But I’d like you to remove your rose-colored glasses for now as I lead you into the shadows that are the subject of my new VoiceMap audio tour Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: The Dark Side of the City of Light. Along with the charm of its route through the central Right Bank of Paris, this is an unflinching journey through France’s dark past, where torture, assassination and terror are among the building blocks of the beauty that surrounds you.

The route passes major landmarks, vibrant streets, inviting cafés, alluring pastry shops and boutiques, soaring churches, and the playful Stravinsky Fountain, as it reveals both the enchantment of the present and the cruel events of the past.

Watch this video introduction before reading on.

These aren’t ghost stories or legends that I tell; these are historical events that shaped Paris as you see it today. In understanding the terrible building blocks of the City of Light, you’ll gain an important appreciation for how its beauty and brutality have coexisted throughout history.

Here’s one location covered on a tour, a memorial garden inaugurated in the summer of 2025:

The Dark Side of the City of Light now joins my VoiceMap audio tours to the Luxembourg Garden, the Tuileries Garden, and the Champs-Elysées as another of my essential self-guided walking tours to major aspects of Paris and its culture, splendor, history, and life today.

Though VoiceMap is primarily designed to provided GPS-guided audio tour for use on site, I’ve uploaded photos for each of the tour’s locations to allow armchair travelers to fully follow along. So you can listen from your home computer or your iPhone or Android anywhere even if you don’t have Paris plans. Then use the downloaded tour again whenever you do make it Paris.

The VoiceMap Touring App is available from the Google Play Store and the App Store. On your home computer just go to VoiceMap.me. Once you’ve signed up with VoiceMap and purchased the full tour, you can listen to it on your phone, tablet or computer, or all three, on site, on the road or at home.

Even without signing up, you can listen to the first three locations before deciding whether you want to download the full tour.

If, after downloading the app, you don’t land directly on one of my tours, you’ll find them easily by searching “Gary Kraut” in the VoiceMap search block, or by clicking or tapping directly on the author’s page of these Paris audio guides.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: Exploring the Dark Side of the City of Light appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Soon after moving to Dordogne in early 2023, Ava Kabouchy found herself intrigued by the Gardens of Marqueyssac, first as a visitor in awe of the clifftop estate, then as a photographer wishing to capture the impressive array of topiaries, the subtle shades of green, the long alleys, the wandering peacocks, the chapel beyond the iris bush, the gardeners at precision work, the employees informing and entertaining visitors, and more. From February through April, then again in December, she returned four more times to examine the abundant and eye-pleasing life of the 54-acre park with its more than 3½ miles of pathways.

I, Gary, also had the pleasure of strolling along the paths of Marqueyssac this year, on a bright September morning, and though writing is my primary tool rather than photography, I couldn’t help but want to record with my phone the views that I took in.

This photo reportage leans on Ava’s photographs, supported by my contributions and several photos provided by Marqueyssac itself. I organized the images into the eight strolls and wrote the descriptions and captions.

Where is Marqueyssac?

Located five miles from the well-preserved old town of Sarlat, Marqueyssac occupies a promontory 425 feet over the Dordogne River. Even without its gardens, Marqueyssac would be a worthy destination for its panoramic views out to the villages, chateaux, walnut orchards and winding river that make this such an alluring region. Add the gardens themselves—along with a small chateau, a café overlooking the valley, and numerous activities proposed to visitors—and you get a singular sight. While especially famous for its more than 150,000 boxwoods, Marqueyssac’s attraction extends well beyond them. The site lends itself to a variety of strolls: romantic, contemplative, family, boxwood-botanical, and more. Though the organized activities here slow down during the short cold days of late autumn and winter, Marqueyssac, open every day of the year, is truly a year-round destination.

The Boxwood or Botanical Stroll

European boxwoods are the defining greenery of Marqueyssac. There are some 150,000 in all, either trimmed or otherwise tamed, destructured or left to grow naturally. Ava was the first visitor on the morning she took the photo above, but the work-day of gardener Christophe Kursac, glimpsed trimming a topiary upper right, was already well underway. Christophe, the head gardener, is one of the six full-time gardeners, who, along with four seasonal gardeners, ensure that the site’s unique presentation of topiaries—all trimmed by hand twice annually—and the overall park remain in tip-top shape for the more than 200,000 visitors that come each year.

