Day three: July 3, 2004
Destination : rue Didot
Weather : overcast
Time of departure : 5.30pm
Canine breakdown : 1 black lab, 1 german shepherd in a cafe, 1 pregnant mutt in a cafe, 1 westie, 2 yorkies, 2 terriers, 2 airedales, 5 poodles
Public transport options : 62 bus
I can’t find my map and so need to turn to the route suggested to me by maporama. Straight up and into the parc Montsouris, which I try and visit at least once a day to laugh at the ducklings as they learn how to swim. People are everywhere in the park today: older ladies drinking tea at the buvette, mothers watching their kids play in the climbing area, picnickers, lovers, football players, joggers, and all around the lake people watching, alone but relaxed in their solitude, happy in it, reading or writing or looking out onto the lake.
The water birds are beautiful, and over on a flat, wet rock different coloured ducks lie sleeping beside a basking turtle. The little boy next to me turns to his brother, “T’as vu? T’as vu la tortue? Sur le rocher là? À côté du canard? Tu l’as vu?” At first the kid can’t see it, and then suddenly he gurgles in delight, “Ouais!” I walk on past the ponies (the word is spelt ‘poneys’ here) who spend their day trekking round and round the park and débouche onto the Avenue Reille. Waiting for the lights on the other side is a wedding party, the second I have seen heading for the park since I arrived in this quartier.
On up the rue Saint-Yves and over to Alésia. A lived-in calm hangs in the air around here; it’s a place, one of those corners of a city’s nexus, where people live. The only stores respond to quotidiana: boulangerie, alimentation, bar-PMU. Even the graffiti is calmer here.
The rue d’Alésia itself is like most of the minor but still heavily used Parisian thoroughfares: Monoprix, balconies, boulangerie after boulangerie. Atkins is nowhere here. Nowhere. I reach the rue Didot and take a left, wondering off in search of villas. It was Richard Pevear who told us there were so few villas in Paris, I remember this now. He lives at villa Poirier, and we were at villa Gaudelet at the time. The first I come to today is villa Duthy, a little alley off to the left of the already-minor rue Didot.
And then a few steps further down, villa Deshayes.
These streets seem to get older, more cobbled, more faded… more lovely as I descend rue Didot. Villa collet is next, also on the left, just a few steps from villa Deshayes.
They just don’t stop. But then they do. I know I have to cross the road to find villas Leone and Mallebay,
but I don’t know where villa Jamot has gone. It’s only now, looking at an in-depth map of the area, that I notice that Jamot is shaded in grey. What does that mean on a map? Is it a ghost villa? I don’t know. Just past where it should be, the road passes over an old, overgrown railway track. The evening sun (entre chien et loup?) dapples through the trees and onto the track, evoking some kind of temporal leap in my consciousness. It is early 1930. I will be on the next train.
Leone deserves a closer look. The façade is amazing, and reveals nothing of what lurks behind. I wait for a few moments, hoping to catch a resident on their way in or out, but nothing happens.
I never do succeed in finding villa Jamot, despite walking the length of rue Didot several times over. There are flowers, though, discarded on the pavement and keeping their secrets close.
The people walking behind me start to become annoyed at my consistent stopping and photographing. They are pushing a pram. I keep walking, until I come across the vending machine. It’s quite a sight.
From this machine, should I so choose, I can extract anything from an omelette du lapin to chicken wings to camembert to petit écolier chocolate biscuits to milk to nutella to sandwiches to salads to something called doowaps and zazoo condoms. Wow. I tear myself away, and right at the end of the parallel rue des Plantes I find, as I expected to find, the villa Brune.
Nearby, a street is named after Giordano Bruno, and uncommonly (even for Paris) the facts of his death are also on the plaque. A philosopher burned as a heretic in 1600. And Italian. I wonder about his significance to this part of Paris.
I’m disappointed about my failure regarding villa Jamot. I wander around a little more, coming across the most beautiful tree by the Hotel ibis.
And then, as I start my path back to my green and white room in the polyglot college, I remember a little side street I’d seen on the way here. Not the one I’ve been looking for, but another villa nonetheless. Not quite but almost. I’m done with chasing ghosts.
