Night time in Paris

The days spent in Paris are filled with long walks, a few metro connections and lots of coffee, to keep you going otherwise you would never see all that you want to.

Night time is for leisurely walking, cafes and seeing the city not in bright sun light, but amber light, and if you are so lucky as to see it from the Seine, then as Hemingway said, it will be with you forever.

There are 35 bridges that cross the river in Paris,
 and one of the oldest is the "Pont Neuf" built around 1600.

It's seven arches make up the "long arm" of the bridge from the right bank to the western side of the "Ile de la Cite". The detail work is quite dramatic at night.

Near 10:30 one night we decided to head toward the Eiffel Tower and then over to the river for a boat ride, it was one of the best things we could have done.

 The spring night was perfect, cool enough for a light sweater but also sandals, and sitting on the edge of the boat with the river water occasionally hitting you was a great feeling.

Why not be cold for a little while, then amble over to a cafe for something to warm you up later?

Along the night journey down the Seine, we passed the Grand Palais, Concorde, the Louvre, and along the quays people just strolling, sitting arm in arm, and relaxing on such a beautiful night.

Continuing down, we passed the Hotel de Ville, and  Notre Dame which is amazing in the evening (much more dramatic than in the day time). 

We eventually headed back and along the way went under the most evocative bridges, with gargoyles, gold winged statues, and carved stone,  everywhere you looked.

Continuing along we passed the Institue de France, the fantastic Musee d'Orsay, Hotel des Invalides, then disembarked and stopped for awhile at
the Eiffel Tower.

The Tower was built in 1889 and appears to be in great shape over a hundred years later. Located on the Champ de Mars, it was built as the entry way to the 1889 World's Fair by the designer Gustave Eiffel. 

It appears that everyone has either a love or hate relationship to it, but it is really a very dramatic structure lit up at night, as tall as an 81 storey building.

Slowly walking back through Paris that night was terrific, right down to buying the cliched miniatures from the spread out rugs of the peddlers (my daughter found one that actually glowed in the dark, to bring back to a friend). If you can't buy chotskys, what fun is there?

The Latin Qarter

In all our travels around Paris, my favorite was in the 5th and 6th arrondissement, the "Latin Quarter".

The boulevards open out like a fan, the architecture is light in color and at a perfect height, so as not to blot out the sky, and the sidewalks are full of lively bistros and cafes. 

Just before heading back to our hotel for the night, we headed to number 12 rue de l'Odeon, as I had to see the area of the original bookshop by Sylvia Beach, "Shakespeare and Company". 

This was where the American expatriate writers congregated, and read the censored books by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, and if too poor to buy the books, were allowed to borrow them (as Hemingway often did), if Sylvia liked you.

In 1921 Beach relocated her bookstore here and it was frequented until 1941, when the Nazis ruined everything, and she had to close. When it was in operation it was the center for literary get together's and "modernism" in Paris.

 Artists from the "Lost Generation", personified by

Fitzgerald, Stein, Man Ray, Pound and of course Hemingway were a few of the Americans that spent a huge       amount of their time here.

We actually found the exact building it was in, but of course it is no
more...

We first came to the Latin Quarter late in the day, and my all time favorite hotel "The Best Western" was right here! Mind you, it was designed to fit in with the flavor of the district, and as my daughter and I entered it was "fantastic"! 

The decor was subdued, dark with a lot of wood, and oriental carpets, and as we wandered to the restrooms, we passed through a communal room made into a library with bookshelves to the ceiling, for the patrons to read.

 The armchairs beckoned, but we had to hurry and I confess I soo wanted to stay here, but we were already booked into another place in the 8th arrondisement. Next time, for sure!

We headed out the door, and into narrow very old streets, around a corner and very soon came to the Sorbonne University (it sort of creeps up on you).

This section of Paris is on the Left Bank of the Seine and to this day is the center of student life, with many places to congregate. Everywhere you look are cafes, along sidewalks, and even in the center of boulevards!

The name of the "Latin Quarter" dates back to the tradition of studying and speaking in Latin, which eventually came to an end by the French Revolution.

In this area the cafes were especially popular with the writers and artists of the 20's who would gather at night after working all day, and drink and philosophize together and make new friends.

Hemingway had lived for a time in several addresses here, and after hearing his good friend Gertrude Stein label the artists of this period after the war, as a "Lost Generation", he used it in his first novel "The Sun Also Rises".

He was to characterize the young generation as living "uncivilized, aimless lives", who were reacting against the useless slaughter of the first world war. I actually read a bio on Zelda Fitzgerald, and wonder if she wasn't the first to coin that term?

The reason so many Americans were settling in Paris at this time, was that it cost so very little to live here and they could associate with other artists, and live rather grand lifestyles, and enjoy the free flowing alcohol (as prohibition was in effect back home).

During this time, the greatest number of artists were living around the boulevard Montparnasse, which Hemingway had written about in "A Movable Feast".

With his first wife Hemingway arrived in this section of Paris in 1921 and while writing his novels, made his income from reporting for newspapers.

It was not just artists that loved this area, but also political refugees, who enjoyed the intellectual community like, Lenin and Trotsky. The cafe life led to making new acquaintances and exchanging ideas about breaking with the past, and starting a whole new modern movement in the arts and political world.

Again this I found to be the area to still meet so many new people, from the universities to the cafes, and next time I have already found my favorite hotel to stay at, The Best Western. 

(you can take the woman out of America, but you can't take the American out of the woman)...