Autumn in Paris – II – ARUNDHATI BASU

“You can’t escape the past in Paris, and yet what’s so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn’t seem to burden.”

Allen Ginsberg

img_20160623_211830 — The Carousel Garden. Part of the Tuileries. Under Louis XIV’s reign, it was opened up to ‘les honnêtes gens’ or the ‘respectable folk’. It became the In thing to be seen walking in these gardens.

Lido, the home of French cabaret.

Lido

img_20160622_215503 — So many famous names have walked and performed inside the Lido. Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, Josephine Baker… I could go on and on till the cows come home.

img_20160622_215424 — ‘Naughty but nice’ Lido

“To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!” Victor Hugo

“I guess it goes to show that you just never know where life will take you. You search for answers. You wonder what it all means. You stumble, and you soar. And, if you’re lucky, you make it to Paris for a while.” Amy Thomas.

img_20160706_220122 — Bouquinistes of Paris. Booksellers who sell used and antiquarian books along both banks of the Seine. Which is why the Seine is referred to as ‘the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves’

img_20160706_220823 — Browsing old manners and modes at the bouquinistes’

img_20160706_225301 — Paris. From the Notre Dame.

img_20160706_225933 — Chimeras top the Notre Dame.

20151104_123007 — Inside the Notre Dame.

img_20160706_232001 — Inside the Louvre.

img_20160706_202410 — “Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.” Roman Payne.

img_20160706_215802 — Canal St. Martin. Near Bastille.

img_20160706_215918 — Are you a flea market flâneur? Then, this is your soul place. It is one of the best flea markets I have traipsed through.

20151104_161524 — When I spotted a colonial item and got excited.

“London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.” G.K. Chesterton.

“… you’ll have to fall in love at least once in your life, or Paris has failed to rub off on you.” E.A. Bucchianeri.

“Paris is a place in which we can forget ourselves, reinvent, expunge the dead weight of our past.” Michael Simkins.

People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.” Roman Payne.

“There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even—the French air clears up the brain and does good—a world of good.” Vincent Van Gogh.

“The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners.” F. Scott Fitzgerald.

“Paris was all so… Parisian. I was captivated by the wonderful wrongness of it all – the unfamiliar fonts, the brand names in the supermarket, the dimensions of the bricks and paving stones. Children, really quite small children, speaking fluent French!” David Nicholls.

“As an artist, a man has no home in Europe save in Paris.” Friedrich Nietzsche.

20151105_124247 — Could not resist getting into a frame with La Tour Eiffel.

img_20160706_221928 — “And trade is art, and art’s philosophy, In Paris.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

img_20160706_221722 — “Paris. City of love. City of dreams. City of splendour. City of saints and scholars. City of gaiety. Sink of iniquity. In two thousand years, Paris had seen it all.” Edward Rutherfurd.

img_20160706_221817 — “I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there’s a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be. All along the Seine, street lamps come on, apartment windows turn golden.” Kristin Hannah.

img_20160705_214722 — Place des Vosges from Maison de Victor Hugo.

img_20160705_214255 — Victor Hugo’s bedroom in which he breathed his last.

Quirky art galleries in Place des Voges.

Place des Vosges in the Marais district of Paris.

Places des Vosges is one of the finest and oldest planned squares in the city.

Place des Vosges. The square was built by Henri IV between 1605 and 1612.

The beautiful eateries that fall along the way in Place des Vosges.

Places des Vosges.

img_20160628_213456 — “Everyone remembers their first taste of Paris.” Kristin Hannah.

Le Petit Palais or The Small Palace is home to the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris). And yes, that is Winston Churchill with his purposeful stride.