Weather : overcast
Time of departure : 5.30pm
Canine breakdown : 1 black lab, 1 german shepherd in a cafe, 1 pregnant mutt in a cafe, 1 westie, 2 yorkies, 2 terriers, 2 airedales, 5 poodles
Public transport options : 62 bus
I can’t find my map and so need to turn to the route suggested to me by maporama. Straight up and into the parc Montsouris, which I try and visit at least once a day to laugh at the ducklings as they learn how to swim. People are everywhere in the park today: older ladies drinking tea at the buvette, mothers watching their kids play in the climbing area, picnickers, lovers, football players, joggers, and all around the lake people watching, alone but relaxed in their solitude, happy in it, reading or writing or looking out onto the lake.
The water birds are beautiful, and over on a flat, wet rock different coloured ducks lie sleeping beside a basking turtle. The little boy next to me turns to his brother, “T’as vu? T’as vu la tortue? Sur le rocher là? À côté du canard? Tu l’as vu?” At first the kid can’t see it, and then suddenly he gurgles in delight, “Ouais!” I walk on past the ponies (the word is spelt ‘poneys’ here) who spend their day trekking round and round the park and débouche onto the Avenue Reille. Waiting for the lights on the other side is a wedding party, the second I have seen heading for the park since I arrived in this quartier.
On up the rue Saint-Yves and over to Alésia. A lived-in calm hangs in the air around here; it’s a place, one of those corners of a city’s nexus, where people live. The only stores respond to quotidiana: boulangerie, alimentation, bar-PMU. Even the graffiti is calmer here.
The rue d’Alésia itself is like most of the minor but still heavily used Parisian thoroughfares: Monoprix, balconies, boulangerie after boulangerie. Atkins is nowhere here. Nowhere. I reach the rue Didot and take a left, wondering off in search of villas. It was Richard Pevear who told us there were so few villas in Paris, I remember this now. He lives at villa Poirier, and we were at villa Gaudelet at the time. The first I come to today is villa Duthy, a little alley off to the left of the already-minor rue Didot.
And then a few steps further down, villa Deshayes.
These streets seem to get older, more cobbled, more faded… more lovely as I descend rue Didot. Villa collet is next, also on the left, just a few steps from villa Deshayes.
They just don’t stop. But then they do. I know I have to cross the road to find villas Leone and Mallebay,
but I don’t know where villa Jamot has gone. It’s only now, looking at an in-depth map of the area, that I notice that Jamot is shaded in grey. What does that mean on a map? Is it a ghost villa? I don’t know. Just past where it should be, the road passes over an old, overgrown railway track. The evening sun (entre chien et loup?) dapples through the trees and onto the track, evoking some kind of temporal leap in my consciousness. It is early 1930. I will be on the next train.
Leone deserves a closer look. The façade is amazing, and reveals nothing of what lurks behind. I wait for a few moments, hoping to catch a resident on their way in or out, but nothing happens.
I never do succeed in finding villa Jamot, despite walking the length of rue Didot several times over. There are flowers, though, discarded on the pavement and keeping their secrets close.
The people walking behind me start to become annoyed at my consistent stopping and photographing. They are pushing a pram. I keep walking, until I come across the vending machine. It’s quite a sight.
From this machine, should I so choose, I can extract anything from an omelette du lapin to chicken wings to camembert to petit écolier chocolate biscuits to milk to nutella to sandwiches to salads to something called doowaps and zazoo condoms. Wow. I tear myself away, and right at the end of the parallel rue des Plantes I find, as I expected to find, the villa Brune.
Nearby, a street is named after Giordano Bruno, and uncommonly (even for Paris) the facts of his death are also on the plaque. A philosopher burned as a heretic in 1600. And Italian. I wonder about his significance to this part of Paris.
I’m disappointed about my failure regarding villa Jamot. I wander around a little more, coming across the most beautiful tree by the Hotel ibis.
And then, as I start my path back to my green and white room in the polyglot college, I remember a little side street I’d seen on the way here. Not the one I’ve been looking for, but another villa nonetheless. Not quite but almost. I’m done with chasing ghosts.
1 Comments:
hi. i don't know if i am allowed to comment here. however i thought i'd make a few brief explicatory comments about giordano bruno. he was burned at the campo dei fiori in rome, and he probably has a street in paris because he spent much time there. because he was a philosopher whose ideas challenged christianity, he had to live outside of italy for most of his life, and when he was invited back, was ratted out and burned at the stake.
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