* * *

Paris, 4 a.m.—A couple I met this July afternoon told me how disappointed they were with a “Paris By Night” driving tour that they’d taken the previous night.

“We saw the major monuments,” they said, “but we never saw them by night.”

Apparently, year-round, the company is offering an 8 p.m. Paris By Night Tour even though night doesn’t fully descend over Paris until after 10 p.m. from late May to late July.

“The driver was nice enough to extend the tour for 20 minutes because we felt cheated,” they continued, “but we never made it past twilight.”

Twilight is known in French as “the time between dog and wolf” (l’heure entre chien et loup). On the right evening and with the right company or mindset, there’s breathtaking seduction in its deepening blue. But this couple had been looking forward to encountering full, howling wolf.

I sympathized with them for being the victims of misleading advertising, or at least of static advertising since 8-10pm would indeed have a night component nine months of the year.

I suggest that they join me for a bike ride that night.

“What time?” they asked.

“Round midnight,” I said. “Or one a.m. or two, if you truly want to know Paris by night.”

They laughed, thinking I was joking.

“Seriously,” I said. “We’ll use Vélib, the public bike share system.”

“That’s too late for us,” they said. “We want to be at Versailles first thing in the morning.”

Wanting the butter and the money for the butter (vouloir le beurre et l’argent du beurre) is the French expression for having one’s cake and eating it too, or in this case of experiencing Paris by night in early July without being willing to stay out past one’s usual bedtime.

Travelers touring Paris on a working-day schedule certainly get to see the museums and the monuments. They get early restaurant reservations and make all the right pastry stops. But one of the best ways to experience Paris as a living city is by assuming a wobbly schedule whereby you:

• take the streets at least once by 7am so as to appreciate the opening of cafés, markets, gardens and parks while (re)discovering the aura of old monuments before they get poked by selfie sticks,

• and stay out past midnight at least once so as to truly appreciate after-hours in the city.

I understand that taking on such a schedule is disturbing to some. (Napping helps.) Between overcoming jet lag and maintaining one’s habitual rise, dine and sleep times, an untethered program can be troubling for some, and unadvisable when traveling with children.

But for me, one of the unsung pleasures of Paris is the midnight stroll or bike ride. Make that 2 a.m. on a warm summer night. In fact, “off-the-beaten track” in such as heavily visited city as Paris isn’t a place, it’s a time — especially that time in summer when most tourists are in bed dreaming of Paris. That’s when venturesome and sleepless travelers are out living their dream.

Sometime after midnight, heading out, or home, on foot or on bike (of not too much alcohol in the bloodstream), you’ll stand or sit or walk or ride by the river.

You’ll bathe in the diffuse yellow light of the streetlamps as it plays against sidewalk, street, stone buildings and the lower leaves of chestnut, linden and turkish filbert trees. You’ll listen to or take part in street conversations.

You’ll want to feel safe, of course. In certain quarters you might have to contend with or steer clear of alcohol-fueled night-folk. But Paris is a well-lit city. It is, after all, the City of Lights.

So I went out biking that night. I meandered along the boulevards and avenues and well-lit rues, through open squares and along the banks of the river and of the canal, rediscovering the true pleasure of Paris by night as I encountered:

Brazilian salsa dancing by the Arab Institute,

a friendly game of pétanque (bocce) by the river,

the intimate end of a long picnic,

a tête-à-tête with a view,

a headless martyr,

spiders over the Seine,

a heap of garbage beside City Hall.

silent cemetery walls.

and a dance of drunken seduction after a neighborhood bar has closed.

I could go on and on.

But it’s 4am. I’m going to bed.

Text and photos © 2015, Gary Lee Kraut, except for Va-nu-pieds’ photo of Notre-Dame in the morning.

Biking Paris after midnight is one way to travel in the spirit of France Revisited.

The post Paris By Night: The Midnight Ride appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Where are we? Rue Castagnary in Paris’s 15th arrondissement, by the train tracks of the Montparnasse Station that serves western France.

This lighthouse is nothing but an advertisement for a fish market. But I dream of going inside and opening a window so as to greet Bretons in their trains arriving in Paris.

A 6 heures du matin, il fait déjà grand jour en ce moment. Dans un ciel annonçant enfin une belle journée de juin, se dresse un phare. Mais les seuls bruits qu’on entend ici ne sont ni les cris des mouettes, ni le reflux des vagues… mais celui des voitures et des trains !

Où sommes-nous? Rue Castagnary dans le 15e arrondissement de Paris, le long des voies de la gare Montparnasse qui dessert l’Ouest de la France.

