They are tearing down Les Halles. It certainly was ugly.
But I don't know about this new version they have planned:
I know the old Baltard pavillions and central Paris location didn't work for an imortant wholesale food market.
But why couldn't they have kept the external structure and reengineered something functional inside?
Surely they could have made something useful inside those beautiful old pavillions.
I went to the Marché aux Puces (the flea market) today to chiner a bit (go antiqueing).
Lots of eye candy.
and people-watching opportunities (like these two merchants playing chess between customers)
But I was more tempted by this guy on the couch
and these two shameless beggars at a bistro table....
I went to the Marché aux Puces (the flea market) today to chiner a bit (go antiqueing).
Lots of eye candy.
and people-watching opportunities (like these two merchants playing chess between customers)
But I was more tempted by this guy on the couch
and these two shameless beggars at a bistro table....
Since I'm still on the injured/disabled list, I'll have to share more first day photos and subsequent research.
I walked by this creperie:
and then doubled back...
what was down that alleyway?
Is that a horse's head on the building?
Yes indeed-y! But this doesn't look like the usual horse butcher shop (boucherie chevaline), so what's the story?
A little research reveals that this is the neighborhood that housed the Paris horse market. In fact, around the corner is a street called Marché aux Chevaux.
The horse market dates back to Louis XIII in 1641. The building below is from 1760 during the time of Louis XV and housed the inspectors.
Look at either side of the central window:
The crane and the rooster are supposed to symbolize patience and vigilance. The embedded slate below gives evidence of the building's provenance.
Next to this is a more recent building:
Around the block on the other side is a street called rue l'Essai, so named because here is where the dealers let potential buyers try out the horses.
They say that a century ago, there were 80,000 horses in Paris. They carried riders and towed barges, buses,and carts. They were an essentiel part of Parisiens' lives. And the horse market serviced that need.
The most celebrated work of painter, Rosa Bonheur (the most famous female painter of the 19th century), is Le marché aux chevaux (The Horse Fair). She dressed as a man and made sketches at the market twice a week for a year and a half before completing this 8 by 16 foot masterpiece. You can see the cupola of Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière in the distance. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
I have just one question: what is a "double poney"?
November first is La Toussaint, All Saints Day, a far weightier holiday in France than is Halloween. It's a day for commemoration of the dead, and this is done primarily with chrysanthemums. If you didn't know about Toussaint, you'd think France was having a huge Fête de Mums, because the marchés and fleuristes are full of them.
Relatives take mums to the graves of their loved ones. Since the apartment where I'm staying has a bird's eye view of cimetière de Montmartre:
I've had a chance to watch the growing accumulation of colorful mums.
To mark the holiday/holyday, we took a walk through the cemetery, which is a peaceful and beautiful spot.
It's filled with old tombs:
and new tombs:
The famous dead:
and the unknown and forgotten dead:
There's a museum's worth of artwork in the cemetery:
and then there are cats....lots and lots of cemetery cats:
On Saturdays and Sundays, there is a marché dedicated to antique and used books (livres d'occasion) in the 15th arrondissement. It's inside covered pavilions which was nice since I visited on a day with intermittent showers. It's located on the site of a former slaughterhouse, thus the statue of a butcher toting a carcass. There are almost a hundred vendors offering antique books, specialty out-of-print books, bandes-dessinées (comics and graphics), military history and table after table of 1 and 2€ paperbacks (poches). There are boxes of books you can buy by weight. The vendors sit at card tables drinking wine and eating baguettes and cheese, chatting with customers and each other. I found a delightful children's book discussing the derivation of French words and French homonyms for 1€.
Right next to the marché is 22 acre Parc Georges Brassens, built over former vineyards and an abattoir. It's a beautiful park with fountains, numerous amenities for children like a marionnette theater and climbing structures, a bandstand, rose garden, scent garden and a beehive. The marché and park are quite close to the Puce de Vanves and perfect for a day of walking in Paris.
Finally visited the Puce de Vanves. This flea market is on the opposite side of Paris from the Puce de Saint-Ouen/Clignancourt and far more affordable. You can find antiques, artwork, bric-a-brac and just plain junk.
