Memories were made of this

On 19 June 1994, I remember the day exactly, I went out with an American friend of mine to do some shopping, the same friend who sent me off on a cookery course.  We both lived very near Paris and both of us were coming to the end of our three years' stay in France.

Almost everyone I knew seemed to be leaving Paris that summer but although we had been there three years, we had been offered another couple of years.  Maybe.  I wasn't too happy about staying on because I loved it.  It may sound contradictory, but I thought if I stayed longer I'd never want to leave.

So all in all I wasn't on top of the world that day, and a shopping expedition sounded just the thing to take my mind off things, especially as I wasn't doing the shopping, just observing.  We went to the rue de Rivoli, one of the famous roads in the centre, famous names, famously expensive.  Some of it, it has to be said, is just expensive tourist tat.  It runs past the Louvre and the Tuileries gardens.  Its main advantage to me was that it had the English bookshop, WH Smith, many times rescuing me from certain boredom.

Sue, my friend, asked my advice on a coffee cup she was planning to buy for a mutual friend.  I said I thought she'd love it, that whenever she drank from it, she would be reminded of our times in Paris.

Of course, I was slow on the uptake, and the coffee cup and saucer were bought for me.  Every time I saw them, I did remember Paris, but now they are in several pieces - the cup and saucer not the memories - and about to be consigned to the bin. 

I did consider trying to find a similar set but I can't find any and it wouldn't be the same anyway.  Unfortunately then, it seems as though the memories will eventually follow the same fate, unless of course I record them somewhere.....

Floods in Paris

Rowing down the road

One hundred years and one month ago saw record floods in Paris.  Between 20 and 28 January 1910, the levels of water measured at the Austerlitz Bridge were at record levels, reaching almost 8 metres (over 26 feet) above normal.  Previously there had been floods in 1658 and 1740, both measured at the Tournelle Bridge which was damaged in 1910.

It was caused by a combination of factors:

• an exceptionally wet final quarter of 1909 (two minor floods had already been recorded),
• saturated land, then frozen
• simultaneous flooding of the Seine tributaries.

Walkways 

It wasn't merely a case of 20,000 houses and buildings being flooded, but normal activities were paralysed, electricity and gas supplies were cut, transport severely disrupted, rubbish had to be dumped into the river.

Shovelling up the rubbish

They estimate the damage would be 1.6 billion Euros in modern terms.  It wasn't until 16 March that the river receded to its normal levels.

This could very easily happen again because the whole region around Paris is at the heart of the heart of three major river confluences - Seine/Yonne, Seine/Marne and Seine/Oise.  Since the 6th century there have been 60 major floods.  Although there have been none in the last 50 years, apart from 1982, there were 10 between 1910 and 1960.  By the law of averages, one is due.

The postcard images are from the Postaletrice Flickr account where there are many more.

Chase the waste

Photo by Flickr user Hervé Photos. Creative Commons licence.

Two nights before Earth Hour, Greenpeace made their presence felt on some of the brightly lit shopping streets of Paris, though not including the two famous stores Au Printemps and Galeries Lafayette on the boulevard Haussman.

Photo by Flickr user Hervé Photos. Creative Commons licence.

The object was to put tape over windows of any shop which had been left with lighting on at that time, 10 pm till midnight, to point out the opportunity for energy reduction.

The aim was to let the hundreds of shopkeepers in the rues Rivoli and Rennes, and the boulevard St Germain, that it is not too late to reduce energy consumption, that it is everyone's business to be careful, and that with care, renewable energy could provide half the world's needs by 2050.

Nothing was defaced or harmed. All the proprietors had to do next day was to remove the biodegradable tape and the chlorine free recycled paper. With luck they will have taken in the message that they could save 30% of their consumption by turning lights off at night. Doing anything else is just a waste.

Any shop with lights already out, received a message of congratulations.

Greenpeace are of course firmly against nuclear energy, which provides a very large proportion, 70%, of France's needs. Eléctricité de France, EDF, is the world's largest nuclear operator and is set to invest in four new plants in the UK.

La Défense de l'environnement

La Défense, the business district in Paris, is well known for its superb modern architecture. There are plans for a new building, the Carpe Diem tower, which will be built to the highest environmental standards, with a green roof and surfaces covered by solar panels. The designers expect a 30% reduction in energy use.

