engine was built as its energy source. That was then replaced by a hydraulic process later in the century. Scant evidence of the complex can be seen today by the Seine, where the most visible remnant is the 19th-century pumping station and the rows of trees up the hill that follow the former path along which the water was carried.

A display in the museum on the edge of the estate demonstrates how the Machine operated.

The Horses of Marly

Among the ponds fed by the water network was the Horse Pond or Drinking Pool. At its entrance stood two majestic marble equestrian statues: Mercury Riding Pegasus and Fame Riding Pegasus. They are the work of sculptor Antoine Coysevox in 1702. Several years after Louis XIV’s death in 1715, Coysevox’s horses were placed in the royal garden of the Tuileries in Paris.

Marly was also used by the Louis XIV’s successors, the Fifteenth and Sixteenth of that name, though much less so. Louis XV showed enough interest in Marly to order some restoration work and to stay here occasionally but not enough to detract from the attention he paid to other more modern royal playgrounds that he developed in the middle of the 18th century. Scoring an invitation during Louis XV’s time was easier for courtiers. In place of the equestrian statues of Coysevox in the Tuileries, the king commissioned Guillaume Coustou the Elder, Coysevox’s nephew, to create another pair, called Horses Restrained by a Groom. Both sets are referred to as the Horses of Marly, though the term is particularly used in speaking of Coustou’s pair. Created in created in 1745, these masterpieces of the Rococo period are among the most famous of 18th-century French sculptures. (Coustou’s brother Nicolas also created sculptures for Marly.)

Louis XVI was still less involved in the royal estate of Marly than his predecessor. Nevertheless, he did visit. His final stay took place just three weeks before the storming of the Bastille.

The Marly Courtyard at the Louvre

With the fall of the monarchy, Marly, like Versailles, become property of the French Republic. Statuary, tapestries and furnishings were brought to Paris for public exhibition. Coustou’s horses were placed at the entrance to the Champs-Elysées. Copies stand there today, as the originals have since been brought into the Louvre. So have Coysevox’s.

After visiting the Royal Estate of Marly to feel its absence and to learn its history, I’ve come to the Louvre to admire samplings of that finery. There, in what is now called the Marly Courtyard, Coustou’s horses rear above a collection of brilliant sculptural work from the vanished gardens. As first-time visitors crush toward the must-sees in the Louvre’s Denon (southern) and Sully (eastern) wings, I take the northern escalator into the Richelieu Wing. In the glass covered courtyard, allowing for natural lighting, stands an impressive array of the statuary originally made for Marly. Coustou’s horses are staged in the courtyard as theatrically as the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the opposite wing of the museum, while Coysevox’s horses take flight with Mercury and Fame behind them, and other exquisite works commissioned by Louis XIV toward the end of his reign further display choice samples of the splendor that was Marly.

See this video of the Marly Courtyard produced by the Louvre.

The Dismantling of Marly

While prime pieces of marble artistry were brought to Paris, the furnishings of Marly were sold off by the State. Woodwork was cut up and sold. And in 1799 the estate of Marly itself was sold.

Napoleon bought back the Marly property for the state in 1811. By then the buildings had for the most part been dismantled and sold for scrap. The emperor wasn’t about to rehabilitate a Bourbon adobe anyway. What attracted him to Marly was its forest, prime territory for hunting. The estate therefore became an imperial hunting ground, then after the fall of the Empire a royal hunting ground, and eventually a presidential hunting ground. It remained that way until 2009. Bikers, hikers and Sunday strollers now take to the Forest of Marly.

The Estate of Marly (though not the museum) is now administratively joined with the Estate of Versailles, making for a thought-provoking contrast between the two: on the one hand, the eye-popping views, budget, crowds and commerce of an international bucket-lister; on the other, the ghostly reminder of royal pedigree at what is now essentially a local park and extensive woods.

The Museum of the Royal Estate of Marly

Operated by the local municipality, the museum is dedicated to the history of the estate. Several original paintings and prints and pieces of furniture provide slight glimpses of the estate’s past, but the interest of the museum isn’t so much its historical artefacts as the telling of the history of Marly through its displays, including one that explains the functioning of the Machine. Explanatory notes are only in French for now. Notices in English are planned for the end of the year. Whether you speak French or not, a guide can truly help draw you into the creation and life of this nearly forgotten royal residence. See the museum’s website for guided tour possibilities or to inquire for a private tour.

Musée du Domaine Royal de Marly (Museum of the Royal Estate of Marly), 1 Grille royale – Parc de Marly, 78160 Marly-le-Roi. 7€, free for children under 12. Closed Monday and Tuesday. See website for precise opening times.

Getting to the Estate of Marly

As noted earlier, visiting the Estate of Marly is a suburban adventure, one best reserved for those with an abundance of historical curiosity and a willingness to confront the logistics of navigating the loops of the Seine to the west of Paris.

Consider combining it with other sites in the area, particularly Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the north and the Chateau de Monte Cristo (see below) in Port-Marly, between Marly and Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Including Versailles is an alternative approach due to its proximity both geographical and historical, though I imagine that anyone curious about Marly has already visited Versailles.

Setting aside Versailles then, consider three possibilities ways of a day involving a visit to Marly. All require a GPS or detailed map.