Though the noble history of Marqueyssac begins with a landscaping project of 1692, the estate’s boxwood connection dates to the late 19th century. In 1861, Julien de Cerval (1818-1893), a magistrate of nearby Sarlat, inherited the property. His passion—obsession—for boxwoods was sparked by his travels in Italy, as were the cypress and umbrella pine and various shrubs encountered along the garden paths. Boxwoods (buxus sempervirens) are well suited to the limestone soil of Marqueyssac. Successive owners, without the funds or passion to maintain de Cerval’s work, eventually allowed the bushes and trees to grow untamed and the garden paths to all but disappear.

Enter Kleber Rossillon, the driving force behind the estate’s restoration. His parents had purchased the fortress castle of Castelnaud on the opposite side of the Dordogne River, visible in this shot between boxwoods and pines.

At age 30, Rossillon took the reins of Castelnaud, which he developed into a major tourist attraction with its family-friendly museum about war in the Middle Ages. In 1996, he purchased the estate of Marqueyssac and set about a major restoration of de Cerval’s garden along with contemporary additions that now fit seamlessly into the overall gardenscape. The gardens reopened to the public in 1997.

On the strength of those experiences in Dordogne, Kleber Rossillon’s company has expanded to become a significant private player in the management of historical sites open to the public in France, including the Montmartre Museum in Paris, the Castle of Langeais in the Loire Valley, and the Cosquer Cave in Marseille, among others. His daughter Geneviève Rossillon is now the company’s managing director.

These boxwood topiary “bricks” appear as blocks rolling down the hill towards the château. Plumb lines ensure precision of the rectangular shapes, but the main tools are sharp shears and elbow grease. Not all of Marqueyssac’s boxwoods are topiaries. Many are also left untamed, where they can reach heights of up to 30 feet.

The captivating variety of shades of green catch the photographer’s eye. Keep Marqueyssac in mind if you’re looking for a place to mark World Topiary Day, the Sunday that follows May 12.

If you’ve ever tried your hand at a topiary, you know that creating and maintaining even a single one for just a year requires commitment. Imagine, on your boxwood stroll, the devotion that goes into maintaining thousands of them. Each topiary is hand-trimmed twice per year. When not too crowded, don’t hesitate to use your best French to mention your appreciation to the gardeners for their work and even ask a question or two about it. They may be happy for the opportunity to stretch their aching backs and respond.

Most of the boxwoods at Marqueyssac take their roots from those originally planted towards the end of the 19th-century by then-owner Julien de Cerval.

The Valley-View Stroll

When I compared my photos with Ava’s, I found that hers studiously looked inward and down green pathways in search of the beauty and geometric nuances of the gardens, while mine occasionally turned outward to the Dordogne Valley. Perhaps, in the case of this photo, because I’d just pointed out to my strolling companion that I would next be headed there, to the riverside village of La Roque-Gageac.

I’m a point-and-shoot kind of guy, hoping to come away a telling or memorable image. And I can’t resist a gentle point-and-sweep, though I’m never sure where the sweep should end and sometimes just go around in a full circle. But in the short video below, a garden fairy suddenly appeared indicating that it was time to hit “stop” and stroll on. She’s Stéphanie Angleys, Marqueyssac’s communications officer and my guide through the gardens.

I’d more or less completed our project when Ava returned on a December morning then sent several more photos, including this.

Perhaps it was the dampness of the day that turned her eye away from the garden path, beyond the geometry of the boxwoods and the leaflessness trees to the sodden winter landscape with the grey river running through. Still, you notice that her focus remained in the garden, unwilling to let go and reaffirming that the gardens of Marqueyssac are a year-round destination.

The valley-view stroller—in fact any stroller who makes it to the far end—is rewarded with a 360° view from the highest part of the gardens. This Cross marks the spot. We leave it to you to discover on your own the view that goes with it.

The Romantic Stroll

While you and your loved one will quickly be drawn into the meticulousness of the topiaries, romance thrives on the less planned as well. Beyond the precise trimming, Marqueyssac is home to enough unfocused fantasy—albeit intentionally unfocused fantasy—and dreamy points of view to allow for an exquisite romantic stroll as well.

