For two days, Suz and I have been walking around Paris and exploring many more streets and neighborhoods where neither of us has ever ventured. On Thursday—another nice, sunny day in the high 50s—our planned destination was one of the city’s most beautiful public parks, Parc de Monceau. This park, north of the Champs-Elysees and not far from the Arc de Triomphe, was established by Louis Phillippe, Duke of Orleans (and father of a future King, Louis-Philippe). He began buying land in 1769 on which to establish the gardens and it eventually grew to about 30 acres. He loved all things English so his aim was to create an informal English-style garden in the middle of Paris. 
The park includes a collection of scaled-down architectural features like Corinthian pillars, an Egyptian pyramid, a Dutch windmill, a Chinese fort, and a small rotunda at its entrance. Because of its randomly-placed statues, curved walkways, and informal layout, the park is unusual due to its English style.One interesting piece of park history: in 1797, the first parachute jump happened here when Andre-Jacques Garnerin jumped from a hot air balloon and landed in the park.
When the park was purchased in 1860 by the city of Paris, half of the land went to build houses and half, thanks to our friend, Baron Haussmann, was preserved as green space for the public park. Napoleon III inaugurated the park in 1861 and Claude Monet painted a series of paintings of it. They say that half the people who run the French economy today spent their infancy here pushed in baby carriages by their nannies. And on this sunny day, the park was full of people.
Yesterday—partly cloudy and in the low 50s with occasional sprinkles—we walked a new route to the Bastille area, which is very close to the apartment. The Bastille is the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution—when a mob stormed the prison in 1789 to rebel against the absent (Versailles) and frivolous royalty. This area used to have an entry to the city with a drawbridge and two huge towers called a bastille (a term for a detached fortification). It eventually became a prison but the reasons for imprisonment were often peculiar. Plus, 
prisoners could keep a servant, make arrangements for receiving lovers, bring their one silver and porcelain, etc. It was criticized as an expense to the state and unnecessary—a good reason, I guess, to incite the ire of a bunch of revolutionists. Only seven prisoners were held at the time—four forgers, a count accused of incest, a madman, and one accomplice to an attempted murder.Today, the place de Bastille is another huge turnabout with lots of traffic around a very tall monument (thanks to Napoleon I). Interestingly enough, the Colonne de Juillet has nothing to do with the French Revolution or the storming of the Bastille. Rather, it commemorates a totally different revolution, which occurred over three days of fighting that marked the end of the reign of Charles X (brother of Louis XVI) in 1830 (a royal who didn't get the message from the original storming of the Bastille.)
Nearly 1000 people died over those three days; 500+ are buried underneath the column, which is divided into three portions listing the casualties on each day. Although Napoleon wanted the monument to be a fountain topped with an elephant (!), that project was eventually trashed (see 3/1/07 post). The crowning adornment on the column is "The Spirit of Liberty" represented by Auguste Dumont's naked man with wings.
Some interesting trivia about the bodies buried beneath the column. Before their internment, they were obviously widely scattered (in the Champs-de-Mars, Montmartre, and in front of the Colonnade of the Louvre). All were collected and brought to the place--but not without some interesting intruders. During an earlier restoration of the Louvre, a number of Egyptian mummies which had decomposed from an extended stay in the ground-floor rooms of the Louvre were buried outside the castle. During the 1830 uprising, some assailants killed in the attack on the Louvre were hurriedly thrown into a common grave. Ten years later, when the government decided to give these heros a more noble burial place, patriots and mummies were dug up and moved to the place. Soooo, some Pharaoh contemporaries are interred under the Bastille Column as brave fighters of this July Revolution!
Although the location of the Bastille’s ancient walls are marked in the pavement in brown bricks (most of them constantly under the traffic), we were able to find the entrance (you can see the different tone of the bricks in the photo). By the way, the building in the background of the photo is l'Opera Bastille, designed by Carlos Ott and inaugurated in 1989. Architecturally, it is not well thought of by Parisians because it disturbs the esthetics of the place de la Bastille.Next we headed on another route to the Left Bank. When you cross the Pont au Double, the walking bridge crossing the Seine to the
Left Bank next to Notre-Dame, you enter Medieval Paris and one of the city’s oldest 
neighborhoods with crooked streets and crooked buildings. In front of the oldest church, St. Julien-le-Pauvre (1250), you see Paris’ oldest inhabitant and still alive, an acacia tree nicknamed Robinier after the guy who planted it in 1602. Granted, they’ve done all they can to keep it alive including pouring cement columns where the tree has split its trunk. We used a walking tour written in “Paris Walks” by Sonia, Alison, and Rebecca Landes—noticing new things along the way. The authors thoroughly explained many of the buildings and streets—the history, the structures, lots of interesting facts and stories that we enjoyed immensely. There’s even a pub on one of these streets with an authentic guillotine from 1792 on its wall…however, it was closed so we couldn’t see it.Finally, we headed up to the Pantheon (Suz’s former “neighborhood” when she’s stayed in Paris before) and then to a café for a coffee while staring out the window at the Luxembourg Gardens. Then down through the Saint Germaine area on our way back to the Jewish Quarter for a treat at a famous Yiddish bakery, Sacha Finkelsztajn, where we tried the recommended lemon cheesecake and apple/caramel/raisin/orange strudel. The shop is a cross between a caterer, bakery, and pastry shop; and the mosaic facade is from the 1930s. Very, very good and a very sweet family running it.
I don’t think we walked five miles each of these past two days—maybe four…Today is Suz’s last day in Paris (does she look like she wants to leave?) and who knows what we’ll find to do!