1. From Paris by train

From Paris’s Saint Lazare Station, take the train to the Louveciennes Station, a ride of about 45 minutes. From there it’s a 20-minute (1-mile) walk to the museum, which is at the entrance to Royal Estate of Marly, whose ghosts can then be visited on a stroll. Leaving the estate, you might then take a 30-minute (under 2-mile) walk to the Seine. Not the most beautiful walk either coming or going, though you can pass by the wall surrounding the Chateau de Madame de Barry, 6 chemin de la Machine, now a private property. Madame de Barry was Louis XV’s “favorite” (i.e. official mistress) in the final years of his life. The modest chateau was a gift from the king which she then improved. After the king’s death, and followed by her brief exile to a convent, she lived here from 1776 until the guillotine caught up with her in 1793—a pretty good run. You might time your day to have lunch by the river at La Maison Louveciennes, 2 Quai Conti, 78430 Louveciennes. Return to Paris by train or RER.

2. Exploring the western suburbs by car

You can plan a full day exploring Paris’s western suburbs by a taxi or a car service, if you don’t have your own car.

One possible itinerary if setting out from Paris is to first take the RER (suburban train), line A, to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a 40-minute ride from the center of capital. Visit the castle and its gardens, followed by lunch in town, then take a taxi or car service to the Estate of Marly to visit the museum and ghostly portion nearby. Then take a taxi (though one will not spontaneously appear outside the gates of Marly) or a car service to Monte Cristo. You might ask the driver to take you past the scant remnant of the Machine of Marly by the Seine along the way. Then a taxi or car service (or a 30-minute walk) back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

The Château de Monte Cristo isn’t actually a chateau but rather a large house built in the 1840s to resemble a small castle for the writer Alexandre Dumas, who named it after one of his most famous books and decorated it to his own glory. The house and the smaller castle-like outbuilding that he had built on the property to serve as his writing room are now dedicated to his memory, though he didn’t reside here long. After living high on the hog here for less than two years, a lack of funds led him to sell the property in 1848.

3. Marly and Saint-Germain-en-Laye on a biking day

If you’re into biking—and you needn’t be a long-distance cyclist for this—my top choice for visiting Marly would be by bike. Weather permitting, of course. The 130-acre royal estate is at the edge of the nearly 5000 acres of the Forest of Marly, which is separated by only a mile from the nearly 9000 acres of the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Visited together, a leisurely day of cycling and touring can include both forests, with stops at the Museum and Estate of Marly at the edge of the one forest and at the Castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye near the edge of the other.

If coming from Paris, take RER A to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, whether bringing a bike from Paris (your own or a rental) or renting one in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. You can take a bike on the RER A from Paris during the week outside of rush hour, meaning other than 6:30-9:30am and 4:30-730pm, as well anytime on weekends and holidays. In Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Cyclou rents bikes from the edge of the forest, near the swimming pool about 500 yards from the chateau up Avenue des Loges, though with limited weekday opening times (see their site for details). Also see Bikook for e-bike rental.

Begin by visiting the Castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which houses the National Archeology Museum, and the castle gardens. Then bike at your own rhythm for a couple of hours through the two forests before visiting the Museum and Estate of Marly. You’ll use your GPS or a biking app to navigate through the forests. Route des Princesses is the mile-long stretch of non-forest biking between the two. From Marly it’s possible to bike down to the Seine and/or to the Chateau de Monte-Cristo before returning to Saint-Germain. But that involves street biking, so you might want to just keep this as a forest biking day and return the way that you came.

The Saint Germain Tourist Office, a 3-minute walk from the RER station, 3 rue Henri IV, provides information about the town and about surrounding towns along the nearby loops in the Seine, including Marly-le-Roi. This area is located within the department of Yvelines, which includes the western and southwestern suburbs of Paris.

Château Louis XIV

As you travel about in these western suburbs you might not see the wealth, but it’s there. For example, you won’t be seeing Château Louis XIV unless you’re in the habit of hanging out with Saudi royalty. It’s near Marly, in the town of Louveciennes, in the direction of Versailles. Château Louis XIV is a contemporary echo of Marly and Versailles. It was built on a 57-acre property in 2012 by Emad Khashoggi (read: big money from the Middle East further developed in Europe) as a high-tech version of a 17th-century-style chateau. Three years later, the property reportedly sold for 275 million euros, reportedly to the crown prince of the Saudi kingdom. Press reports at the time called it the most expensive private property in the world.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

The post The Royal Estate of Marly: Absence, History and Splendor appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Sometimes, after a neighborhood walk during which we’ve peered in at gated parks and gardens, we return home and find ourselves grazing on poetry—well, some of us do. We brush by some texts, we shrug off others, we resist veering off to news and rumors on our phones. Increasingly we linger, first on one poem, then on another, until we sink into one and it engulfs us. We stay with it. We reread it. Have we understood it correctly? We contemplate its words and its lines and its entirety. If the poem is in French then we may translate it, if perhaps too literally at first, and work on it until we are satisfied with our day.

Renouveau (Renewal) by Stephane Mallarmé (1842-1898), written in 1862, published in 1866. Translation and photos by Gary Lee Kraut, March 22, 2020.

Renouveau

Le printemps maladif a chassé tristement
L’hiver, saison de l’art serein, l’hiver lucide,
Et, dans mon être à qui le sang morne préside
L’impuissance s’étire en un long bâillement.