Arrive early enough in the day and you might even feel that you have the place to yourselves.

The romantic stroll proceeds at a gentle pace. And a stroll wouldn’t be romantic if it didn’t also include a romantic sit, or several, to prolong the pleasure. The bench above, overlooking the valley, is perfectly suited for a starry-eyed conversation (oh, the places we’ve been)… while the one below is an even sweeter spot for a sun-dappled snuggle stop.

If, after a while, you get into one of those tiffs that even the best of travelers find themselves in with a loved one, turning a corner to find a peacock, the mascot of Marqueyssac, perched on a ledge will be a sign to return to each other’s hand.

The fellow below isn’t shy about unfurling his seductive plumage in a mating ritual despite human presence—and presumably because there’s a peahen around—so you needn’t either. Within limits of course, and with less of a squawk if possible.

Peering through the evergreen oaks to the village of La Roque Gageac may feel like your private discovery, something that only you and your love share.

If your love was reading a travel guide in bed last night, then he may take this opportunity to inform you that Dordogne, the “department” or sub-region, in which Marqueyssac is located, more or less follows the borders of the historic province of Périgord. So while Périgord no longer officially exists, he’ll explain, the two names are often used interchangeably. Périgord (Dordogne) is unofficially divided into four color-coded landscape-defined sections: Green Périgord, White Périgord, Purple Périgord, Black Périgord. White refers to the limestone soil and the white buildings constructed with it in and around Dordogne’s capital Perigueux. Green refers to the vegetation to the north. Purple refers to the wine growing region in the west (Bergerac and surroundings). Black refers to the dark leaves and shadows of evergreen oaks (quercus ilex) to this southwest quadrant of Dordogne/Périgord. That’s where Marqueyssac lies. Black Périgord is the quadrant with the most tourist appeal (Sarlat, the Dordogne and Vézère Valleys, Marqueyssac, Castelnaud, etc.). That’s fascinating, honey, you’ll reply. Let’s not read in bed tonight.

The Contemplative Stroll

Come alone, walk with a thought-provoking friend, or temporarily lose your loved ones or friends along the way and those same romantic paths and views appear refreshingly contemplative. That snuggle bench above then becomes a seat for private reverie or to write a vignette … as long as you resist taking out your phone to check for messages and news.

Though visitors inevitably remember, photograph and return to the rounded or straight-edge topiaries, the overall park has a rich vegetation that lends itself to contemplation of this good and suffering Earth.

The vegetation on the southern side leans to the Mediterranean with cypresses, umbrella pines, evergreen oaks, and more. Its northern side leans more to the Atlantic with locust trees added to the mix.

Through Ava’s damp lens, the scene by the entrance, which looked so promising in the opening shot, now holds an eerie, contemplative fascination in the photo below.

The topiaries no longer appear as the achievement of creative landscapers and hard-laboring gardeners but seem to be caused by something boiling or furrowing underground. Are we safer here or in the disorderly landscape that lies beyond and below. Are the tile rooftops hints of refuge or danger?

Ava found a wistful contemplative moment from inside the chateau, between the parted curtains, looking out to the topiaries and the naked trees on a visitor-less late winter’s morning.

And she found it again with a feeling of quiet and peace beneath the dripping cascade in a shallow pond known as “the Zen.”

The limestone cliffs that surround Marqueyssac don’t contain any water source other than rain, and there is no spring within the gardens, so Kléber Rossillon added a silent pump to create the waterfall on a closed circuit. But no need to focus on the mechanics in that dreamy corner of the park.

Contemplation may not best describe one’s reaction to the creature below, but if nothing else, the sight of this 150-million-year-old skeleton of an allosaurus, visible from a garden path, will get you wondering what the heck it’s doing here.

This Jurassic-era dinosaur—about 75% original remnant, measuring 24.6 feet long by 8.2 feet high—was found in Wyoming and purchased by Kléber Rossillon in 2016.

The Cliffhanger’s Stroll

Not only do the gardeners and the boxwoods cling to the cliffs, but so can visitors on a climb-stroll above the greenery along the limestone walls of Marqueyssac.

The cliffside strollway, its Via Ferrata, is punctuated with metal steps and rings and fixed safety cables. Fitted with a harness, lanyard and helmet and attached to the course-long lifeline, visitors 8 years old and over and taller than 1.3 meters (a tad over 4-foot 3 inches) can securely take this 220-yard climb-stroll.