Ce phare n’est qu’une publicité pour une halle aux poissons. Mais je rêve d’y entrer, d’ouvrir une fenêtre pour saluer dans leur train les Bretons qui arrivent à Paris.

Photo and text © 2014, Va-nu-pieds.

More of Va-nu-pieds’ work can be seen here on France Revisited and here on the photographer’s own site.

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There’s a certain kind of cyclist who thinks of himself as such an independent urbanite that he doesn’t have to pay attention to traffic regulations. He breezes through red lights with a ting-ting of his bell to let pedestrians know that he’s too free, too green and too self-sufficient to have to have to stop for them.

And the haphazard way in which he locks up his two-wheels to posts and fences is reminiscent of how car owners parked on the sidewalk before the crackdown (and posts) circa 1990. Except that the car owners would eventually move their rusting vehicles, whereas cyclists will leave their bikes agonizing on the street for all to see. Admittedly, some of those bikes have been vandalized—their seat or a wheel stolen, their wheel run over by a car or twisted by intentional fate, etc.—and are then abandoned by their owners.

Still, fed up with the sight of bicycles that no longer roam, that agonize before our eyes, that clutter the sidewalks, Va-nu-pieds says: “Ras le bol de ces vélos qui ne roulent pas, qui expirent sous nos yeux, qui encombrent tout….” as he lifts his camera and his foot to rant.

All photos © 2013, Va-nu-pieds

Also see The Cranky Parent, The Cranky Host, The Cranky Urbanist and The Cranky Foreign Resident.

The post The Cranky Pedestrian: The Barefoot Photographer Rants Against Bicycle Cadavers appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Never mind.

He went window shopping instead.

Imagine his surprise when he came upon a shop that sold leather accessories for the feet.

What an odd concept he thought, and he took a picture.

If he were to accessorize at all he might shop at this digit decorating shop:

But they wouldn’t allow him inside either.

So he stepped into a world where shoes weren’t required,

and from there he sent us these photographs with best wishes for merry trekking and travels in the coming year.

The post Va-nu-pieds, the Barefoot Photographer, Goes Christmas Shoe Shopping in Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Is that student the last to leave the classroom during an exam? Is he being kept back for extra study? Has he fallen asleep? Is he secretly texting? Sexting? Has he solicited his teacher’s assistance only to find himself given a problem to solve while his teacher photographs his foot?

Whatever’s going on here, un grand merci to Va-nu-pieds for getting us back in the saddle of the classroom as the new school year gets underway.

If interested in the big picture of how the education system operates in France, a round-up in English from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs explaining the 60 billion euro system can be found here.

The post Va-nu-pieds: Barefoot in the Classroom appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

About 100 feet in front of the cathedral there’s an octagonal plaque engraved with a compass and surrounded by four stones engraved with the words POINT ZÉRO DES ROUTES DE FRANCE. Even when the crowds arrive few will notice this bronze plaque indicating the point from which all roads from the capital are measured. Perhaps one hasn’t truly been to the center of Paris if one hasn’t put a foot—barefoot, shoed, sneakered or sandaled—on Point Zero, a.k.a. Kilometer Zero. It’s a kind of “You are here”—“Vous êtes ici.”

Va-nu-pieds was there. Pausing to reflect on what direction he’ll go in for his summer travels, the Barefoot Photographer steps up to the plate.

Photos © 2012, Va-nu-pieds.
Text by Gary Lee Kraut.

More of Va-nu-pieds’ work can be seen here on France Revisited and here on the photographer’s own site.

The post Va-nu-pieds: Notre-Dame, Early Morning and Point Zero, Early Summer appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

“From the deep, narrow creeks (calanques) of Marseille to Saint Tropez,” VNP writes, “the Riviera is magical for me. The light of September, the colors, the smell of pine and eucalyptus, the ground of the coast and of the beaches.”

Des calanques de Marseille à Saint Tropez, la côte d’Azur est pour moi un enchantement. La lumière de septembre, les couleurs, les odeurs de pin et d’eucalyptus, les sols de la côte et des plages.

Sun/Soleil

“Shooting pictures in the south of France in black-and-white is a challenge when everything here is golden, blue and green, reflection and transparency…”

C’est une gageure de photographier le Midi en noir et blanc quand ici tout est doré, bleu et vert, de reflets et de transparences…

Rocks/Rochers

.

.

Water/Eau

.

– Photos and text (c) VNP, September 2011

For more of Va-nu-pieds’ photographs on France Revisited click here.
For Va-nu-pieds’ photographs on his own blog click here.