Des crépuscules blancs tiédissent sous mon crâne
Qu’un cercle de fer serre ainsi qu’un vieux tombeau
Et triste, j’erre après un rêve vague et beau,
Par les champs où la sève immense se pavane

Puis je tombe énervé de parfums d’arbres, las,
Et creusant de ma face une fosse à mon rêve,
Mordant la terre chaude où poussent les lilas,

J’attends, en m’abîmant que mon ennui s’élève…
– Cependant l’Azur rit sur la haie et l’éveil
De tant d’oiseaux en fleur gazouillant au soleil.

The post Springtime in Paris: Peering in at Renewal appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I was pleased at their sight. Standing beneath my umbrella I counted eight, no, ten, no, twelve, or more rabbits scattered along the lawn and I felt contemplative as I watched them, though contemplative of what I cannot say. After a minute I heard voices behind me and looked back as two military officers walked by, and they looked at me, a man beneath an umbrella on the edge of the lawn as the museum was closing, and while one offered slightly more than a half-smile to say, “Yes, there are rabbits here,” the other offered slightly less than a half-smile to say, “Don’t you dare step onto that lawn.” I admit that I wanted to despite the little don’t-walk-on-the-grass sign at my foot, but not given to such transgression I stood there on the edge of the lawn, contemplating I don’t know what, as several rabbits looked over to me as though to say “Are you coming or not, because if you are we’re going to run away and if you aren’t we have to keep an eye on you, so make up your mind,” though my mind wasn’t indecisive at that moment, merely pleased, at peace, contemplative and somewhat lonesome for the touch of fur, unless that latter was my heart.

Yes, I did want to touch the rabbits, but I was nevertheless deeply satisfied just standing there, where I felt privy to a communion with nature in Paris on a grey, drizzly day, and perhaps it was that that I was contemplating on the edge of the rabbits’ lawn, that nature, that communion, that satisfaction, that peace, though contemplating may not be the right word for it since I felt, above all, a deep, still satisfaction. I was there, and so were the rabbits. And as though to compare my connection with the wild rabbits with my connection with the history of the military complex they inhabited, I went inside the courtyard of the Invalides, of the Army Museum, and took in the view of its vast orderly space, where Napoleon stood in the shadow on the balcony at the far end and where the gilt dome of Saint Louis beneath which he lay rose beyond, and while I still had in mind the lush green lawn and the hearty grey-brown rabbits, I also now had in mind the expansive and restrained emotion of the courtyard of the Invalides, its pride, its ambitions, its history and ceremonies (Dreyfus, Afghanistan, Saint Barbe), its grandeur.

Between the rabbits and the courtyard, I’d been in the Invalides complex for less than 10 minutes and might have gone home then but I first wanted to use its rest room since I will sometimes decide that I’m going home then not arrive for several hours, either because that’s the way I am or because that’s the way great cities are. There were rest rooms, I knew, near the gift shop, but the museum had closed and I wasn’t sure to get in, but when, after crossing the courtyard, I asked the guard by the entrance to that portion of the building if the rest rooms were still open, he said “Go ahead, downstairs” with a surprising lack of obstruction and I realized that he thought I was on the premises for an event rather than as a straggling museum-goer. Indeed, when I came up the stairs from the rest room the guard pointed to my right, so I followed the direction of his finger and came upon a small crowd of well-dressed men and women entering a hallway outside of which a sign indicated an exhibition entitled Eisenhower – de Gaulle Alliance and Friendship in War and Peace.

A woman with a guest list stood by a desk by the entrance and asked my name, which I gave, and as I did I noticed someone waving in my direction from a few yards down the hallway, and even though he wasn’t waving to me, I waved back, leading the woman to not look at the guest list but rather to say “Oh, OK, I see, welcome” to which I replied “Thanks,” and entered the hallway gathering. I now felt obliged to walk up to the fellow who waved. He was a slight man with kind droopy eyes wearing a uniform the color of wet sand whom I recognized as General Alexandre d’Andoque de Sériège, director of the Army Museum. I introduced myself while shaking his small, warm hand and he said “Thanks for coming.” “My pleasure,” I said, leaving him to greet the person he had actually waved to, and as I turned I nearly bumped into General Christian Baptiste, former director of the Army Museum, wearing plain clothes, nice plain clothes, a suit actually. “Good evening, my general,” I said, and we shook a firm shake.

I looked around at the gathering crowd then down at my blue polo shirt and black pants and brown pleather jacket, clothes I hadn’t given much thought to when leaving home to visit the rabbits, and realized that I was conspicuously the only person present without a uniform, a suit, a skirt or a dress, yet I’d just shaken hands with two generals I’d recognized, so perhaps I did belong. In any case I played it cool and scholarly and began to read the panels of the Eisenhower-de Gaulle exhibition in the long corridor leading to the Museum of the Order of the Liberation. Though I knew a few things about Dwight Eisenhower and Charles de Gaulle and about their relationship concerning plans for D-Day and the Battle of Normandy and the Liberation of Paris, I hadn’t previously thought much about the parallels in their lives: they were born six weeks apart to religious and patriotic families; both were frustrated by their distance from the front during the First World War; both wrote texts promoting the importance and development of tank divisions at a time when both chomped at the bit of their hierarchy; both became generals; each approached the other warily while developing mutual respect after their first encounter in Algiers when de Gaulle began to form the French Committee of National Liberation (Comité Français de Libération Nationale) and sought American recognition.

