Header Image


Navigation images

Day 145: Guarding over Paris

Sainte Geneviève is the patron saint of Paris and standing really really tall on Pont de la Tournelle over River Seine is a statue of this wise and brave woman (who was said to have saved Paris from the plunders of Attila the Hun and performed numerous other miracles for the people of Paris), protecting the young Paris (depicted as a young girl here – holding a ship used by the Parisii tribe?) from all that sought to cause her harm.

This iconography is similar to the stained window of Église St-Pierre de Montmartre (photo on Flickr) which would quite ambiguously tells you it is Paris that Sainte Geneviève is looking out for. In this creation, Paris is holding Notre Dame Cathedral in her hands. Of course, note that Notre Dame wasn’t built until several decades following the death (and canonisation) of Sainte Geneviève, the representation at Pont de la Tournelle would probably be a more accurate depiction. But, what do I know? I am no historian.

Day 144: Dégustation du chocolat

While I was gallavanting around in Stockholm over the weekend, Chloé was on chocolate discovery mission. A new chocolate-tasting concept chocolatier has been found at St Germain, “between Pierre Hermé and Ladurée” (on rue Bonaparte), and wonderful friend that she is, she brought Anne and I a selection to try. Parc Montsouris seems like a good place to enjoy the last of the sunshine for the day and have chocolate tasting.

Chocolats Richart has plenty to offer but what we’ve got here are from two dégustation boxes – petits Richart Les Fruités (as the name suggests, fruity ganache filling within) and Les Hespéridés (for that fresh citrusy and extra zing of a flavour). All three of us prefer Les Hespéridés, even if we think there was a questionable (overripe) pineapple ganache in the selection. For next tasting session, I think we should get the other tasting selection, including Les Floraux (floral are usually good), Les Balsamiques (yup, balsamic!), Les Herbacés (herbs and chocolate – interesting), Les Epicés (not sure though if I’m keen on a spiced-chocolate selection) and Les Grillés (with nuts, this I can do).

Maybe I should just get a selection of all the selection. It’ll make my life easier and I get to taste ALL of them :D

Day 143: Museum of a museum

Gustav III Museum of Antiquities is a rather peculiar museum. It is a museum of a museum, that is, it is a museum recreated based on the museum which used to be housed at the Royal Palace. For a period of time, these pieces were moved to National Museum. They were subsequently restored at the Palace once again, and reopened as Museum of Antiquities. Therefore, this is a museum honouring what was one of the oldest European museums.

The museum is not particularly big, consisting of only two galleries. The bigger one containing a number of key statues, including Apollo and his nine muses, and Endymion, while the narrower gallery is used to mostly display busts of men of fame in the past. What’s quite amusing was listening to the guide explaining how rogue merchants of the past classified something as an object of antiquities from Roman civilisation. Apparently, as long as there’s at least 30% of original parts to the work, it was considered antiquities. And missing parts (limbs, attributes) can subsequently be replaced by, say, reconstructive sculpting works. Intriguing.

Day 142: Wha’cha lookin’ at?

Day 2 in Stockholm and more tourist-playing to be done of course. I still marvel at how different the city is in the summer, given my only previous trip to the Swedish capital was in winter (a coooooold February). Today, Åsa and I managed to squeeze in Stockholms Stadsmuseum, Vasamuseet and Skansen. Pretty good effort all round and a reasonable amount of walking, not that I’m complaining, as I’ve been pigging out on local food and could definitely use the walk to get rid of some of the calories.

Skansen is the world’s first open-air museum, displaying buildings from various parts of Sweden (which had been shipped to Skansen piece by piece) as well as devoting a major part of the resources to retain cultural information of Swedish civilisation. Staff in period costumes can be seen in the historical village, and they are always on hand to explain how things work from decades of the past. There is also an open-air zoo at Skansen, exhibiting many Nordic animals including brown bear (and there were two cuddly baby bears!), lynx, moose, wolverine etc. The owl must has sensed my excitement in exploring Skansen but given its imprisonment, it would only give me this “meh” expression.

Day 141: A roomful of Munch

I arrived late last night for a long weekend in Stockholm to visit Åsa who I haven’t seen for ages. Not only that, Matt also made a special trip down from Uppsala for the day and it was years I last saw him, at Iowa! We explored the Kungliga Djurgården (the Royal Game Park) and its nature trails, lunched at the organic café of Rosendals Trädgård (Rosendal’s Garden), and on Matt’s suggestion, went to Thielska Galleriet (Thielska Gallery) which I fell in love with immediately.

This museum is housed in what was originally a private residence to a banker, Ernest Thiel, and the collection of Scandinavian art within was his private collection, many of which the pieces were courtesy of his friends who are great artists including Edvard Munch, Carl Larsson, Bruno Liljefors and Eugène Jansson. The room photographed here is that of Munch’s collection.