The post Barefoot by the Mediterranean: Sun, Rocks, Water appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The seasons in the city. Along with the change of light and length of day comes the change in urban vegetation. For France Revisited I’ve been watching the seasons in Paris by keeping an eye on the Virginia creeper that hangs along the full side wall of a building in my neighborhood.

Les saisons en ville. Ce qui change, c’est la lumière et la durée du jour bien sûr et aussi la végétation urbaine. Pour France Revisited, j’ai guetté les saisons à Paris grâce à une vigne vierge qui s’accroche sur tout un pignon d’immeuble près de chez moi.

The entire wall turns:
Le mur devient entièrement:

dazzling green in summer,
vert éclatant l’été

dark red in autumn just before the rain causes all of the leaves to fall in the space of a few days,
rouge sombre en automne juste avant la pluie qui fera tomber toutes feuilles en quelques jours,

the wall and the branches appear nude in winter,
le mur et les branches apparaissent nus l’hiver,

then little by little they get dressed in green again in spring.
puis se rhabillent progressivement de vert au printemps.

There’s nothing artificial in the four photos presented here. These are truly the four seasons of my street in Paris! And a splendid start to spring it is!
Rien d’artificiel dans les quatre photos présentées ici, ce sont bien les vraies saisons de ma rue parisienne ! Et c’est un splendide début de printemps !

Text and photos by Va-nu-pieds. Translation by GLK.

The post Va-nu-pieds’ Wall for All Seasons appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Paris’s annual Motor Show, Le Mondial de l’Automobile, opens on October 2.

Like many Parisians I don’t own a car. The city offers many alternate means of transportation (metro, bus, Vélib bikes) and getting around on two wheels is definitely the most effective over short distances in this fairly compact capital.

My foreign friends often tell me how surprised they are to see cars parked so tightly along the street. They attribute Paris drivers with uncanny virtuosity when it comes to parking in tight spaces.

The red Citroën 2 CV (called the “deux-chevaux” in French, meaning two-horse) is the first to have caught my eye a few streets from my apartment. When I returned the following day to photograph it, several neighborhood residents came up to me and said “She’s a beauty, huh?, and she starts right up.” Several days later, also in my neighborhood, the sight of a Diane blue Citroën gave me the idea to create a blue-white-red automobile, colors of the French flag, on the occasion of the Motor Show. I found the white one outside of Paris.

Le 2 octobre s’ouvre comme chaque année à Paris le Mondial de l’Automobile.

Comme de nombreux parisiens, je ne possède pas de voiture. La ville me propose toutes sortes de moyens de transports alternatifs (métro, bus, Vélib) et le déplacement en deux-roues est incontestablement le plus efficace sur les petites distances… et comme Paris est une capitale peu étendue…

Mes amis étrangers se disent souvent surpris de voir les voitures garées le long des rues, très serrées. Ils attribuent donc spontanément au conducteur parisien une virtuosité hors pair pour se garer dans un mouchoir de poche.

C’est la 2CV (on dit deux chevaux) Citroën rouge qui a la première retenu mon regard à quelques rues de chez moi. Quand je suis revenu le lendemain la photographier, des riverains se sont approchés : « Elle est belle, hein ? et elle démarre au quart de tour ! ». Quelques jours plus tard, toujours dans mon quartier, c’est une Diane bleue Citroën qui m’a donné l’idée de construire un bleu-blanc-rouge automobile à l’occasion du Mondial. Mais c’est hors de Paris que j’ai trouvé cette 2 chevaux blanche.

– Photos and French text VNP. English translation GLK.

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* * *

The weather has been gloomy in Paris this summer, the sun unpredictable. No sooner are you ready to go out when the sky changes.
Le temps est bien maussade à Paris cet été, le soleil imprévisible. Le temps de se mettre en route et le ciel change.

Still, the desire to be outside and the need for nature are irrepressible. Returning to Parc de Sceaux, I continue my photographic experiments: alone against a tree,
Pourtant l’envie du dehors, le besoin de nature est irrépressible. De retour au Parc de Sceaux, je continue mes expériences : seul contre un arbre,

toes fanning out (a French expression meaning total inactivity),
les doigts de pied en éventail (une expression française qui dit la totale inactivité),

involving a couple of kind tourists with their feet in the water,
impliquant un couple de gentils touristes les pieds dans l’eau,

or playing between shadows and light.
ou jouant entre ombres et lumières.

And this is Paris’s emptiest week of the year: I’ll be here to take advantage of it!
Et c’est ce week end que Paris sera le plus vide de l’année : je serai là pour en profiter!

Photos and text: Va-nu-pieds

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