I read some of the panels in English and others in French, depending on whether I could stand unobstructed closer to the left or the right, and, while the texts appeared to be equal in content, when I read in English I saw de Gaulle as a pompous Frenchman trying to represent in exile a defeated nation and who wanted to be considered its savior whereas Eisenhower was clearly the man of the moment, whereas when I read in French I appreciated de Gaulle’s ambition, his desire to exert Free French control so as to quickly return France to the role of a nation among nations, making him, too, a man of the moment.

I stopped reading when General Alexandre d’Andoque de Sériège, as the museum’s director, walked up to the small podium set up toward the end of the hallway in front of the flags of France, Europe and the United States and began welcoming distinguished guests—a government official, French generals, American military attachés, foundation presidents—who in protocolar order went up to the podium to speak about French-American bonds, the Eisenhower-de Gaulle bond, D-Day and its 75th anniversary. When last the government official spoke she told of a man named Jacques Lewis, a military liaison who was the rare Frenchman to land on Utah Beach, and of his various deeds in favor of French-American military relations and the cause of victory. She said that he was now 100 years old and lived at the Invalides, and I realized that he was present though I couldn’t see him because I was five yards back and we were all standing while he must have been seated. A certificate given to him by the United States Army Europe was read in English and translated in French, and after the applause died down and General d’Andoque de Sériège invited the assembly to a reception, I made my way to the side of the podium until I stood before a handsome, well-dress, decorated man in a wheelchair, Jacques Lewis, who wore the Legion of Honor and other medals and had on his lap a large framed “certificate of appreciation.”

While Mr. Lewis looked to someone to his left I leaned forward to read to myself the certificate whose text I only half heard when it was twice read aloud about the United States Army Europe recognizing Major Jacques Lewis for his contributions on Utah Beach on 6 June 1945 as a liaison officer with the 2d Armored Division, at the start of a long march through France, and, surprised to read 1945 instead of 1944, I bent closer to be sure that I’d read it right, and when I looked up I again I was nose to nose with Mr. Lewis who offered a smile that said “I’m honored, moved, but overwhelmed, so many people fawning over me, I’m tired” and I replied with a smile that said “I came looking for rabbits and don’t really belong here be here but I’ve been to Utah Beach dozens of times and given dozens of lectures about touring Normandy and you’re 100 years old and landed on Utah Beach(even though your certificate mentions 1945) and are now a resident of the Invalides, meaning that you’re at once a living monument to Allied victory and heir to nearly 350 years of pensionnaires at the Invalides, so you represent the entire military history of a place that is now also home to wild rabbits, and since I know all this then I do belong here and would like to shake your hand,” and I did, a large, gentle, human hand that I then covered with my other hand as though to keep it warm.

When finally I let go and straightened up a woman reached her arm out to hand me her phone and asked if I’d take her picture with Mr. Lewis, and I saw from her gracious height and steady coif and the way in which she put her hand gently on the veteran’s shoulder and looked for him to look to her (or to me, the cameraman) that she must be somebody, and as I was backing up to take the picture she was briefly distracted by someone who called out “Mrs. Eisenhower, when you have a moment…” and she responded “Just a moment” and I realized that I was taking the picture of Ike’s granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, so after taking a few shots and after I handed back her phone and she said “Thank you” I asked if she would be kind enough to allow me to take her and Mr. Lewis with my own camera, and she obliged. “Thank you, Mrs. Eisenhower,” I said. “You must have had a busy week with all these ceremonies,” to which she responded, “Exhausting,” and we then talked briefly about the series of ceremonies and events (75th anniversary of D-Day, 50th anniversary of her grandfather’s death, etc.) that she’d been to and that I hadn’t, other than this, which anyway covered the essential. I seemed to remember reading someplace that she now lived in Europe and asked her as much, to which she replied “No, I live in Washington, D.C.,” to which I said, “I must be confusing you with someone else’s granddaughter,” and without skipping a beat she says, “Helen Patton,” to which I said, “Sorry about that,” and we both laughed as though it were an inside joke, though many people know that the two are as unalike as, well, Eisenhower and Patton. A woman then called out “Susan” and Mrs. Eisenhower said to me, “Excuse me” and I shook her hand, which was sincere and long and warm if not as fuzzy as a rabbit’s head.

As people walked away I finished reading the panels of the exhibition—Eisenhower and de Gaulle both became presidents; they had their differences but maintained mutual respect, they visited to each other; Mamie and Yvonne died one week apart; Charles and Ike died 18 months apart—then slowly followed this beau monde of generals and military attachés and foundation presidents and Mrs. Eisenhower into one of the Invalides’s refectory/reception rooms, where, after a glass of white wine and several canapés, I asked a woman with a star-spangled scarf who was momentarily standing alone if she could point out to me the president of The First Alliance Foundation, which was a partner in the exhibition and which I’d never heard of, and she could not only point out Carole Brookins, the foundation’s founder and chairman, but also Dorothea de la Houssaye, founder and director of The Normandy Institute, another recent organization, along with many of the French generals and American military attachés present, and when I told her that I was impressed that she knew everyone she said, “Don’t be, that’s what generals’ wives do in Washington.”

The French generals and American military attachés and foundation presidents were as numerous as rabbits on the lawn, yet more approachable I found as I shook their hands and talked their talk, and even if their palms weren’t fleecy they were genuinely warm and frank.

