Approaching the Pont des Arts, the footbridge across the river, I saw that work was being done on the bridge. For years its railings had been invaded by so-called love locks, a forced marriage between property of the City of Paris and visitors who love her… sometimes to death.

It was a loveless marriage, as many residents and city authorities saw it. The locks were finally removed. They were temporarily replaced by wooden panels. Now, the wooden panels havebeen removed, and the clear view has been restored. No, more than restored, the view has been improved thanks to the new transparent panels.

The divorce with love locks is final, at least on this bridge. We–residents and visitors alike–can now rejoice in a clear view (beyond the occasional graffiti) as we walk by, linger long or picnic, without being assaulted by pieces of metal declaring that Claudia loves Roberto or Sarah loves Paul or simply that a visitor was here and wished his mark his or presence.

To the south the view of the Institut de France remains unchanged.

I went inside to meet some savants.

(c) 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris’s Pont des Arts Sees Clear After Its Divorce From Love Locks appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

There is general agreement among residents of Paris that love locks are a form of graffiti that defaces the beauty it is intended to glorify. It’s a form of graffiti that nevertheless attracts, fascinates and generally pleases visitors. Many a museum director would love to have their collections as well known to tourists as the collection of metal on what are now referred to as Lock Bridges.

For the administration of the City of Paris, love locks don’t raise esthetic questions as much as cost and security questions since the weighty accumulation of locks on the bridges of Paris damages the host structures and creates safety issues. According to City Hall, over the past few months alone more than 700,000 locks have been placed on Paris’s various lockable bridges, i.e. those with metal grating that serves as the base for the lock virus. Luckily, most of Paris’s central bridges have stone railings.

On the Pont des Arts, the most famous of the lock bridges, a pedestrian bridge with an extraordinary view connecting the Right Bank at the Louvre with the Left Bank at the French Institute, 15 grating panels have already had to be removed for security reasons. The weight of 1100 pounds (500 kg) of locks on a single panel is four times the allowable weight limit for a portion of the railing.

Required to act, the City of Paris yesterday began experimenting with glass panels to replace some of the metal grating. Two have been placed on the Pont des Arts and others will follow.

“Paris is the capital of love, we’re very proud of that, but there are more beautiful ways to show that love then placing locks on a bridge,” said Bruno Julliard, deputy mayor and the official appointed to find what City Hall calls “artistic and ecological alternative solutions.”

The new glass panels are light enough to be supported by the bridge, and their transparency allows for a renewed view of the scenery that attracted people to place locks here in the first place.

It’s a clear reminder of how destructive and unappealing the lock virus has become over the years. Whether the glass panels can be spared more usual forms of graffiti remains to be seen.

“If this experiment proves to be conclusive we’ll extended it to other affected bridges,” said Julliard.

Since August, the City of Paris has also been inviting visitors to show and seal their union with a selfie rather than a lock through #LoveWithoutLocks in the hopes of making them aware of less destructive ways of demonstrating the affiliation between Paris and romance. A long kiss by the river might to do the trick as well.

– September 20, 2014

For a sweeter view of love locks, see this France Revisited video from 2012.

The post A Return to Beauty: The Beginning of the End of Love Locks in Paris? appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The two bridges in the heart of Paris that have been most defaced decorated with love locks are the Pont des Arts, the footbridge and fine-weather picnicking bridge that goes between the Louvre and the French Institute, and the Pont de l’Archevêché, the short bridge behind Notre-Dame that connects the City Island with the Left Bank.

They are presented here in a beautiful audio-slideshow featuring photographs by Joe Wilkins and music and text written, played and read by LaRae Raine Garretson. A France Revisited Production.

(c) 2011, All rights reserved.

The post Love Locks on the Bridges of Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The Voguéo water shuttle, managed by the Transportation Union of Ile-de-France, known as the (Syndicat des Transports d’Ile-de-France), is creating three water lines facilitating access to and from the southeast and northwest suburbs of Paris and the city center.

From June 2008 until June 2011, the STIF launched a test run of the water shuttles through Paris, and have since decided to move forward with the project due to an initial success. The boats, which will be part of the Paris metro system, will run every 15 to 20 minutes daily, accommodating 100 people per vehicle on lines 1 and 3, and 250 people on line 2.

Thirty different stops are planned along the banks of the Seine, each of which will be equipped with the schedule of upcoming arrivals, prices, and route maps including bus and metro transfers. During the summer, the boats will accommodate bike access and storage.

