Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Tuesday 23 December - Flaneurs

We decided to go for a walk today bearing in mind the holiday season will soon be upon us. We have found it great fun to choose a Paris street and see where it will take us and find out what it will reveal. We went to Barbès Rochechouart and walked down the rue du Poissonnière. First there was a profusion of wedding and formal dress shops, the more expensive ones are on the rue de Magenta the next street over. Some of the dresses are over the top from bright red to fluorescent lime green.
We made a side trip to look at Trinity church.
These barracks were built in 1932 on the site of earlier barracks.  The soldiers here were originally sent to Nouvelle France or Canada.  The area is now known as Poissoniere or Nouvelle France
We eventually crossed the Boulevard du Poissonnière which runs at right angles to the rue of the same name and passed the enormous Rex cinema which has a roof shaped like a Greek temple. 

This green wall completely covered the end of this building.
See http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/
Rue du Poissonnière becomes the rue du Montorgeuil, a higher class version of the rue de Lévis.
We turned right or west, and walked along Rue Etienne Marcel eventually to the rue de Saint Honoré with its high end shops, embassies and the Élysee Palace. We turned north on rue Miromésnil back to Villiers and home.
Some new streets as well as some familiar ones. Things were quite quiet until around 1330 when a number of businesses closed for the holiday and the shops, restaurants and take outs became busy.