At the first hint of the gathering breaking up I took my jacket and umbrella from the rack and left.

The courtyard was quiet except for the sound of a gentle rain.

The lawns were empty, as the rabbits had gone into their burrows, yet I stopped there for a moment, beneath my umbrella, to silently thank them for my good fortune.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Eisenhower, de Gaulle and the Wild Rabbits at the Invalides appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The 20th-century scourge of dog doo on the sidewalks of Paris has given way to the nuisance of tossed cigarette butts. While smokers continue to deploy their arms on the terrace of cafés and restaurants, the fight against butts on the ground is now underfoot.

Toxic, harmful to the environment and expensive to clean up – though good press for meticulous crows – throwing a cigarette butt on the ground in Paris can lead (since 2016) to a fine of 68 euros. But it’s a highly unlikely penalty.

Now, however, where there’s smoke in the park, there could be a fine. Corinne LaBalme sent in the news having seen a no-smoking sign at the entrance to Square des Batignolles (17th), her local green space. Since July that’s one of six parks and gardens that have been declared non-smoking zones as part of a trial policy by the City of Paris. Warning signs have been posted in Square Anne Frank (3rd), Square Yilmaz Guney (10th), Square Trousseau (12th), Jardin Henri Cadiou (13th) and Parc Georges Brassens (15th) as well. If adopted citywide later this fall, she writes, that nicotine hit in the park will cost 38 euros. Smokeless park-strolling is already enforced in Strasbourg.

Sparkling water is in

While Corinne was enjoying the smoke-free greenery in her neighborhood, I visited a new garden in the 11th, the city’s most densely populated arrondissement and one of its least green.

Open since July and officially inaugurated this month, Jardin Truillot is a 1.4-acre swath of path and greenery between Boulevards Richard Lenoir and Voltaire.

While one exit of Jardin Truillot faces Saint Ambroise Church (1860s), the opposite exit faces the sidewalk where Ahmed Merabet, a policeman on duty near the offices of Charlie Hebdo, was killed during the Islamist terrorist attack of January 7, 2015.

Considered the capital’s 500th green space, Truillot continues Paris’s contemporary vision of the role of green spaces in the city in reminding Parisians of the importance of agriculture, biodiversity and wine,

providing space for children to play – or at least place their toys,

promoting the drinking of city water, including sparkling city water,

and offering damp grass to sit or lie on.

Truillot is an uninspired choice of a name by the City of Paris; he’s a fellow who once owned the land. Nevertheless, to judge by the crowds on a sunny weekend, neighborhood residents are clearly pleased to see it open to the public after years of talk and planning. But since you can’t please all the people all the time, some neighbors are unhappy that Truillot remains open round the clock. So while garden-goers may take to nap on the grass during the day, several neighbors who overlook the garden claim that this strip of greenery is infringing upon their right to sleep (droit au sommeil) at night.

It may be little consolation on a sleepless night, but there must be quite a few smokers in Paris who would love have a balcony where they can step outside at 3am on a warm summer night and puff away with a view of a garden and a church, before flicking the butt out to the path below.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut, with assistance from Corinne LaBalme.

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When I was growing up we had no rubbish-bin collection. Waste papers were burned, leftover food was transformed and re-served, empty bottles were a bit of a problem but almost everything else ended its life rotting on the compost heap at the bottom of our garden. We used the compost as fertilizer and used the worms from the compost as bait for fishing.

But in a Parisian apartment composting is impossible, so my raw fruit and vegetable peels just have to go in the bin.

But one day this summer, as I was walking through the park near my home, I noticed three large wooden boxes or chests. They’d obviously been put there recently, I could get that tarry smell of new wood coated with preservative. The hinges on the lids were shiny and new-looking too. Intrigued, I looked closer and saw that each chest was clearly labelled, the first one said “Currently in use,” number two said “For future use” and the last one, “Dry matter.” An explanation was provided in the form of a notice telling the world that this was to be the site of a project called “Organic Composting” giving the name of the park, and an email address for those who needed further information.

I sent off an email asking for information and, more importantly, if I could throw my organic waste in the “Organic Compost.” My request was answered immediately with an invitation to a meeting the following Saturday morning at eleven, in the park.

Saturday morning at eleven there was only me standing beside the three wooden compost chests, then two or three stragglers with cans of beer. Five minutes later a couple arrived, settled on a bench and started what looked like a serious discussion. After about twenty minutes other people started to arrive and to gather around the three wooden chests, mostly young couples with babies in strollers. We looked at each other, wondering if one of us might be the person who sent the invitation.

Finally, a young woman arrived, tall and with such an air of natural self-possession and authority that it was clear that she was the one, our leader, our lovely Compost Queen. She addressed the waiting crowd, about ten of us by now, the stragglers and the couple on the bench having understood this wasn’t for them. Certain things had to be made clear, she explained, the first being that this was a meeting of the Square L. compost and if you happened to come from another neighborhood, she mentioned another one, a single metro station away, then you had to use their compost.

The imposters slunk away.

She went on to explain that it was a participative compost project, that we’d all have to take turns manning it one Saturday a month and that we should put our names down now if we wanted to take part.

“But, there is a waiting list,” she said, “and places are limited.”

My heart sank as I imagined having to sit an exam, a sort of French concours, but before I could object there were mumblings from the other candidates too and so she assured us that those of us who were present would all be admitted. We smiled at each other, relieved to know that our tea bags and coffee dregs would be welcomed and could rot away comfortably.

