La Butte aux Cailles
Sunday, May 25
Joyeux fête de mere! And CONGRATULATIONS VAL!!! Sunday I made crepes for breakfast (evidemment, pas comme dans la crèperie) and then went over to Killian’s. We went on a run together along the
La butte aux Cailles means the “Hill of quails” but Cailles is also the name of the man who bought the land a long time ago so presumably it is named after him and not to an abundance of foul that formerly inhabited the hill. It is a quiet quartier, and very residential – not many tourists here. We got off the metro near un boulangerie et patisserie (bakery and pastry shop - they are ALL OVER and probably Paris' best attribute - no lie):
And then walked up the hill. Our first stop was in this apartment building:
How cute is that? It opens to a central courtyard:
There are multiple places in this quartier where I would love to live. This is one.
A little later, I was taking a picture of a crèperie when Inde:
Told me to look up at this:
Inde works at the bar she is standing in front of. Killian and I spoke with her and her friend from the bar a couple over, Radu:
Ils sont très gentils, et Radu nous a demandé de retourner pour practiquer notre francais et pour lui de practiquer son anglais (They are really nice, and Radu asked us to come back, so we can work on our French and he can work on his English).
Next, we visited this POOL (obviously the best part of the trip).
It was built around 1900, and is in an art nouveau style… Malheureusement, we were not allowed to photograph the interior, so I can’t show you what that was like.
Continuing on our way, we came to and entered the Eglise Sainte Anne:
Vraiment belle, n’est-ce pas? Pretty much partout (everywhere), when a shop is closed, there is a gate that comes down over the window. Most are just plain, but this bakery was more creative:
Ok so here is the place I really want to live: the Cité Florale.
It’s a little neighborhood filled with plants, where all the streets are named after flowers. It was beautiful, and the air was completely parfumed. Magnifique.
We finished in a park that, while beautiful, pretty much looked like a park so, as adding pictures is the most emmerdant part of writing an entry, I won’t bother to add one. I also won’t exactly define emmerdant, but “merde,” in the middle, means shit, so you can guess the rest…
We’re about to eat dinner now. We eat dinner with my host family each Tuesday, and today Catherine would not let me help her prepare it because on fait une fête pour mon anniversaire (we are celebrating my birthday. Elle m’a fait un gateau – miam!) Hopefully soon I will catch up to the current day.
A très bientot!
Comments
it looks like you're having tons of fun!!!! :-) eat lots of nutella crêpes for me.
One of the things I have always loved about Ann Arbor is that the architecture is on a human scale. I notice that about this quartier. When the buildings are mostly 2-3-4 stories, it seems so much more human and breatheable........
Love the picture of the patisserie. I want a bite of each choice. And -- in the back I see macarons (parisbreakfasts spends lots of time lovingly talkng about them....). :-)
As for putting the pics on the blog -- if you select "none" for the layout option, I think that will make it so it doesn't try to put words beside the pic.
For the first year or so that I blogged, I wrestled with putting in enough blank lines that it would put the pics and words where I wanted, but then any time you switch fonts in your browser, all bets are off.............
Eventually, somehow, I tried the "none" option (can't remember if I read it somewhere or what), and that did the trick. Not sure what is annoying you, but maybe that will help?