Au revoir, Rue Montorgueil!

Our last full day in Paris.  We spent most of the day cleaning, doing laundry, and packing.  But we did walk down the street one last time.  It has been fantastic to live within walking distance of so many restaurants and shops; we will miss the convenience of it when we get back home.

The Marché Montorgueil sign

This is the Palais du Fruit, where I did most of our fruit and veggie shopping.  Some of the freshest produce I've ever had.

La Fermette, the cheese shop down the street where we could buy a plate of assorted cheeses for 6 euros.

Shrimp on sale at the fishmonger called Le Poissonnerie Soguisa.  Whenever I passed by it, I would get that song from the Little Mermaid in my head:  "Le Poisson, le poisson, hee-hee-hee, haw-haw-haw!"

The famous Stoher patisserie.  We stopped in a couple of times but found that we liked the pastries at Maison Collet (the boulangerie nearby) better.

The headquarters of the 2nd Arrondissement's Socialist party.

Some more window shopping.  Clockwise from left: fresh cuts of meat on sale at the boucherie, bottles of wine at the cave au vins, deli items from the Deli Italy, dried pasta from the Deli Italy.

View of the street from one of the other produce vendors.

The Rue Montorgueil is lively day and night.  This is one of the busier corners at night, with Planet Sushi on the left and Cafe du Centre on the right.

And at the very end of the street, down by the Saint Eustache church, is the cafe La Pointe Saint Eustache.

We have been so lucky to live in this fun, vibrant area for a few weeks.  It was a great way to literally get a "taste" of Paris.

From Our Window

With only two days left, we thought we'd share a few sights we've seen just looking out our window.  We didn't even have to leave the apartment to see interesting things!

One of the first weeks we were here, we heard jazz music seeming to come from right below us.  Looking out the window, we saw this promotion for Ricard, which is a brand of pastis (anise flavored drink served as an apértif).  The "parade" stopped at several of the bars below us, and the drivers served samples out of the backs of the two huge R's.



There was also this activist march for RESel, a group protesting high rents and evictions (100,000 per year).  We heard the chanting and looked out the window just in time to see them go by.

On August 12, a group of what appeared to be students marched down the street singing songs accompanied by drums and guitars.  Unfortunately, I have no idea who they are or why they were marching, and I can't make out the flag they are carrying.  It looks like it's red, white, and black with some kind of insignia.  Any ideas?

The most interesting for sure was when we kept hearing someone yell "Action!!" down below, and then he would shout other verbal cues "You look at her!!!  You keep going!!!".  Curiosity piqued, we looked down and sure enough it was a commercial shoot.

From what I could tell, the one model (fully dressed) was walking down the street eating some kind of baguette.  But then, a sassy topless model walked past her eating some other kind of bread (maybe a croissant -- I couldn't tell, I was distracted by the lack of clothes).  They did about 20 takes.  I'm sure the bar patrons at Grappe d'Orgueil were riveted.

About a week ago, the Ricard's promoters came through again.

And this was the view of the houses across the street just before a very heavy rain one evening.

Technically this one wasn't shot from our window, but it was just down the street....there are all kinds of street performers who perform regularly in Rue Montorgueil.  These breakdancers got a bit of a surprise when an elderly lady decided to join in the fun.

Arrival in Paris

We arrived late in the afternoon and found our landlord Frédérique waiting for us at the tea cafe just downstairs from the apartment.  Despite the record-breaking 99 degree heat, she gamely grabbed one of our bags and guided us up the four flights of stairs to show us the apartment.  You never know what to expect when you book things over the internet, but this place truly lives up to the online listing.

It's just 41 meters square (roughly 440 square feet) but it has a fully equipped kitchen including oven and washer-dryer.  The whole layout is amazingly efficient.

Many of the places we considered were studio apartments but it is nice that this one has a separate bedroom.

The bathroom is a little tight, but the spa shower more than makes up for that.

There are interior windows facing the courtyard, making it way too easy to spy on the neighbors.

The windows in the living room let in light and air but are thankfully double-paned so we can't hear the noise from the street when closed.

Our street is a pedestrian-only zone.  Which in Paris means that the occasional car or motorcycle sneaks through but for the most part you can safely just stroll down the middle of the street.  There are shops and restaurants lining both sides of the street and our nearest metro stop is less than a minute's walk from the front door of the building.

View up the street; the metro stop underpass is just around the corner on the right.

View towards the Seine.  At the end of the street is St. Eustache, a 16th century church.

Downstairs is an Indian restaurant.  With the windows open, the fragrance of curry and naan floats up and invites you down for a meal.  Our first meal was a tasty chicken tikka with lentils for Kevin and a tandoori salmon for me.  We are off to a good start here in Paris!