She explained too that we mustn’t presume that it was easy, you don’t simply dump your organic waste into it, you have to stir it all up with a large wand-like instrument provided and held in the lid, and then you add some of the “dry matter” from wooden chest number three to soak up the liquefied rot. To give a demonstration of this the Compost Queen opened up the lid of the chest currently in use. We all leapt back and waited until the swarms of flies suddenly released had escaped, and then had a good look at what had already been put into the chest and was composting.

“Not good,” she said. “Look at those onions. Worms don’t like onions. And you should break up your eggshells before putting them in, you can’t expect the worms to climb over them. No citrus fruits, no shop-bought flowers, they are all bad for the worms.”

She then delicately picked out the few onions and the cut flowers visible on the top of the pile and threw them in the nearby waste-bin.

“What about newspapers?” someone dared ask.

“Yes, they’re allowed, but not if they come from your grandmother’s attic, the ink will have lead in it,” came the answer.

There were other questions and gradually the company relaxed a bit as we exchanged composting stories and experiences. One woman told me about how she had spent a year in London as an au-pair and that was when she discovered compost-heaps. She told me that when an English person shows you around their house, they will proudly take you to visit their compost-heap too. After a brief word about what compost duty entailed, we were each given a green bucket, the meeting broke up and we all went home.

I put myself down for compost duty a month or two later, picking the only date that wasn’t already taken. I was there at ten o’clock, it was lashing rain, not another soul in sight. I opened the compost chest marked “in current use.” Nothing alarming seemed to be happening so I closed it again. After a few minutes our beautiful Compost Queen came. We chatted. She told me about the work that running the compost group involved. She had volunteered to Paris City Hall when they were looking for people interested in starting one in their neighborhood and they gave her a one-day course in composting and planting. So I asked her where and when our compost would be used for planting. She lowered her eyelids as she told me with great sadness that in Paris City Hall, compost comes under “waste” and planting comes under “green spaces,” and “green spaces” doesn’t speak to “waste.”

We pondered this one for a minute or two under our umbrellas. Then we decided just to keep on composting and said goodbye.

Text and photos © 2017, Niamh Tixier

Niamh Tixier is Irish and has been living in Paris for several years.

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An idea comes to me. Why not an afternoon in a park? I live near the Jardin de Luxembourg, in the middle-class 6th district. It is a formal garden in one part, with tennis courts in another. A fountain created at the initiative of Queen Marie de Médicis has been placed to one side. The garden now belongs to the French Senate. There I can enjoy watching ducks swimming in lines in the center pool, or admire 106 statues, but I must stay off the grass. I don’t feel like going to the Luxembourg Garden today. I know it too well. Since it’s vacation time in Paris, I’m in the mood to try something new and a bit less formal.

I consult Google, make a list of a dozen parks I don’t know. The one I choose is the Jardin de la Folie Titon, on the rue de Chanzy in the 11th district of Paris, a racially mixed working class area some distance from my home. I choose it because it sounds small and cozy, a real neighborhood park, but especially because I have never heard of it before.

When I reach the park I learn that it does have some history connected with it. At the entrance, a sign tells me about it. The Folie Titon was a wallpaper factory built here before the French Revolution, and it participated in that event’s history.

A plaque on a wall on the nearby rue de Montreuil says that on April 28, 1789, a few days before the opening of the Estates General, the factory was burned during a people’s riot that was harshly repressed. Another plaque states that the first manned hot air balloon took off from this site October 19, 1783. The factory was rebuilt, but then demolished permanently in 1880. A middle school now stands on the site, built in the architectural style of the small factories which still exist in the neighborhood. It features broad windows across each floor, overlooking the park. The school is named Pilâtre de Rozier, after the 1783 balloonist.

The Folie Titon Garden is designed with a circular path around a big lawn, where today, couples and families are sitting or lying. There are no “keep off the grass” warnings here. An informational sign tells me about a lily pond at the far end of the park, recently installed to encourage “aquatic biodiversity.” There I see water lilies with tall reeds behind them, and a goldfish swimming around. In front of the pond are a variety of flowering and aromatic plants, honeysuckle, nasturtium, fuchsia, sage, and even a few vegetables, cherry tomatoes and squash.

I sit down on one of the numerous benches placed along the path, and watch the people around me. There are other bench sitters, most of them elderly white men. On the lawn there is a mother with a curly headed brown-skinned boy who looks to be about four. He is having a fine time chasing the butterflies flitting around the plants that separate the lawn from the path. He takes time out from his chase to greet me. “Bonjour,” he says. “Bonjour,” I reply. I can see his mother watching him from the lawn, but she does not get up. She must not consider me scary.

What could be scary is the group of teenage boys clustered near one of the park’s exits, not far from the lily pond. They are blacks and Arabs, and they are talking loudly. They stand very close together, and it’s hard to tell just what they are doing. Are they smoking weed? Could they be a gang? I am apprehensive, but relax when I see that the teenagers are ignoring all of the other users of the park, who are also ignoring them. Nobody seems afraid, so I will not be, either.

Two young women, one white, one black, dressed in summer casual clothes, pass my bench. They must live in the neighborhood, I think.

Just beyond me, they stop and look at the middle school. They have a Paris guide, and one reads to the other from it. Once they have finished reading, they take pictures with their phones, then they leave the park. “Why, they’re tourists!” I think to myself with amusement. I thought the only tourist in this little-known, out-of-the-way neighborhood park was me.