Photo by Flickr user John Cohen. Creative Commons Licence.

The tower, designed by Stern Architects of New York, will have a winter garden at its base and roof garden terraces at the top. Solar panels will provide hot water and windows will be protected from the sun to reduce any necessity for air-conditioning. The building will have natural ventilation, systems for the recovery of soapy water and rain water, and low-consumption lighting.

Photo by Flickr user Co1nco1n. Creative Commons licence.

For heating, the building will be part of the La Défense network but it's hoped that there will be little need, as a result of heat produced by computers etc. Two of the four sides of the building will be inclined in such a way as to optimise the use of natural daylight.

Source (in French) Développement durable le journal , with an artist's impression of the building.
See also my earlier post La Grande Arche de la Défense.

Rising above air pollution

Photo by Jotel from Wikipedia

The Eutelstat balloon is normally tethered in the Parc André-Citroën where it provides a wonderful view over Paris, rising to a height of 150 metres.

It will be closed for maintenance from 1 January until mid-April when a new balloon, that changes colour according to the degree of pollution in the air above Paris, will be installed by the manufacturers, Aerophile. A green colour will indicate that the air is good, orange that it is passable, and red that it is very poor quality.

I just wonder how keen people will be to ride in a balloon that is turning red to indicate that the air they are passing through is polluted.

Source: Développement durable - le journal

An low-energy Christmas

The Mairie in Paris has announced that the Christmas and New Year decorations on the Champs-Elysées will be lit by low-energy bulbs. The 415 trees will be lit along the 2.5 kilometres of the avenue from 26 November until 20 January by a million fluorescent rather than incandescent bulbs. This is apparently 8 times more than usual which to my mind goes some way to defeating the object.

The Eiffel Tower lights were changed during 2004/2005. From the Tower's website, this has resulted in a 30% saving in electricity. The lighting accounts for 6% of the total energy bill. There is an interesting New York Times' article about the Eiffel Tower lighting over the years.

One Parisian, one tree

The City of Paris, in partnership with ONFI (the International wing of the National Forestry Office) and AIMF (the Association Internationale des Mairies Francophones) is putting in place a project called "One Parisian, One Tree". The objective is to fight against climate change, to help preserve biodiversity, and to help in the economic and social well-being of French-speaking developing countries by planting 2000 hectares of trees.

With the adoption of a Plan Climat in 2007 and a vast program to decrease and control energy consumption in public equipment, the City of Paris set up a voluntary policy to reduce greenhouse gases. At the same time they wanted to give responsibility to and mobilise Parisians round a project which will reduce greenhouse gases for the whole planet.

People are invited to donate money to finance the first two projects in Cameroon and Madagascar. A third phase will take place in Haiti. Each tree is expected to cost between 3 and 6 euros, depending on the species, and the date and place of planting.

There is a great deal of information on the project website, all in French. You have to scroll through the text by hovering over the little green arrows on the seedling towards the right hand side. The design is a little odd (it took me a moment or two to spot the seedling scrollbar) but there is a great deal of interesting information.

A sign of progress

The city of Paris has decided to take steps to reduce the number of advertising hoardings by more than half and introduce new rules for advertising during December.

• Hoardings must be smaller.
• They should not be visible less than 300m from historic monuments or 50m from school premises.
• Illuminated signs should be turned off between midnight and 7:00 am and excluded from roofs.
• There should be no small posters in shop windows.
• Advertising buses and trucks will be forbidden.

It all seems very sensible to me. Advertising professionals have already launched an appeal.

The Face of Paris

Some friends of ours have recently moved house and found a box of old English books in their cellar. Knowing I can't say no to a book, they have passed them on to me.

There's a great mixture but they all seem to date roughly from the thirties and forties, and include copies of Othello, various ones by Dickens, and one called The Face of Paris which was published in 1933.

It consists of 14 walks in Paris and five drives in the outskirts. I am delighted with it because I spent a lot of time walking around Paris when we lived there, and it has some lovely illustrations. The one above fascinates me - almost no women. Was it not acceptable for women to go to cafés?

