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A Walk in Parisian Parks

Let’s Take a Walk in Parisian Parks

Not many would feel up to doing a day hike in one of the hiking trails near Paris (in Fontainebleau, for example). Walking in Parisian parks, however, would be the perfect alternative.

A walk through a park can easily be squeezed into the tightest of schedules. What more,  instead of having a proper sit-down lunch in a restaurant, for example, one can choose to get some sandwiches to eat sitting on a bench or on the grass of a Parisian park, perhaps even bring a bottle of wine, for an improvised picnic.

And there’s no better city for having this type of an “urban” experience of nature than in Paris. The French capital, famous for many things, also has many public parks and gardens that are well worth a visit. You may even learn a thing or two about the city’s history and its people that you would not have found out had you just spent your days pounding the asphalted shopping streets.

So, off we go, leaving the comforts of our Paris holiday apartments to go walking in Parisian parks for a day or two. Here are a few tips on what parks to visit:

Tuileries Gardens

"Jardin des Tuileries Photo+by+@bbonthebrink+from+bbonthebrink.blogspot.fr for your walking in Parisian parks:

Photo by @bbonthebrink

This is in the centre of the city, between Place de la Concorde and the Louvre. You can get there by taking the metro Concorde.

The Tuileries have preserved much of their old character through revolutions of politics and style, and are the best example for the very French landscaping.

Jardin du Luxembourg

"JardinduLuxembourg Photo by Andrea Anastasakis www.rearviewmirror.tv"

Photo by Andrea Anastasakis: rearviewmirror.tv

This is in the south of the river Seine, near the Pantheon. You can easily get there by taking the RER train line B from Chatelet Les Halles or the Gare du Nord (station: Luxembourg). Or, you can also take the metro to take you to station Odeon (5 minutes walk away from the park).

The Luxembourg gardens were also part of a palace once and which,today, is where the French Senate convenes. The gardening style is less “French-formal” and displays a mix of different influences: naturally grown trees and some winding paths from the English tradition, and there is still the Italianate fountain from the garden that was built for the homesick Catherine de Medici. The overall result is formidable rather.

Parc Monceau

"Parc Monceau in Paris to do your walking in Parisian parks"

This park is only a couple of blocks east of the Arc de Triomphe reached by getting off metro station Monceau.

The Monceau is Paris’s “bijou park” that has everything a proper park should have – a lake, a forest, a stream with a bridge – and all of it en miniature. This was the first Parisian park that was laid out in the “English” style. 

Banks of the Seine

"Along the Seine in Paris"

You get here by slicing all the way through Paris from east to west.  I would suggest the stretch from Notre Dame Cathedral to the Eiffel Tower. Get there via metro station Cite

The banks of the River Seine may not be everybody’s idea of a “park”, but they certainly are the most successfully landscaped part of the city with its street theatre of beautiful buildings, trees, the colourful boats on the river …

 

Romantic Paris in Winter

Romantic Paris in Winter

Even in winter, romantic Paris proves true to its calling. It may be cold, it may be drizzly, but that doesn’t stop lovers to come and celebrate their romance in the City of Love.

"A cold drizzly romantic Paris view of the Invalid from the Jardin des Tuileries"

"A cold drizzly romantic Paris view of the Carousel in the Jardin des Tuileries"

Planning a romantic getaway in the spring is the easiest thing in the world. In April, when the trees are springing back into life and birdsong fills the air, even the grimiest industrial town may feel like the perfect backdrop for a romantic experience.

But it is in winter that Paris proves it is truly the City of Love. Do you think Barcelona or even Monte Carlo can compete?

"A cold drizzly romantic Paris in the Jardin des Tuileries"

Paris offers more romance bang for your time and money than any other city on earth. On a cold and wet February afternoon, it is one of the few places that can make you think that this strangely faint and hazy thing called winter light can actually surpass the beauty of a summer’s day.

Although even in Paris, there is no escaping from a cold easterly wind – or is there?

"Pigeons seeking shelter from wintry winds on the other side of a statue of a horse atop a gate in the Jardins de Tuileries"

 Is romantic Paris your destination this Valentine’s Day? 

Our tip: Staying in a Paris vacation rental, where you can have a private dinner à deux, will make your visit to the City of Love all the more romantic.

Paris in Movies

Paris in Movies

Paris Movie Walks identifies locations from about 100 Hollywood films. I had always thought I had pretty much covered virtually all Hollywood movies about Paris, give or take the odd roll of celluloid that is quietly decomposing somewhere in a MGM storage room. But far from it:

Since 1900, Hollywood has produced approximately 800 films that were set in Paris. 800!

That is one thing I learned from the recently opened exhibition “Paris vu par Hollywood” which will be shown in Paris City Hall until 15 December 2012 (entrance free, Mondays through Saturdays from 10 to 7).

Another thing is this great quote from the director Ernst Lubitsch who set more than a dozen movies in Paris without ever bringing one of his cameras there.

“There is Paramount-Paris and MGM-Paris, and of course the real Paris. Paramount’s is the most Parisian of all.”

I want to kick myself for not having found that quote myself, before writing the book – I certainly would have used it.

Or, better still, I would have used the version of the New York Times article about the exhibit:

“I’ve been to Paris, France, and I’ve been to Paris Paramount, Lubitsch said – Paris Paramount is better.”

(The NY Times article was also kind enough to mention my book Paris Movie Walks.)

Most of the 800 films set in Paris, however (as you may suspect from the Lubitsch quote), were “set” in Paris as much as Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale is set in Bohemia (a country, according to the Bard, with a coastline and a desert).