Ava came across this adventurous family as they prepared for final instruction before going on the Via Ferrata.

Cliff-strolling not your thing? You can nevertheless step into the trees on this elevated path beyond the creepy rock-head sculptures facing up from the ground.

The Family and/or Activities Stroll

Making the most of Marqueyssac doesn’t require joining on a planned tour or activity, especially for romantic or contemplative strollers, but for a family stroll or simply to punctuate your visit, check out the calendar of activities in advance. If interested in the cliff-stroll above, you should time your visit according. There are also nature workshops, a wood turner, yoga classes, and a playground for sliding and climbing.

You might begin with a guided explanation about the garden before venturing off on your own.

“Curious about nature” arts and crafts workshops, particularly aimed at children, are held spring to fall.

The Chateau Stroll

Though the gardens are the primary interest of Marqueyssac, a visit ends with a brief stroll through the chateau, a late-19th-century residence. A vast restoration of the chateau was completed in 2017. Though called a château, the main residence of the estate appears more as a manor house compared with the massive stone medieval and Renaissance chateaux (Castelnaud, Beynac, Les Milandes, etc.) that can be visited in the region. What’s most impressive about the chateau is its stone-tiled roof. Placed without mortar, the hand-cut limestone slabs (lauzes) have a combined weight of over 500 tons.

Several rooms can be visited inside.

The Candlelit Stroll

Thursday evenings in July and August, Marqueyssac’s Soirées aux Chandelles give the opportunity for visitors to take a candlelit stroll as the day recedes and sunset, twilight then night envelop the Dordogne Valley. The garden paths are lit by 2000 candles and hundreds of other elements of soft lighting, a pianist plays in one corner, there’s a brass quartet in another, perhaps an acoustic guitarist somewhere, and the occasional fairy winging by. The estate is open from 7PM to midnight on those special evenings, but if you don’t plan on spending more than two hours, then arrive at 8/8:30 in order to best experience a leisurely and enchantment stroll through sunset and twilight.

So what’ll it be, daytime or evening, romantic or contemplative or botanical? Will you find yourself more drawn to staring out across the valley or peering down a dimly lit alley? It’s up to you. Marqueyssac offers the opportunity for you to create your own remarkable stroll.

Marqueyssac, 24200 Vezac, Dordogne. See here for seasonal opening times and admission prices and here for the calendar of activities and events. Online reservation is required to attend a Candlelit Evening.

Photos, where indicated, © 2023 by Ava Kabouchy, first published on France Revisited.
Other photos, where indicated, video, and all text © 2023 by Gary Lee Kraut.
Additional photos, where indicated, © Laugery-Les Jardins de Marqueyssac-Dordogne.

The post 8 Remarkable Strolls in the Gardens of Marqueyssac (Dordogne) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

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.

(While Paris promotes low cartoon, the city of Nancy offers high and accessible art to the general public, as noted at the end of this article.)

The exhibition Le Chat Déambule (Le Cat’s Walk) wouldn’t be so distasteful if there were a hundred other events going on at the same time, as there usually are in Paris. In less restricted times, seeing the sculpture of a dog peeing through a hoop being held by an enormous, rotund cat or Le Chat dressed as a ballerina might be a cute diversion while taking a stroll with a six-year-old. But right now this cat is the only game in town. So its orchestration along the why-does-anyone-still-call-this “the most beautiful avenue in the world,” even though originally planned before the pandemic hit, is like ordering restaurants and food shops to close then handing out dollops of Nutella to celebrate Gastronomy Day. Some will certainly say it made their day.

A collection of 10-foot-high Bugs Bunny sculptures would be more interesting. Bugs does irony and sarcasm far more incisively and expressively than Le Chat. Could be that I’m more attached to Bugs than Le Chat because I didn’t grow up with Geluck merchandizing as the French and Belgians have. Still, I can only imagine the outcry of crass commercialism and cultural imperialism if Bugs were the lead cultural offering of the season.

