Springtime in Paris

Well this has been a very different week altogether!  After an afternoon of waiting around for a technician to drain and clean the calcium deposits from my hot water tank, and fix a small but annoying leak above the shower, I ended up cancelling the appointment as he wasn't going to be able to make it until maybe 8 in the evening!  It has now been rescheduled for Monday.

The lack of activity that afternoon made me antsy, so the following day I decided to walk the beginning of the Via Turonensis, starting at Notre Dame and walking as far at the metro at Porte d'Orleans. 

Many start the Via Turonensis from the Tour St. Jacques, [or even Chartres or Orleans], but Notre Dame was convenient, and the GPS route I had downloaded started from there.  From Notre Dame I proceeded down the rue Saint Jacques...

As I walked walked along I passed the 13th century St. Séverin church and noted that spring was in the air...

church courtyard

 

signs of spring

I passed the Vieux Camper shop [actually 4 shops on both sides of the street], strategically placed to catch those who might be starting off their walk along the pilgrim path...

This plaque reassured me that I was on the right path... The church on which it is placed, the Church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut is a historic landmark along the Way of Saint James from Paris. 

After the Latin quarter, the interesting buildings petered out, though.

One of the most striking landmarks was the Church of the Val-de-Grâce, the church of a former royal abbey in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, now in what is now the Val-de-Grâce Hospital. 


I continued down the rue du Faubourg St. Jacques and then down the rue de la Tombe Issoire after which it then took a turn that I didn't notice...

I had planned to walk as far as the Mairie de Montrouge, but it started sprinkling ever so slightly and I was without an umbrella.  I had been trying out the GPS tracking on my phone, which did help when I must have missed a trail marker along the way, and stopping at Porte d'Orleans seemed a good option at the time.  It was therefore only about a 5 kilometre walk, but satisfied my need for exercise. 


The following day I did quite a bit of walking, but inside the convention center of Porte de Versailles at the Salon du Livre.  I picked a bad day because it was geared to young people and there were droves of them there of all ages. The space devoted to Manga and bandes dessinées [graphic novels] was considerable.

children listen to an author/illustrator from Quebec

I picked up a handful of books at the African pavilion, but there were few children's books there to choose from this year. 

This year Morocco held the place of honor at the salon, and next to the Moroccan pavilion was a tent decked out as a Moroccan restaurant where I had lunch.

I then tried to sit through one of the free lectures, this one by three authors discussing their respective books on the theme of "migrants" and "migration" but it was too much heavy philosophy after lunch and I had a difficult time staying awake.

Imagine l'hôte : quel accueil pour les migrants?

Disappointed by what I found, or didn't find at the Salon du Livre, I did some Internet sleuthing afterwards, and was appalled at the lack of children's books available from francophone African authors.  I even checked the online holdings of Librairie Présence Africaine, a Paris-based bookstore specializing in African literature, which looked promising, but listed very few children's titles.  The book catalogs I picked up at the Salon from the Côte d'Ivoire turned out to be disappointing as well.  It looks like Sénégal does the best job, but that country is far from Burkina Faso.  I am going to have to search the bookstores locally to see if I can find anything by Fatou Keita (Ivorian) or Ansomwin Ignace Hien (Burkinabè but published in the Côte d'Ivoire)  who apparently have written some children's books.  The Côte d'Ivoire at least publishes books, but distribution outside of nearby countries seems non-existent. L'Oiseau Indigo in Arles [France] does carry some francophone African imprints, although it seems to do a better job for those from Morocco.

I did find a few titles on Amazon.fr which I ordered. Two are Burkina Faso specific, which is always a plus.

Fina just emailed me the photo (below) of a young man reading at her Saturday Kid's Club. She said another young lady, whose bicycle is broken, chose to walk 3 kilometers in the blazing sun just so she could join in the activities.  (Fina is going to get her bike fixed).
 

 

The young lady with the broken bike

The following day I enjoyed the lovely spring weather and walked the Coulée Verte [ancienne Promenade Plantée], covering nearly 10 km [6 miles] total. There were many joggers, and the forsythia, jonquils, daffodils, grape hyacinths, even a few brave tulips and other late bloomers were in evidence.

But the good weather has continued!  Someone left a box of City Walks Paris: 50 Adventures on Foot cards in my apartment, so two days later I decided to try them out and walked from the Balard metro to the one in Passy (card #43). I started at the Parc André Citroën, built on the site of the former automobile manufacturing plant, walked along the quai also bearing his name (and not that nice as it was being torn up for some construction project), past the miniature Statue of Liberty (off the Pont de Grenelle), and along the small island there as far as the Bir Hakeim Bridge.  There are prettier parks, and more interesting walks but it was enjoyable as I was blessed with such sunny, unusually balmy weather for late March.

Parc André Citroën

greenhouses

as it was still off-season the fountains were not playing

the hot air balloon did not appear to be giving rides either

but the tulips were out

replica of the Statue of Liberty

Later there was my second walk (card #44) between the Passy metro station and La Muette, considered a very huppé (upscale) neighborhood with its Jardin du Ranelagh, the Musée Marmottan, the Maison de Balzac and the Musée du Vin, plus some very high-end shopping along the rue du Passy, but I wasn't impressed.

La Fontaine with crow and fox

I did hear a fair amount of English spoken there, some of it with a distinct upper class English accent.  My favorite image was the statue of La Fontaine in the Jardin du Ranelagh as some clever wag had draped a McDonald's Chicken McNuggets bag over the fox's  muzzle. 


Well I leave for the US on Monday, April 3.  Since this is supposed to be a blog about Burkina Faso, if you're interested in following my adventures in Paris as preparation for the Via Podiensis, part IV, check out my other blog on that subject.  I feel there are still loose ends in Burkina, so I plan to be there again in a year.  I obviously have the books I plan to bring.  Stay tuned.