Fares may be included in the price of a Navigo transit pass (for weekly, monthly or yearly metro passes) and one-way tickets will cost at 7 euros each.

The three planned routes as shown above are the following:

Line 1: Southeast Route
Route: École Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort / Écluse du Port à l’Anglais de Vitry-sur-Seine – Invalides
Stops include: Gare de Lyon, St-Michel-Notre-Dame, Musée d’Orsay
Operating hours: 7am – 9pm

Line 2: Center City Route
Route: Tour Eiffel Bir Hakeim – Gare de Austerlitz
Stops include: Louvre, Hotel de Ville
Operating hours: 7am – 11pm

Line 3: Northwest route
Route: Point de Suresnes Longchamp – Musée d’Orsay
Stops include: Bois de Bologne, Issy Val de Seine, Tour Eiffel
Operating hours: 7am – 9pm

The post Floating Metro to Arrive in Paris in 2013 appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

That may have been intended as a sound bite since Monet did in fact work in a studio as well as outside. Two studio spaces that he used subsequent to that interview can still be seen at his home in Giverny. He also installed something of a studio on a boat while there. Nevertheless, the point was well taken: nature and the outdoors were where Monet lived as an artist.

And the Seine was not Monet’s studio alone. It also served at times as the studio for many of his fellow Impressionists—e.g. Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Caillebotte—as well as for those who preceded and came after the heydays of Impressionism of the 1870s and 1880s, such as Courbet, Corot, Turner, Jongkind, Saurat and Signac.

A new book, La Seine Impressionniste, at once guidebook and small encyclopedia, revisits those “studios” along the Seine and its surroundings. In it authors Monique and Georges Lucenet present a step-by-step view of the 471 miles (776 km) of the river and the sights along the way, from its source in Burgundy to its estuary in Normandy.

This handsomely illustrated 464-page paperback reveals the artistic and general history of the sights and space that inspired or attracted (or were merely easily accessible to) the Impressionists and others as they developed what I think of not so much as an art of nature but an art of place. The text, in French, is accompanied by 160 reproductions of works coming from more than 40 museums. The book also tells of the literary figures of the time who were also attracted to these riverbanks.

La Seine Impressionniste by Monique and Georges Lucenet, 24.90€.

* * *

But you don’t read French, you say? Or you’re tired of the Impressionists?

Here then is another way of regarding the banks of the Seine as it passes through Paris.

The video below, entitled Notre Train Quotidien (Our Daily Train), examines the contemporary relationship between the left and right banks of the Seine.

Our Daily Train was filmed between the metro stations Gare d’Austerlitz and Quai de la Rapée. That’s where metro line 5 crosses over the Seine, mid-way between the zone of the historical Left Bank/Right Bank at the center of the city (arrondissements 1 through 7) and the Left Bank/Right Bank developments of the past 25 years on the eastern edge of the city (arrondissements 12 and 13).

The video was filmed by Gonzague Petit Trabal, with music by Rémy Klis. It is posted on France Revisited with permission from the authors.

Grab a glass of wine or your relaxation drug of choice, place the video on full screen mode, and let yourself get transported back and forth between the left and right banks of the River Seine.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

See also on France Revisited: “The Art of Punching, Kissing and Lunching: Monet, Renoir and the Impressionist Island at Chatou” and “Paris Rive Gauche: a 21st Century Left Bank.”

The post The Seine of the Impressionists and of Our Daily Train appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Paris has historical bridges, elegant bridges, workaday bridges, metro bridges, and pedestrian bridges; it has stone bridges, iron bridges, and 2-, 3-, and 5-span bridges. And it has one most evocative bridge in its Mirabeau Bridge, le Pont Mirabeau, famous not for its beauty or for its view but for a poem that it inspired.

Construction of the Mirabeau Bridge near the southwestern edge of Paris, 1893-1896, immediately preceded that of the far more photogentic Alexandre III Bridge, 1897-1900, and the two are structurally similar. Though unable to compete with the situation, cherubs, gilt, and Belle Epoque elegance the Alexandre III, the Mirabeau nevertheless enjoys the more evocative name since it is the title of Guillaume Apollinaire’s much memorized melancholic poem “Le Pont Mirabeau.”