Belgian cartoonist Philippe Geluck created his rotund cat in 1983 and they’ve both been well known and highly marketable in France for more than three decades. Cute irony, charming incongruity and a bit of megalomania are Le Chat’s brand of humor. Even if the work as a whole—l’oeuvre, as they say in art circles—is trite, it presents the kind of harmless humor that spreads easily and innocuously and makes its creator rich from merchandizing royalties.

It isn’t Le Chat’s quaint humor or childish irony that’s objectionable, and this isn’t a discussion as to what constitutes art. What’s objectionable is the decision of the City of Paris’s to offer a monumental version of a hackneyed newspaper cartoon as the only-see in town during this phase of the Covid restrictions. Given one shot at an outdoor sculptural exhibition, the City of Paris went for this?

While the national government meanders through the minefields of the pandemic, the city government has decided to encourage herd immunity from critical thinking. The bronzes are cute enough in a simple-minded way, call them mildly amusing if you like, but with museums closed, the occasion called out for exhibiting something more thought-provoking or humorous or simply surprising in the public space—something to appeal to our sense of curiosity at a time when cultural gatherings are otherwise forbidden and many of our usual pleasures (not to mention loved ones) are out of reach. Instead, Le Cat has killed the curiosity.

The exhibition is present along the park bordering the Avenue des Champs-Elysées from Place de la Concorde to the Rond-Point from March 26 to June 9.

Sculptural Sedatives

It’s a misnomer to call the current restrictions lockdown. Instead, since November we’ve been locked out from cultural institutions and locked in for the evening. As displeasing as it is to be infantilized by a grab-bag of restrictions and fluctuating curfews decreed by the moderate right national government, the moderate left city government under Mayor Hidalgo clearly views Paris as a playground for uncurious children.

The Geluck exhibition will be gone soon enough but what will remain is the sense that insipid installations, permanent or otherwise, are a hallmark of the current occupants of Hidalgo’s vision of Paris. Two others examples, both installed in 2019, stand near Le Chat: One is Jeff Koons’ bouquet of anal/mushroom tulips in the park on the opposite side of the avenue. Koons’ sculpture was intended as a colorful call to weep for the victims of terrorism but it’s as unthought-provoking as Le Chat in a tutu: take a picture and move on. The other is the group of LED-lit tubular crystal and bronze fountains at the Rond-Point. The good news is that both of those are easily ignored: you’re unlikely to pass by the bouquet without seeking it out and you’re unlikely to notice the high-tech plumbing during the day despite their prominent position.

City Hall has repeatedly reminded doubters that the 3.5+ million euros for the tulips and the 6.3 million for the high-tech plumbing were funded through private donations in collaboration with the Fonds pour Paris – Paris Foundation, as though private funding makes more palatable and less public these mind-numbing installations. (Follow the money in one analysis here.)

All attempts to bring a contemporary touch to the city get criticized, city officials repeatedly proclaim. That is certainly true; Parisians and the Paris-based national press love to debate what’s going on in their backyard. Yet it’s also true that despite the distinct reasons for each these three closely-spaced installations—the grotesque bouquet, the fancy plumbing, the glorified cartoon—they reveal similar attempts to numb the mind of the stroller and the passerby. Each of them is distinctly uninspiring. City Hall would have us believe that any criticism of their public installations is a criticism of progress and of contemporary art or design. But you have only to realize that none of them holds your attention for more than one minute to understand that they are cultural and sculptural sedatives, intended to keep us from thinking anything at all.

Are You in Love?

While Paris promotes low cartoon, Greater Nancy is offering high and accessible art that premiered online on March 25, 2021.

Etes-Vous Amoureux? (Are You in Love?), a project by the Opéra National de Lorraine, may not have the mass appeal of Le Chat but it certainly makes an effort to engage the general public with the arts in an original manner during the pandemic. It premiered online on March 25.

Composed by Paul Brody, who’s American, and developed through NOX, the Opera’s laboratory for lyric creation, the opera is comprised of 12 lyrical short films presenting 12 love stories filmed at 12 locations in the Greater Nancy area. Nancy is a city 190 miles east of Paris. The films have English subtitles.

Watch contemporary opera when there’s so much else to do? I know, I thought the same thing. Then I clicked on the first film and patiently got drawn in. Will you? Have a look and listen here.

© 2021, Gary Lee Kraut

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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.

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.

The post Green Paris: Smoking Is Out, Sparkling Water Is In appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

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.

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