So I'll be spending a few happy hours looking through them. I'm hoping there may be some interesting snippets about pre-war Paris, though some things have barely changed.

...for Paris is a moveable feast

While rummaging round looking for the picture of the Grande Arche, I came across a set of greetings cards, prints of pen and ink sketches from Sonia Bignall, who did the picture of the red 2CV.

I think her work is lovely, clearly so lovely that I haven't been able to bring myself to use these. I recognise all but one of the locations, the second, but it may just be AN Other (Beautiful) Building.

Although the Eiffel Tower is very much an icon, I've always thought it rather ugly, except from a considerable distance, and yet it was considered to be quite a selling point to have a view of the Eiffel Tower. Our younger son's friend used to live very close by, so I saw it often.

[Do visit the link I've given above to find out where you can have sandwich chicken crudenesses without waiting if the staircase is borrowed ;) Did it never occur to them to ask an Englih speaker to proof read?]

This is the one I don't recognise.

Very soon after we arrived in Paris, I joined a library, in fact volunteered to help out of sheer self interest (first choice of all books). The first time I turned up for duty, I emerged from the métro station at the Arc de Triomphe and as I was climbing the stairs my jaw dropped. It was a beautiful sunny day with a cloudless sky. I had never seen the Arc before, and it just took my breath away. I walked all the way around from the far side of the roads that circle it, trying hard not to look too touristy (after all, I was now a resident!) but probably with my mouth gaping the whole time. Only two other places have had the same effect.

Because our son's friend lived near the Eiffel Tower, I used to have to drive there and back regularly, and that involved negotiating the Etoile Charles de Gaulle, in the centre of which is the Arc. If you can drive there, you can drive anywhere.

Notre Dame de Paris. A wonderful building in an even more wonderful setting and another place that looks stunning on a frosty day in the sunshine. I was disappointed though that I didn't manage to experience that feeling of awe, majesty and history, which I usually find in a catherdral, chiefly because of the large number of people who were talking, laughing, taking photos and generally milling around. That tends to happen in most places nowadays but there for some reason it was more intrusive.

Sacré Coeur from the far side. There is the most fantastic view from the top, but it is a long, long way up, especially if you haven't realised there is a funicular rail to take you to the basilica. Montmartre as an area is very interesting to see, best off season, and it even boasts a vineyard.

So there you have it, a whistle stop tour of four sights, or even sites, in Paris, courtesy of Sonia Bignall's greetings cards.

PS Captain Lifecruiser's blog has a post today about Paris, beautifully illustrated.

Updated to explain the title of the post: it's from Hemingway who said:

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

La Grande Arche de la Défense

When we lived in Paris, because we had no idea when we would be leaving or to where, our sons went to the British School. And there they followed the British education syllabus.

I remember so clearly having to rush around finding things for various pieces of coursework which didn't really exist in France, but one of the easier ones was a project involving La Grande Arche de la Défense. All I had to do was find some information about its construction. No problem.

I decided the best place to find the information was at the Arche itself. Right at the top there is a viewing area and information centre which I was quite keen to see anyway.

It was raining on the day I chose to go. Bucketing down. By the time I had run from the Métro station to the shelter of the Arche itself, I was soaked to the skin. So I was dripping round the viewing area and it was raining so hard I couldn't see a thing anyway. An expensive outing for a postcard (above) and a little book (below) neither of which were actually used in the project, and it was still raining when I left.

In the end I was glad I bought the book, it has all sorts of interesting things in it, some of which I knew but most I didn't.

• The Grande Arche was known as the Cube when the project first started.
• It is directly in line with the Arc de Triomphe and the Arc du Carrousel along the "voie triumphale" or historic axis of Paris, which has the Louvre at the eastern end and the Arche at the western end.
• The Arche is offset by six degrees which makes the depth of the cube apparent, mirroring the angle of the courtyard of the Louvre, .
• It is covered in Carrara marble.
• The two sides house government offices.
• The canopy within is intended to represent clouds.
• An open cube, a window on the world, looking to the future.

La Défense is often dismissed as just the modern business centre of Paris, but if you ever have a chance to take a guided tour, the architecture, pieces of art and sculpture all around are absolutely fascinating. Even the fountains have stories to tell.