In that poem of 1912 the bridge reminds the poet of lost love and the passage of time. The text of the poem and more information about the bridge are found further down, but before reading on you can watch this France Revisited® audio slideshow to see images of the Pont Mirabeau and hear a reading of Apollinaire’s poem by Va-nu-pieds.

History: The vast urban overhaul of Paris of the second half of the 19th century, from Napoleon III’s appointment of Baron Haussmann as prefect of Paris in 1853 to the opening of the first two lines of the metro in 1900, involved the construction or reconstruction of more than half of the bridges over the Seine.

Engineering: Connecting the Grenelle quarter of the 15th arrondissement (Left Bank) with the Auteuil quarter of the 16th arrondissement (Right Bank), the Mirabeau Bridge was designed by Paul Rabel, assisted by engineers Jean Résal and Amédée Alby, and executed by the company Daydé & Pillé. The same assisting engineers were responsible for the Alexandre III Bridge, which is based on the same principle of two metal structures buttressing each other to create the balance of the span. The Mirabeau has a central arch of 305 feet with one arch to either side of 106 feet connecting with the riverbank. The Alexandre III primarily consists of a single 350-foot arch.

Allegory: On the Mirabeau, four bronze allegorical sculptures by Jean-Antoine Injalbert decorate the pillars like figureheads on the bow and stern of two boats, one on the Left Bank side facing upstream, one on the Right Bank side facing downstream. On the Left Bank side, Navigation holds a harpoon at the stern while Commerce blows a golden trumpet at the bow. On the Right Bank side the City of Paris sits facing those approaching the capital at the bow while Abundance holds a flame at the stern. The arms of the City of Paris decorate the inner railing above the statues.

Abundance’s flame is an odd echo of the 1889 quarter-size replica of the Statue of Liberty raising her own flame just upstream at the tip of the Alley of Swans (Allée des Cygnes), in front of the Grenelle Bridge.

Who is Mirabeau?: Count de Mirabeau (1749-1791), more often simply called Mirabeau, gained prominence as a revolutionary nobleman. He opposed the absolute monarchy in the decade prior to events of 1789 then favored a constitutional monarchy as the tide turned against Louis XVI.

Poetry: However, it isn’t the revolutionary history of Mirabeau that rings in the name “Le Pont Mirabeau” but the poem of that title by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), written in 1912 and published in his collection “Alcools” in 1913.

Le Pont Mirabeau

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Apollonaire himself can be heard reading “Le Pont Mirabeau” in a 1914 recording in which he instills his work with the full weight and rhythm of a dirge. On the Wheaton College website click on “dit par l’auteur” (i.e. spoken by the author).

The words of “Le Pont Mirabeau” have been made into several notable songs, including this 1952 song by Léo Ferré with its vie-en-rosy wistfulness:

and this 2001 song by Marc Lavoine with its melodic drama:

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Where the Seine Flows, and Our Love: The Mirabeau Bridge appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The horror quickly faded for three reasons: the curators of the Orsay described the damage as an easily repairable tear; there are enough Monets in Paris to fill the temporary void; no one was about to buy or sell the painting; and, perhaps most importantly, the intruders, who were quickly found, immediately and adequately explained the reason for their actions: “We were drunk.”

Meanwhile, several days after the guy punched the Monet, some gal went on trial for kissing an all-white painting by Cy Twombly at Avignon’s Musée d’Art Contemporain four months earlier, an act that left a difficult lipstick stain on the canvas. If she’d simply punched the painting it would have been both easier to restore and easier to explain as a response to contemplating a white space, but girls will be girls.

The outrage in the case of the kiss was far greater than that of the punch, and it was self-aggrandizing outrage at that, caused not so much by the kiss itself but by so many people trying to analyze it and abstract large theories from it. Once the abstraction had begun everyone wanted a piece of the conversation.

First there was the kisser, who tried to defend herself by saying that the kiss was an act of love “that the artist would have understood.” Then the media and editorialists dove into the issue of the meaning of the kiss as through there were a real debate to be had. And the museum and its art handlers saw this as an occasion to put a self-promotional spin on their outrage by claiming that contemporary art itself had been attacked.

Only the artist—an American, I note, though without wishing to read much into that fact, so let’s just say a foreigner—stayed beyond the fray and simply hoped that his embraced work could be cleaned.