I sit for a while longer, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere, then I leave the park, too. I follow the path the rest of the way around the central lawn. There are fewer people on this side, few trees, no benches.

Then I see the Plaque. It is white marble, with lists of names in columns in black letters.

The Plaque reads:

“Arrested by the Vichy Government police, accomplices of the occupying power (Germany), more than 11,000 children were deported from France from 1942 to 1944, and murdered in the Nazi camps because they were born Jews. More than 1200 of these children lived in the 11th district. Among them, 199 babies who had not had time to attend school.

“Passerby, read their names, your memory is their only burial place.”

The children are listed by name and age, one by one, first the babies under four, then the children four to seven.

I feel like I have been hit in the stomach. None of my research on the Jardin de la Folie-Titon made any mention of this memorial to these deported children, the largest and most detailed of its kind that I have seen anywhere in Paris. Few people follow the circular path in that direction, where there are no trees, no benches. From the other side of the lawn, I myself did not notice the Plaque.

In 1942, when the deportation of these children started, I was seven years old, the same age as the oldest of them. In 1945, after the war ended and the concentration camps were opened, I saw a photo in Life Magazine showing heaps of naked corpses. I was ten, an age none of those Plaque children ever reached. I have never forgotten that photo, which became the root of my choice, as a historian, to study the fate of Jews in France under Vichy.

As I walk home through the Jardin du Luxembourg, my mind is still full of my discovery at the Jardin de la Folie Titon. My pretty, formal neighborhood park now seems stiff and stilted compared to what I just saw. I am so happy to live in this city where I can become a tourist and can find something that is more than just pretty, that has a personal meaning for me.

© 2017, Alice Evleth

Alice Evleth is a long-time American expatriate living in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.

The post Paris Parks & Gardens: The Cross-City Tourist appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

He isn’t referring to the motley group of crooked line dancers hopping to an Irish reel that’s blasting from a portable loudspeaker. He’s referring instead to the fact that they, along with the hundreds of others in this clearing in the Vincennes Woods, are buck naked.

“Last day,” I tell him, indicating the sign near the path.

We’re standing on the edge of the zone that the City of Paris has designated as a space for nudism, or naturism, from September 1 until today, October 15.

“Shameful,” he says. “But that’s Paris.”

I don’t know if that last part softens his position on the fleshy scene before us or further condemns it. Either way, the fellow stands there for another minute, and so do I. I have a vision of a cotillion of terns gathering between shelf and sea.

The zone is surrounded by woods, but since the eye is drawn to the terns before the sign explaining what they’re doing here, surprised passersby are not uncommon. If the city renews the experience next year they ought to provide more advance warning.

The fellow standing next to me appears to have come upon this zone purely by accident. Unlike me. I’ve been riding my bike through the woods for the past half-hour looking for it. Eventually the fellow pushes his bike, slowly, along the path through the nudist zone. I follow behind. But whereas he exits out the opposite side of the zone, I look for an empty spot on the grass.

I see someone walking away with a towel slung over his shoulders and grab the space he’s just left. It’s the perfect spot: a beach-towel-size plot surrounded on three sides by foot-high tufts of grass. There’s a narrow path a few yards to one side. To another side there’s enough room to lay down my bike between me and the closest nudist.

While the woods that I’ve just biked through smelled of fallen leaves and autumn damp, the grass is warm this afternoon. It’s an exceptionally balmy day for October, peaking at 77°F.

I undress.

All I really wanted was a place to go barefoot on the grass. That’s the first thing I missed from suburban New Jersey when I settled in Paris.

True, there are a smattering of grassy areas to go barefoot in in various gardens and parks in Paris, more now than when I arrived in the late 1980s. In some of those spots, however, one is expected to be accompanied by a child under eight, or a girlfriend, or to have brought along some rat repellant. The further you go from the center the more likely you’ll find entire swaths of lawn that needn’t only be admired from the edge of a gravely path, and there are plenty more lawns in the Vincennes and Boulogne Woods, Paris’s eastern and western lungs.

This, however, is where I wanted to wiggle my toes. But in this designated zone in the Vincennes Woods I can only go barefoot if I also go bare-assed. That’s Socialism for you – it gives you exactly what you need, with strings attached.

Of course you don’t have to take all your clothes off in the nudist zone. But exposing only your feet to the free air in this clearing in the woods would be like going to Paris and contenting yourself with visiting nothing but the Eiffel Tower.

I take a selfie.

Practitioners of nudism in Paris

On its inauguration day, September 1, Catherine Baratti-Elbaz, the mayor of the 12th arrondissement, which covers the Vincennes Woods, said that this trial nudist zone was intended for a mixed crowd and could be enjoyed by “Parisians, tourists and textiles.” By textiles she meant those that cover more than their head with fabric. By mixed I assume that she meant men and women. If instead she was referring to a rainbow coalition that would include blacks, Arabs, Sri Lankans and Vietnamese, then this afternoon, at least, has clearly missed the mark. And whereas 50 percent of the population of Paris is under 40 years of age, I’d estimate that today less than 10 percent of this crowd is under 40. As to the male-female ratios, it appears to stand at an unbalanced 80-20, at best.

