Several bloggers have recently shown some photos of the neighborhood that they live in. Some have trees and even tropical looking plants all over the place, some are a short walk to the beach. In Paris, since I live in the 12th arrondissement which is residential part of Paris, it’s not as beautiful, it’s very urban, in fact, but not all of the photos I take can be as beautiful as the window of Hermes.

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The front door to the apartment building where we live. I’ve always liked it. You have to enter a code to get the door to open.

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If you turn right out of my door, this is what you see. Not too exciting. Those metal bars inserted into the sidewalk going down the edge of the sidewalk are to keep people from parking their cars on the sidewalk, which they will do as parking is at a premium. There is usually a car parked at the very end of the street on the sidewalk. I guess they don’t get a ticket. By the way, you have to pay to park on the street here or you will get a ticket. You carry on down this street and reach an elevated train track at the end, long abandoned although there is talk of incorporating it into the planned track now being built which will circle Paris. If I go right at the corner, under this track, there is a small area, fenced in, where a homeless man has lived since I have been here. He has it all boarded up for privacy and I can see a bed inside. He even has a door with a lock so he keeps it to himself. I don’t know how he arranged that. I see him sometimes staggering around really drunk but he has scratched out a life for himself.

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I’ve always been fascinated with this house. It is just a short way down my street and on the left. I guess the owners didn’t cave in and sell the property to some invester to build an apartment building as the rest of the neighborhood has. I’m thinking that at one time this whole street may have had single family homes like this. A really tiny alley runs along side it and it is surrounded by a wall.

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I’m not sure, but I bet this is just about the only weather vane for miles around. It’s on top of the house.

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Nation Market. This is where we arrive if we continue on in the same direction in about six blocks or so from our apartment. You can see one of the columns that is there way in the background. Market days here are Wednesday and Saturday. We go just about every Saturday and get fish, meat, vegetables and fruit there which we put in our little red bag on wheels. It is always a fun experience.

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There are always huge containers of food for sale at street markets, hot and inviting. Doesn’t this look good? We seldom buy any for some reason. The last thing we got was chacroute, which is all sorts of pork meats with sauerkraut which is a popular thing to eat here in the winter.

Sideroads of Europe