The woman’s “act of love” argument holds far less water than the “we were drunk” of the intruders in the Orsay, yet it excited the talking heads in the art world in France because it gave them the occasion to discuss the finer points of love, contemporary art, and vandalism. The directors of the museum promptly found a way to channel their outrage so as to take advantage of the attention of what they considered “the phenomenon of summer”; they set about mounting an exhibit entitled J’embrasse pas. The museum’s website proclaims that the exhibit, “was imposed following the proposition ‘Statement’ by Lawrence Weiner: ‘J’embrasse pas’ (I don’t kiss),” which is a bit like creating a war so as to sell an excess cache of arms, with conceptual art claiming that it had no choice but to fight back a misplaced kiss with freely advertised hype.

I can’t help but feel that the museum directors were secretly disappointed that the Twombly hadn’t been punched and the Monet kissed since not only is rejection the fight they were truly itching for but they’re likely to have more “I don’t punch” works available.

Thanks to the kisser’s trial and current “don’t kiss” exhibit the phenomenon of summer has stayed in the news longer than the phenomenon of autumn, but I thought the event in the Orsay much more compelling and revealing. For one, it shows that there’s still life in the old master Impressionist and not just merchandising.

The Orsay intruder seemed to indicate that there was nothing significant about the choice of the Monet for his fist. Seeing images of the vandalized painting, however, I couldn’t help but recognize the tear as (being imposed by) some kind of drunken, cartoonish, and/ or artful statement about museums. I am reminded of that moment in Raiders of the Lost Arc de Triomphe when Indiana Jones, menaced by a sword-welding hulk and finding no exit, widens his eyes to his trademark oh-shit expression then pulls out a gun and shoots the guy. Simply shoots the guy, I should say, just as the drunken intruder in the museum, annoyed with Monet’s impressionistic artifice, or at least by its being presented as something sacred and permanent, simply took out his only available arm (the other probably occupied by a beer) and punched the damn thing smack in its river.

When I get fed up with a book for similar reasons I just fling it across the room then pick it up later to continue reading, with the worst consequence being that I’ve lost my place. Since canvas art in a museum, unlike a book at home, isn’t our personal property, most of us manage to keep our punching (or kissing) reflexes in check visiting museums. Still, I must admit that there are times when visiting the attic rooms at the Orsay when I wouldn’t mind punching a few paintings myself. Something about the frames and the attic give me a claustrophobic urge to quit the art(ifice) and get some air.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the hand and eye of Monet: the Cathedrals of Rouen and sun-dappled backyards at the Orsay; the fog, steam, snow, and late Water Lilies at the Marmottan; the bold, expansive Water Lilies at the Orangerie. Monet is an enormous presence in Paris. But sometimes one gets fed up with the ephemeral being presented as the eternal, tired of the pretense of the museum experience altogether.

* * *

Le Pont d’Argenteuil, the punched painting, depicts a view across the Seine to Argenteuil, two tight bends in the river from Paris. Painted in 1874, the year Monet and fellow artists exhibiting off-Salon came to be called Impressionists, the work uses a new language of art to speak about a new form of leisure: the daytrip from Paris.

There are two sailboats in the foreground, a café (guinguette) in the background, the titular bridge advancing horizontally over the horizontal river, and those three natural cohorts of impressionism and of Parisian day-trippers: water, sky, and vegetation. (The recent tear has the unintended genius of echoing both the sailboats and the flow of the river.) Though absent of people, it’s a scene that has all of the elements so dear to a day-tripping train-setter from Paris in the 1870s.

And to avant-garde artists of the time. Carrying their now-fangled paint tubes and box easels, Monet, Sisley, Pissaro, Renoir, and other sought their inspiration along the tracks. In 1869 Monet and Renoir spent a collaborative summer dabbing the light on the Seine around La Grenouillère, a floating café at Croissy-sur-Seine, about eight miles downstream of Argenteuil. Monet eventually settled in Argenteuil in 1872 and lived there for six years.

What may have triggered the punch-drunk intruder at the Orsay to pull his fist at the sight of Argenteuil Bridge may well have been the same trigger that brought Monet to Argenteuil in the first place: the desire to get away from the national museums and official salons and their high-nosed view of art. The intruder must have further found that plein air work didn’t make him want to see more plein air work, it made him want to be out in plein air.

Few painters have infused their outdoor scenes with more of such a sense of place—observed place—than Monet. But Monet was not a painter of wilderness or even of solitude outdoors. The natural space he framed is always a space where people work and/or play, even if those people are rarely seen. Ever since his style gained popularity, the natural effect of seeing his work has been for viewers to wants to enter into and to witness that space for themselves, which largely explains the success of his home at Giverny as a destination for artists in the early years, then for tourists.