I didn't arrive till after lunch when they were beginning to wind down. I thought I might have missed all the good stuff. They had several stands with buttons, old and new, as well as antique lace and thread bobbins. I found a black beaded oval with a beaded tassel that I liked. The vendor was packing up. He said it was 15€. "Desolé, trop cher pour moi" and I looked at the next stand. I glanced back as he was almost finished packing and it went down to 10€, but I shook my head 'no' again. I hung around till he was packing his last box when he offered it for 5€ and I snapped it up. I think I'll make a broach out of it.
Many thanks to the blog Why Travel to France for alerting us to the Salon Saveurs des Plaisirs Gourmands, an expo of regional French gourmet foods. This event takes place twice a year, in May and in December. Fortunately we were able to arrive shortly after it opened on Friday and avoid the expected weekend crowds. Folks came prepared with their shopping trolleys, called poussettes de marché, in order to haul away their bounty.
It was like Bon Marché’s Grande Épicerie crossed with a neighborhood marché, times ten. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the vendors represented relatively small concerns, many obviously mom-and-pop with their teenage children helping out alongside in the booths. They were quick to inform you of the special qualities imparted by their local terroir. Some were dressed in traditional costumes and many had photo displays of their farms.
It was such a joy to stroll past hundreds of booths, traveling from an enormous display of spices and herbs to a fragrant bread stand to a booth piled high with sausages and cheeses and then on to a wine tasting display next door. The aromas were intoxicating; luckily there were plenty of free samples. What a wonderful introduction to the Région hautes-pyrénées, Région tarn and Région
var!
My favorite area in the expo included the products of Île de Noirmoutier, a 20 kilometer long island on the French Atlantic coast that was an early monastic settlement in the seventh century. The island’s agricultural co-op had a restaurant in the expo where we had huitres (oysters) with bread and wine for lunch. You could taste and smell the ocean while eating the oysters and almost feel the sea breeze across your face. We bought some of the tiny potatoes that are native to the île, nicknamed "Potato Island".
There were ten to twenty different foie gras stands, with enough foie gras to cover the streets of Sonoma. And chocolate: oh, the chocolate! Take note that the loaves of pain au chocolat featured above were the size of rural mailboxes. And there were many macaron makers (not at all like macaroons). The French strawberries, gariguettes, have come into season and were in evidence at the expo. Earlier in our stay, locals had cautioned us against the large, fat ones appearing in the marchés, “They’re Spanish, no good. Wait for the gariguettes, those are the ones that really have taste!” We’ve learned to trust their recommendations.
We’ve defected from our local marché in the 10th arrondissement to the Marché d’Aligre in the 12th. It’s an old, quite historic market known for its good prices and high quality.
It grew up around the abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs which dates back to the 12th century. Originally it was called the Petite Halle and leased to butchers until other vendors and hay merchants made inroads. A formal marché was created in 1781 and it sold a great deal of hay and straw for the horses of Paris. With the Revolution, the marché became property of the state. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was the second busiest market in Paris (after Les Halles).
There is an outdoor marché around Place d’Aligre. The Place and rue d’Aligre are crowded with stalls selling fruit and vegetables and flowers. The outdoor markets are run primarily by North Africans from Morocco, Tunesia and Algeria. Vendors call out “Un cadeau!” (a gift!) and “Un Kilo – un Euro!” (one kilo – one euro!) to the crowd and chat with each other in Arabic.
The covered marché, Beauvau, is a registered historical monument. Unlike the outdoor market, the stands here are more expensive and are not operated by North Africans. There is an old fountain inside, used to wash down and clean up when the market closes. Inside you’ll find meat, poultry, fish, cheese and prepared products.
Walking to and from the marché on weekends, you pass a delightful little park, Square Trousseau, with a children’s playground, bandstand, ping-pong tables and benches to sit amidst the foliage. Patisseries and boulangeries are conveniently located on the street lining the square and it’s a lovely place to eat a croissant and watch the children playing.
There is a flea market near the end of rue d’Aligre, operated mostly on weekends. We found cute little leather wallets there for 2 euros. Rue d’Aligre is also a street of traditional little shops with high end a high end cheese shop and a foi gras merchant.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the best 'added attraction' of Marché d’Aligre!