Textiles may be welcome but not one is in sight. Perhaps there would be something suspicious about stripping down to only a loincloth. Anyway, the bathingsuiters and other underpanters long ago designated an unofficial lawn space as their own just a few hundred yards away.

I’m guessing from news reports and photos over the previous six weeks that this sunny final weekend of outdoor nudism in Paris has drawn the largest crowds of the season. (Indoor possibilities remain, as noted below.) There may well have been more journalists than nudists on opening day.

The zone is relatively crowded this afternoon, with only a yard or two between strangers. It’s mostly men, alone or in pairs. Some, like me, have come by bike. Our bikes lie next to us on the grass like sleeping lovers with whom we don’t have to share the towel. There are few small groupings of friends or acquaintances. Upon entering the zone I spotted two families (not together), each with a child of five or six.

The Paris Naturist Association (Association des Naturistes de Paris) naturally has a strong contingency here since the association pushed for the designation of such a zone from the start.

The experienced and lifestyle naturists are easy enough to spot: they’re the ones standing up. They’ve brought coolers and chairs and true picnics. I have a bottle of water and an apple. The crooked line dancers I saw when I first arrived (their music thankfully shut off shortly thereafter) was part of that group. While the average age for men is probably 55ish today, the age of women skews higher, with few under 60, by my guess. The women are mostly within the large gathering of stand-up nudists who present the heart of the day’s, perhaps the season’s, community of naturists. I’m a tourist on the edge.

Tiens, Tiens

A man set up a 10-foot-wide net soon after I arrived and he then walked around inviting people to meet there for a volleyball game “in five minutes.” Two hours later no one has gathered by the net. In its trial season there may be a difference of aims between practitioners and organizers of naturism, with the former content to simply get naked in the sun and the latter more interested in forming a community of moving parts.

It’s altogether a good-natured afternoon as far as I can tell. A few duos and trios walk around. They occasionally see someone they know. “Tiens, tiens” (Well, well) appears to be a common greeting, followed by kisses all around. I don’t see anyone I know. I don’t even recognize anyone.

And then I do. He’s from my neighborhood. I’ve known him for nearly 20 years, though only by sight. You couldn’t miss him when he was in his 30s, a handsome man with muscles large enough to discourage anyone sensible from every going to a gym. Now in his 40s, he’s rounded out but still has gym membership written across his textiled torso. He has taken a towel-less seat on the grass about 10 yards away from me. He sits there without removing so much as his shoes, looking like a heavy, weary raptor on this beach of terns. Since he must still go to the gym he must not be unfamiliar with the contours of the human body. Or perhaps that’s the point: he’s interested in seeing what happens to the body after one turns 50 or 60 and now takes nudity for exercise.

Voyeurism is verboten, reads the sign at the entrance to the nudist zone, but that doesn’t mean that one has to sit blindly through this good day. I certainly can’t be the only one to notice that, this being October, tan lines, are mostly gone – though I suppose that some didn’t go in for tan lines in the first place. And presumably one can’t be arrested for noticing how out of fashion pubic hair has become. It appears that there would be no greater shame for a Parisian nudist than to have a bush down there. I stay low so as to not draw attention to myself.

All eyes turn upward when we hear a high-pitched whizz overhead. Though I can’t see the object making the noise I recognize the sound as that of a drone. Orwellian voyeurism. I wonder what the police would want with these images. And if not the police, then who? We’ve got nothing to hide here. How could we? But still. Something is amiss in this Garden of Eden.

I eat my apple.

As the shadows creep across the clearing in the late afternoon some nudists transition to textiles, some pick up their belongings and move to a sunny spot, while others get dressed and leave. I wait until the shadow reaches my feet before dressing.

There, I think as I pull on my shorts, I’ve done it. I’ve felt my bare feet in the grass, my bare everything else in the sun.

This isn’t so different from visiting the Eiffel Tower after all: I’ve joined the crowd. I’ve looked around. I’ve taken a selfie. Been there, done that. Moving on.

But I do like this city. Maybe I’ll move here some day.

Indoor venues for nudism in Paris

France is considered the world’s top destination for social nudism. In addition to its homegrown nudists, France offers a warmer climate for northern continental European naturist. Information about beaches, campgrounds, other sites, associations and more, throughout France, is available from the French Federation of Naturism (Fédération Française de Naturisme).

For Paris, the main group to consult is the Paris Naturist Association (Association des Naturistes de Paris). The association also has a Facebook page.

Naked swimming: The main venue for athletic nudism in Paris is the Roger Le Gall municipal swimming pool and gym in the 12th arrondissement, which allows nudism Monday and Wednesday evenings 9pm-11pm and Friday evening 9:30pm-11:30pm. Check the website of the Paris Naturist Association before going, however, since closing times may change during holiday periods. Members of the Paris Naturist Association also have access to the gym Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

As in all municipal pools, swim caps are required in order to keep hair from clogging the drain and so that you won’t run into each other’s floating hairballs as you swim. Let’s pause to think about that for a moment. On second thought, better not. Think chlorine.

Naked dining: The 12th arrondissement has become the leading district for Paris naturists. It’s only natural then that it is the district to welcome the nudist restaurant, O’naturel, 9 rue de Gravelle in the 12th arrondissement. Metro Daumesnil or Michel Bizot. Promising “bistronimic” cuisine, O’naturel is open evenings only, Tuesday-Saturday. Tel. 01 85 15 24 91. Clients must enter clothed.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

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