In Renoir’s outdoor scenes, on the other hand, people are an integral part of the space, nearly a part of the foliage, nevertheless taking center stage. Viewing his work makes you want to attend a picnic or garden party or outdoor dance or at least sit out on a lively café terrace. They make you want to be a witness to human nature: the conversations, flirting, brushing up, silly laughs, tête-à-têtes, posing, absent stares, and seductive glances.

I’m thinking of course of two of Renoir’s most well-known paintings—Bal au Moulin de la Galette (1876) at the Orsay and Le Déjeuner des Canotiers (The Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881) in the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

Bal makes me want to go people-watching in a café in Montmartre, where the windmill of the Galette that gave its name to the outdoor ball still exists. Déjeuner makes me want to go to déjeuner (lunch).

Les Déjeuner des Canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party) is one of Renoir’s last major classic Impressionist works, before he became a family man and his subjects got so rosy-cheeked and zaftig. It presents a gathering on the balcony of a restaurant at the end of lunch after a morning of rowing on the Seine, with the canotiers posing as weekend warriors showing off in muscle shirts and chatting up charmed and charming women, without any eyes meeting.

That scene takes place on the balcony of the restaurant Maison Fournier situated on an island at Chatou, easily reached (then as now) nine miles out from Paris. It’s less than a mile upstream from where Renoir and Monet came to work in the summer of 1869 and six miles downstream of Argenteuil. In 1881, having sketched and painted in various zones along the Seine, Renoir and his friends took a hanging out on this lively piece of island at Chatou known as a center for boating on the Seine. Day-trippers could rent boats and everyone eventually stopped into Maison Fournier. Renoir would occasionally ask for a room to spend the night. Monet, Degas, and Whistler, Flaubert, Maupassant, and Zola also stopped by along with numerous Parisians happy to leave the city for the day. The portion of the island that once attracted Renoir and the others is now called the Ile des Impressionnistes.

Getting a taste for the daytrip of Renoir and Parisian day-trippers of the time you need simply sit down for lunch at the very same Maison Fournaise, preferably on its very same balcony overlooking the river (see photo to right, second from top). The view across the river is distinctly business-suburban, yet the historical authenticity of the setting and the quality of the cuisine bourgeoise at Maison Fournaise make for an enchanting and easy detour from Paris for lunch. An adjacent museum honors the presence of artists and day-trippers here, mostly through reproductions and artifacts.

The greater folklore of the island though is found in the workshop across the square from the Maison Fournaise, where an association of canotiers and craftsmen continues the tradition of leisure boating along the Seine, sometimes by floating boat and more often by restoring them. The workshop is run by the Association Sequana which is dedicated to restoring (and constructing facsimiles of) old skiffs, gigs, canoes, and small sail boats from about 1880 to 1950, with a particular devotion to those high times of boating on the Seine at the end of the 19th century.

Donning straw hats and striped shirts, association members offer one-hour “Impressionist cruises” on weekend afternoons from May to October to other sites where easels were once set up along the river (see their website for exact schedule). Cruise or not, weekend or not, the curious travelers, particularly the traveler curious about boating, shouldn’t hesitate to peek into the boatyard/workshop and, language permitting, inquire about recent restorations.

After déjeuner at Maison Fournaise and meeting a canotier or two, you need only gaze into the shimming waters of the Seine to imagine the work and play of artists and day-trippers at the time. Among them, I can well imagine the guy who punched the Monet knocking back a few glasses along the riverbank and throwing stones into the water to annoy boaters. And the gal who kissed the Twombly, she could just as easily fall in love the veneer of a skiff and expect the Association Sequana to excuse the lipstick mark and to understand. I’m sure they would.

© 2007 by Gary Lee Kraut

Getting There
Take suburban RER line A1 from Paris to Rueil-Malmaison, which takes about 20 minutes. Ile des Impressionnistes is then a 5-minute walk straight in the direction of Chatou.

Idea for a Daytrip
Ten minutes beyond Rueil-Malmaison RER line A1 reaches Saint-Germain-en-Laye (see that article). The two can therefore easily be combined on a daytrip, i.e. lunch at Maison Fournaise and a glimpse in the workshop followed by a late-afternoon stroll-about at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. One might start off the day by viewing the Monets and Renoirs at the Musée d’Orsay (closed Monday) or by visiting the tremendous Impressionist collection at the Musée Marmottan Monet (open daily).