What I love most about this museum is the use of the concept of minimalism to display the arts very effectively. As a result, one does not feel overwhelmed by too many pieces of work at any given space, yet the thread of theme which links one work to another remains. In addition, each display hall is spacious and filled with plenty of natural light. It just feels so — fresh. I don’t know how else to describe it. All I can say is, I was a very very happy bunny :D

Day 140: Génie sur Seine

I never quite get nymphs, sirens and water spirits straight. I’ve seen the terms used interchangeably in some writings, while other sources portray them as distinct creatures, albeits water/sea related. Who’s right and who’s wrong? However, I do think of nymphs and sirens as creatures with seductive nature, so I would deduce this sculpture to be a water spirit if anything. Just look at it – she’s so young and carefree!

Pont Alexandre III is undoubtedly the most elaborately decorated and opulent bridge of Paris. This water spirit is only a small component to the bridge which spans River Seine to link Les Invalides on the left bank to both Grand Palais and Petit Palais on the right bank. From gold-gilded statues to Art Nouveau lamps to bronze sculptures, this bridge is, and will always be, a wow factor to all visitors to Paris.

Ps: yup, French wiki confirmed this is a water spirit (génie).

Day 139: Let there be light

I should really make some effort to go to the 12th, 17th and 19th arrondissements. I’ve just realised that I have not posted anything from these quarters. An oversight, yes, but they are also a teensie wee bit out of the way for me. Realistically it would be ideal for me to check them out at weekends, but as you can see, I was away last weekend (to Strasbourg) and I’ll be away again this weekend (to Stockholm). Tricky.

For today though, I’m being lazy and all you’re getting is the interior of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. And not even a particularly good shot either (sorry!). As you can see, dim light condition equals questionable crispness. Perhaps it doesn’t help either that I put the setting on like a gazillion times of zooming, but given the height of the cathedral…

Day 138: A view from Pont de Tolbiac

Today, a quick photo, still of River Seine, but from the east end of the city. Yup, the complete other side from where I was yesterday. And like the majority of Parisian neighbourhoods close to the périphérique, there are also plenty of modern buildings here and busy quayside with various docked vessels of varying sizes. I wonder how much trades are taking place along this part of River Seine?

It has been a while since I play around with the different modes of the camera so here’s the return of the miniature. I really am not making enough effort to get to know my camera well. I’m still struggling to handle the manual mode, especially at places where it’s dark/dim or during the night. The response time is extremely slow for most part, which is something I’ve not experiences in the past with the manual mode of my previous Ixus. I can only deduce I’m doing something wrong, since there’s more control settings on this camera and in correlation, it should means I could work it better. Now, if only I know where my manual CD is.

Day 137: A view from Pont du Garigliano

Visitors to Paris tend to stay within the central area of the city – let’s face it, there are so much to do one need not venture further out in any case – and as a result, perhaps the only tall buildings they would have noticed are Tour Montparnasse and those at La Défense (and you can spot them right from Champs-Élysées). Otherwise, Parisian architecture seems rarely topping the sixth or seventh storey in height, much less constructed with plenty of steels, metals and glasses.

Down by Port de Javel, standing on Pont du Garigliano, one may not recognise Paris if not for the Tour Eiffel which stands beyond the horizon of tall modern buildings. It is still quite pretty here, with less human traffic (at least that was the case when I was out there this evening) and the feeling that the dynamism of Paris is something that I would need a lot of time to fully understand. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I would be able to find time somehow to soak all the knowledge in.

Day 136: Formal garden

I quite like walking around the Marais quarter, which is lively and bustling but also attracts a certain kind of fashionable crowd (not that I am one of them – and I doubt I could afford to be one either), making it an interesting people-watching neighbourhood. More importantly, the quarter did not undergo a Haussmann “re-looking” (a casual French term for makeover apparently) and therefore plenty of interesting architecture to check out too.

Hôtel particulier is one of the features which I think of as a link to the romantic past of the streets here, thanks to the favours bestowed by the royalties and the peers of French court once upon a time. The grand urban mansions usually come with entrance courts and gardens, and if you could cast your imagination a little back, if only back to the days where Impressionist artists could cast paintings of garden strolls in Victorian dresses and suits, the gardens would be just perfect for socials and interludes in between attending various soirées that one had been invited too.

Today, a number of these hôtel particulier have been converted into administrative buildings as well as museum spaces. Some of these are free to visit (e.g. Musée Cognacq-Jay, Musée Carnavalet, la maison de Victor Hugo) so there is no excuse to not get acquainted with the idea of grand Parisian townhouses. I should revisit them too. It has been a while.


Notify me!

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Most read today