We’ve had a few very dreary, wet, cold days in Paris. It was the kind of weather that makes you just want to stay inside and read. When I looked out the window and finally saw some blue sky, I couldn’t wait to get out and take a much needed walk. I was in the Left Bank area around the St Germain des Pres neighborhood.

I know this looks like a water pipe has broken underground and pushed the sidewalk up but it is actually a fountain/sculpture right across the street from the St Germain des Pres church.

Here is a view of the church from across the street

If you head in the opposite direction towards St Sulpice Church there are many little narrow streets. One that I like is Rue des Cannettes. This lady is on the front of a very girly store selling jewelry.

This bike was on the same street. I took the photo because I like the light shining on the wet street. It rained the night before.

Right across the street from the Abbesses Metro stop is the Saint Jean Evangeliste church. It is the first one made with concrete although it is covered with bricks and is locally called St Jean de Bricks. Anyway, it isn’t an old church(if you go by European standards). The old abbey here was destroyed during the French Revolution and the nuns were killed as well. It has some interesting tile work on the outside and I found some appealing religious figures above the doors.

I have no idea who this is but the snake is probably history

Here’s a sweet little angel. You can see the tile work done on the church. I wish the wire weren’t there right across the photo I want.

This lady was not on the church-I think she is probably a little too voluptuous, self-satisfied and decadant for a church-but on the side of a house down the street. Just looking at her I’m thinking she is having a nice romantic dream about someone or has just had a really nice piece of chocolate cake.

There are parts of Montmartre, unsuprisingly, that I’m not that familiar with. I know the part up by Sacre Coeur backwards and forwards but the part down below in the seedier area isn’t one I walk in very often. Last week, while it was still sunny and beautiful, I went on a walk with a group of ex-pats walking all the way from the Anvers metro stop to Clingacourt, a walk of an hour and a half and saw interesting architecture. I am finding, more and more, that architecture really grabs me and am starting to realize that much of it is a form of art. I knew this before but I am always delighted by the different forms buildings can take and there are so many to see in France as they span centuries.

Right down the street from Anvers is this interesting looking place.

This gallant looking man is over the door.

Lovely decoration over a door on another building

A theatre in the art deco style-must have been here since the 20’s

And there is, of course, the Moulin Rouge. There used to be many windmills all over this area and there are still two higher up the hill. Someone, in times past, got the idea of providing food, drink and entertainment by their windmill which eventually led to the Moulin Rouge. World famous now. I’ve never gone.

When you see something like this at a market, it really catches your eye:

Somebody is not only a perfectionist but they have an eye for arranging.

Don’t these just make your mouth water? But we didn’t buy any. First of all they were way too expensive. Secondly, Maurice always turns his nose up at really large fruit and vegetables, but especially strawberries. The first time you see these lucious red berries after a long winter it is hard to pass them by, but he always says to just wait until the strawberries from France arrive in the markets. The large ones always seem to be from Spain and Maurice says they aren’t grown in soil-maybe hydroponic? I always thought if you cut fruit up and put enough sugar on it, it is fine but I found out that Maurice was right. The smaller French strawberry almost doesn’t need any sugar and they are full of juice. Just have to be patient now.

By the side of the Pompidou Modern Art Museum you will find a fountain full of, well, strange figures moving, twirling, squirting water. This is the Stravinsky fountain designed by Niki de Saint-Phalle and Jean Tinguely. It was inspired by Stravinsky’s ballet, The Firebird (1910)- I’m not sure why- but it is appealing and nice to see on a warm day right off of Rue de Rivoli. When I saw it a few years ago it was working much better. All of the figures moved in some way but most don’t now. I wonder if they will ever restore it.

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I’ve always rather liked the red lips

The hat and the heart used to twirl but now they just sit there.

On a nice day there are all sorts of people trying to make a euro or two. This guy painted a rather good face upside down and blindfolded.

Nearby, this building had the glass of the windows blocked off and they were painted with imaginary inhabitants.

Can you see the two children in the upper windows?

Guimard, the genius of art deco work in Paris, designed some wonderful metro entrances made of iron and glass in the early 1900’s. Most of them were torn down in time, a big mistake, but a few, like this one at Abbesses remains.

I love the glass and the writing of the sign.

Art deco uses the forms of plants to design-very sensual

A work of art used every day. Guimard also did some very interesting buildings in another part of Paris as well as a synagogue in the Marais.