A Walk Along Rue Mouffetard

12 April 2007

Paris is a city full of wonderful sights but it is also a city full of interesting, pleasant (and sometimes not so pleasant) smells. It is difficult to walk any distance without having the pungent, yeasty smell of fresh baked bread assail your nostrils. Baking is an ongoing process and fresh-baked bread is available through the day, beginning very early for breakfast and continuing until the evening.

Another smell that one finds appetizing is the smell of chickens being rotisseried. There are hundreds of butchers' shops with rotisserie units in front full of chickens being cooked. But there is more than food. Paris is a city of flowers and often as one crosses a park or walks near a florist, there is the smell of fresh flowers. At the moment Lilacs are on sale and their sweet smell is very pleasant.

On the other hand, in the Metro the smell of urine and faeces is certainly less than pleasant and in the stairwells of the Metro the smell of unwashed beggars, no matter how pitiable their plight might be, is not pleasant.

What brought this to mind was the fact that today was a day of walking. We decided to go to a suburb on the other side of the city which had been recommended to us as an equal to Montmartre. In fact it was dissapointing. It was pretty, but there was a middle-class primness about it that one doesn't find in the working-class area of Montmartre where we are staying.

We also went to Rue Mouffetard. It was an interesting and crowded open street market with many restaurants serving meals at excellent prices. There we saw one of the most interesting houses, its front painted with pictures of animals. We also saw a chair repair service operating in the market area.

It was not far to walk to the Place d'Italie and past the Manufacture des Gobelins, the great carpet firm which has done business since the eighteenth century.
When we were in the 13th Arondissment we went to the Marie to get a detailed map of the area. For those who don't know, Paris is divided into 20 sections or Arondissment numbered from the centre in a snail-like format. There is a Marie or town hall at each Arondissment, each of which has for the asking a very detailed map. By the way, we are living in the 18th Arondissment.
Expecting cold weather as in 2005 and 2006, we brought overcoats and warm clothes and are now finding that we are short of the lighter items that would be appropriate to temperatures between 22 and 27. Virginia is threatening to go shopping for some lighter clothes. I, in turn, pray nightly for a change in the weather.