Useful Links

Restaurant de la Maison Fournaise: www.restaurant-fournaise.fr.

Musée Fournaise: www.musee-fournaise.com.

Association Sequana: www.sequana.org.

The above three share the same mailing address: Ile des Impressionnistes, 78400 Chatou.

Musée d’Orsay: www.musee-orsay.fr.

Musée Marmottan Monet: www.marmottan.com.

Links to images of paintings mentioned in this article

Monet’s Pont d’Argenteuil

Renoir’s Bal au Moulin de la Galette

Renoir’s Le Déjeuner des Canotiers / The Luncheon of the Boating Party

The post The Art of Punching, Kissing and Lunching: Monet, Renoir and the Impressionist Island near Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

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

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

2. The “You and Jordan [Zell] should write more songs together” comment. My response: We are. We’ve written five already. You an hear other along with Jordon solo works and his version of covers by doing a Jordan Zell search on Youtube.

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

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

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

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

With thanks to the reader in Paris whose apparent cynicism and humor matches that of  “The T-Shirt Song,” I pose here wearing your gift in front the Paris Police Headquarters.

With further thanks to another fan with a similar a sense of cynicism and humor, here I am sitting by the river in a second “I love rien” t-shirt:

I now wonder what gifts Jordan and I might receive when we make a video for our song about prostitution.

The post T-Shirts and the T-Shirt Song appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

What had previously been isolated Seine-side clusters devoted more to afternoon sunbathing than to evening picnicking, has now developed into a popular ritual whereby, picnickers both French and foreign congregate at various choice setting in the capital.

From May through August, in tune with late sunset and lengthy twilight, the most popular of these settings are:
– on the Champs de Mars by the Eiffel Tower,
– along the right bank of the Seine,
– on the western tip of Ile de la Cité,
– on the eastern tip of Ile Saint Louis,
– Pont des Arts, the pedestrian bridge,
– on the eastern side of Bassin de la Villette (19th arr.),
– in Parc de la Villette (19th arr.), and
– along Canal Saint Martin (10th arr.).
Click on the “View Map” tab to see the location of these various picknicking hotspots.

Peak picnic time at all of these locations is between the hour before and after sunset. Some arrive 6-8 p.m. for the aperitif then move on. After nightfall the average age drops as the emphasis is less on picnicking and more on hanging out.

The most photogenic of the major Paris picnicking sites is the pedestrian bridge called the Pont des Arts, between the French Institute and the Louvre. You have only to look at the surroundings to understand why: the side of the Louvre, the dome of the Institute, the riverbanks and bridges, the Eiffel Tower peeking out beyond the Orsay Museum, the towers and spires on Ile de la Cité, and of course the river itself, Paris’s raison d’être, with its parade of barges and tour boats.

The atmosphere on the Pont des Arts is at its best in June and early July, before vacations reduce the number of locals on the bridge, but it remains a choice picnic spot whenever the weather allows.

Brandon Echkoff and I went to the Pont des Arts one evening in June to catch the pulse of the bridge, as you’ll see in the accompanying audio slide-show. Watch it by clicking on either the “View Video” tab above (video may take 10 seconds to load) or on the Youtube screen below. Enjoy the view.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

Picnicking on the Pont des Arts, audio slide-show
Interviews, text, some photos: Gary Lee Kraut
Audio and most photos: Brandon Eckhoff
Several photos: Jackson Shaw

The post Picnicking on the Pont des Arts appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Thibault and I intially intended to create a sweet little river-tour video. But then I contacted singer-songwriter Jordan Zell in Israel to see if he had any music to accompany the video, and since none of his songs was Paris enough for the scenery we decided to join forces and write a new one. From travel writing, then, to travel songwriting.

The result is She Walked Along the River (The T-Shirt Song), sung by me, with Jordan on guitar and background vocals. The song was recorded in Israel.

Back in France, Thibault then adapted the film to the song to create this video

– For more songs by Jordan Zell see his Myspace page
– For short films by Thibault Perois see www.dailymotion.com/Monstarrs

Singer-songwriters and video makers with France-themed or travel-themed material wishing to be heard/seen on France Revisited should contact us with information about their work.

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