These films were shot in the 1920s and 1930s when theatrical convention was still alive and viewers did not require technically complex back projections to suspend their disbelief – if the director said that this was Paris, then Paris it was. (Reading a roll call of “Parisian” Hollywood films, also in the exhibit, I was able to establish, with a certain relief, that I had not missed anything major.)

"Audrey Hepburn in rue St Rustique - Paris in movies in Montmartre"

The exhibit features clips from about 70 movies and much other stuff besides: from the Audrey Hepburn’s bolero jacket made for her by Hubert de Givenchy for Love in the Afternoon (1957) to studies for the pastry served in Sofia Coppola’s Marie-Antoinette (2006) and Mary Pickford’s lunch receipt from the restaurant at the Hotel Ritz.

There are also storyboards for Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris and, perhaps the stars of the entire show, statues made by the sculptor Dante Ferreti for Martin Scorsese’s recent Academy-Award-winning movie Hugo Cabret.

"Meg Ryan in trocadero - Paris in movies by the Eiffel Tower"

There is quite a lot to discover, both about films that you will be familiar with and about films that you had never heard of: movie poster, costumes and stills – and the movies themselves, of course.

Having seen in the clip from Absinthe (1913) to what levels of depravity alcohol can drive you, you will be think twice about ordering wine for your dinner, that’s for sure.

And when you come out of the show, you can immediately start to identify the movie locations around you: there is the Pont d’Arcole across the Seine, as seen in Something’s Gotta Give … there is the Pont des Arts on your left, as seen in many a movie kiss …

"pont des arts kiss - Paris in movies "

… so why not just walk home instead of taking the Metro to your chosen Paris apartment?

It’s the best way to discover this Paris in movies.

This post was brought to you by Only Apartments

Interview with Michael Schuermann – Author of Guide Book Paris Movie Walks

An Interview with Michael Schuermann 

Author of Guide Book Paris Movie Walks

This video interview originally appeared in Omeleturismo

Paris Movie Walks

is available on Amazon

and as an iPhone App from iTunes

Paris Blues

Where Paris Blues was Shot

This is the movie that got away: the only major Hollywood movie with a Parisian theme that I failed to include in the book. At the time, it was not available on DVD, not even in the US, so I had no choice but to give it a bye.

Later, I caught the final two minutes a couple of times by chance on TCM, and although it was too late to cover the film for the book, I looked frantically each time for the next repeat in the channel’s schedules – everything on TCM is repeated – only to find that it would be screened next on a Thursday morning three weeks hence at 3 o’clock in the morning.

Finally, I found the film, again by chance – on YouTube. I did not even know they were showing films on YouTube, but it seems it is a real paradise for lovers of old movies. (Check it out if you don’t believe me.)

Paris Blues is certainly an old movie (it was made in 1961) and, quite frankly, best enjoyed as a period piece.

Its main interest – apart from the original score that was written and performed by Duke Ellington – is that it allows you to see what 1960s Americans thought cultural sophistication looked like. (Warning: it’s not a pretty sight.)

Even worse: the film wears an anti-bigotry message on its cinematic sleeve, but if the makers of Paris Blues had wanted to put their money where their mouths were, they would have paired off the two central couples differently. Think about it.

On the upside, you get to see quite lot of 1960s Paris. I had expected to watch a fairly claustrophobic affair, all Blues and no Paris, the smoky interiors of the Jazz club only lightened up by a few establishing shots. Actually, the film features several scenes that were shot entirely on location: Diahann Carroll and Sidney Poitier share a romantic moment late at night on the bridge near Notre Dame Cathedral before having an early breakfast in an all-night diner near Les Halles and walking down a deserted Champs Elysees.

"Diahann Caroll and Sydney Poitier down the Champs Elysees in the movie Paris Blues"

On the Champs Elysees

Later they return to the Seine near Notre Dame Cathedral for a long conversation about the odds for racial harmony in the US (at a time, we must remember, when Martin Luther King was still an unknown minister in Georgia).

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward stroll by the Seine between the Pont des Invalides and Pont Alexandre III, and halfway down the movie, Paris Blues even finds room for a “kaleidoscopic” scene where we follow the two couples enjoying each other’s company in front of a backdrop with different motives from Paris – you could almost think you were watching Funny Face if it wasn’t for all that jazz.

"Diahann Caroll and Sydney Poitier on the stairs of Rue Chappe in the movie Paris Blues"

On the stair steps of Rue Chappe

Nearly all of this kaleidoscopic scene – apart from a brief sojourn to the Ile de Cygnes where Paul Newman playfully tosses Joanne Woodward’s ice cream into the river – was shot in Montmartre: Miss Carroll and Mr. Poitier play with a couple of local kids on the top of the Rue Chappe stairway before strolling up and down Rue St Vincent.

"Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman in front of Lapin Agile in the movie Paris Blues"

In front of the Lapin Agile

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward take photos of each other in front of the Lapin Agile cabaret, and then the two couples meet to walk past the Montmartre vineyard into the evening.

Later on, we see Paul Newman, in a pensive moment at night on the Place du Calvaire, in front of what is now the Dali museum.)

"Paul Newman in rue Calvaire in the movie Paris Blues"

Overlooking the rooftops of Paris in rue Calvaire

It was only after I had sat down to write this piece when it occurred to me that Paris Blues is the only Hollywood movie set in Paris that does not feature a single scene with and not a single shot of the Eiffel Tower. They talk about it a lot, mostly as shorthand for tourist Paris, but you never see it, and neither Mr. Poitier’s nor Mr. Newman’s flats have a view of it. Several decades would go by before any director would be able to consider such daring nonconformity – and this would be unconventional even today.

In many respects, Paris Blues is very much of its time, sometimes excruciatingly so – but this is one respect in which it was far ahead of it.

Want to discover more places in Paris where famous films have been shot? Get Paris Movie Walks today!