Aside from a text message from Australia which woke us at 4.30 this morning, we slept well but the call guaranteed us an early start!We ventured into the Marais district which is the centre for Jewish life in Paris today. On the way to the Holocaust Museum, we stopped to take in one of the many glorious old buildings in the area. This is the Hotel de Beauvais, built between 1656 and 1660. From there we walked on to our original destination, the Memorial de la Shoah, an absolutely amazing place.
We spent the morning at the Memorial. Although I had been there last year, Virginia had not and I wanted to go again. It is terribly moving and difficult to believe that human beings could do what was done to another group of people. I described the Memorial last year and won't repeat it, but certainly the pictures of the thousands of French children who were taken and killed is something impossible to forget.
Security to get in is intense. We were stopped some distance from the building and had our bags searched and were asked a number of questions. On entering the building we passed our bags through "airport" security and walked through a metal detector. Even when we left the building we went through a set of doors which locked behind us and only then could we open a second set which allowed us access to the street. If anything were to be allowed to happen to the Memorial, there would be absolute outrage.
After we left the Memorial, we walked along the Rue de Rivoli, stopping for a pleasant lunch at a bistro near the Hotel de Ville. Everybody (except us, of course) seems to eat desert. And what deserts; not only do they look delicious, they are works of art. It is actually quite interesting having lunch in the sort of cafe where ordinary, working Parisians take their mid-day meal.
As we continued our walk we noticed racks of identical bicycles in several places. This is a new initiative to reduce the use of cars. For a very small fee (a couple of euros) you can take one of these bicycles from one location and drop it at another, using it all day if you so desire. You may remember, if you followed this blog last year that Virginia attended language school in Paris. Being an adult educator she had some misgivings about her experience but decided this year she might attend the well-known Alliance Francais rather than a private school. Just before we left Australia she got cold feet about enrolling and said she would see what she felt like when we got to Paris. She was encouraged that the Alliance Francais is only ten stops down our local Metro line at Notre Dame des Champs. However, when we were travelling on that line today we noticed that the Metro stop she would need to get off at is closed until the end of June. Virginia has taken this to be a sign, an omen, that she does not need to attend school this year but will find other ways to improve her French language skills.
Our flat is one of forty in the building and there are a number of similar buildings in our street. This means that there is quite a bit of rubbish that needs to be collected and there is a daily collection. However, the bins are kept in the building and only tenants normally have access but, of course, the postman has partial access; at least to the lobby area. Garbage collectors have no access so the procedure is to have a private contractor who has access to many buildings. He comes around on his motor-bike every evening and takes the bins out to the street. We have yet to discover how they get back into the building! But be assured, Virginia is watching.
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