Paris, Day 3 - Was that really snow?

It's hard to believe that we saw snow in Paris today.  Well, not exactly.  We were going down to the rue de Rivoli via the Metro and as we approached our local station we saw that it appeared to be covered in snow.  It turned out that the front of the Lamarck Caulaincourt Metro station was being used for a photo shoot.  Clearly it was an advertising thing as a young woman was posing on the stairs and looking very much like an advertisment for something or other.

Faux Snow

Modelling in the Snow - note the man with the snow making machine in the background

We managed to get through and into the station which is apparently home for a number of the homeless men of the area.  Unfortunately the smell of the place makes it clear that there are no adequate toilet facilities here for the incumbents.

We took the number 12 train down to Concorde station, one of the busiest in Paris and surfaced right at  the Place de la Concorde.  Rue de Rivoli is a mixed bag.  On the one hand it offers some of the finest shops imaginable and on the other dozens of cheap-jack tourist souvenir shops and stalls.  Because it was Sunday morning it was relatively quiet although normally one anticipates wall to wall people.

An unusually quiet re de Rivoli

Very Posh!! Rue de Rivoli

It is lovely to stroll in Paris.  Charles Baudelaire used the term flâneur to describe "a person who walks the city in order to experience it". In that sense, we are flâneurs.

Paris is a city made for walking and as we progressed along the rue de Rivoli, we passed the wonderful gilded bronze  statue of Jeanne d'Arc, located in the centre of the Place des Pyramides and then further along,  the front of the Louvre.

Jeanne d'Arc

The Louvre

At the same intersection is the Hotel Regina, one of the classic hotels of the city.  It was here, in 1919, that the various Red Cross organisations came together to form the  International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) which today coordinates activities between the 186 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies within the Movement.

Hotel Regina

IFRC

We continued our walk stopping to view one of the interesting sites, the statue of Gaspard de Coligny, an important Protestant leader killed in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

Coligny

About the monument

Two things that are quite noticeable in Paris are the way in which Parisiennes (and tourists) sit outside to eat and drink.  This seems to be unrelated to the weather since many of the outdoor areas have heat lamps.  Sometimes, when the weather is particularly bad they are enclosed in thick, transparent plastic.  This "outdoor" sitting to drink and dine is also useful for smokers since it is now illegal to smoke inside eating and drinking establishments. Interestingly, even when the "outdoor" area is enclosed in plastic, it is still considered outdoors for purposes of smoking.  Our "local" is Cafe Francoeur.

Our Local

The other thing I want to point out is the greengrocers.  Now in many parts of Australia we still have these, although not very many exist in Tasmania.  But they are ubiquitous in Paris and each and every one seems to view with all the others with the beauty of their displays.  Even very small ones have lovely  displays of a great variety of fruit and vegetables facing out onto the street.

Front of a small greengrocer's

Finally, for today, a thought on the weather.  It is beginning to warm up and it won't be long before the trees are in glorious bloom.  I thought I would take pictures as this happened so here is the first.  This is on a street very near us and is taken from our bus shelter where we often wait for either the Montmartrebus or the Number 80.

Mid-March

More pictures of this same area as the warmer weather prevails.