France for Freebooters

Another gem from Vivienne Mackie

Man’s Dream of Flight and a Wish for Angels

Museum entrance courtyard

You’ll find these two juxtaposed at the Musee des Arts et Metiers in Paris. This wonderful museum is not obviously listed in most guidebooks (even Rick Steves). If it is, it might be listed as ‘Musee National des Techniques’ or ‘Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers’. This omission is a shame as it’s a really great museum housed in a former Priory, so the setting itself is worth a visit. We found out about it in the current Greater Paris magazine the last time we were in the city.

At the time of our visit there was a special exhibit on the Development of Radio in France, for which you pay extra, but we didn’t go to that, because we’ve never been to this museum before and wanted to see the regular permanent exhibits—-which takes time.

*Note: The special exhibit “Radio: Ouvrez Grand Vos Oreilles!” (Radio: Open your Ears Wide, or Radio: Listen Up!) is on from February 28-September 2, 2012.

The museum is in the former Priory of St.-Martin-des-Champs, originally founded in 1060 by Henri 1, and given to the Abbey of Cluny in 1079. After the French Revolution it was assigned to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers and the collections of Vaucanson (1709-1782) and other scientists were gathered here. Jacques de Vaucanson was a French inventor who was responsible for innovative automata and machines, including the first totally automated loom. The first administrator of the Conservatoire was Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (1740-1810) who, with his brother Jacques-Etienne, was the inventor of the air-balloon in 1783. The museum was renovated in 2000 and now has 7 collections on 3 floors.

Foucault pendulum in foreground

This is another fascinating museum that was a first for us. We’re not quite sure how it happened that we missed it all those other visits to Paris, but are very happy to have now rectified that. That day there were many groups of school kids, who obviously had projects and “treasure hunts” to complete, but it’s big enough to absorb large numbers of visitors mostly. This science and mechanical and technical engineering museum emphasizes industry, communication, transportation, and measurement, focusing on leading inventors and inventions in each area. There’s a fantastic collection of instruments—some originals and some models—and many interesting old planes and cars. After all, France was the leader in car manufacturing!

I didn’t study science much at school or university, but still it was a fascinating place for me—because what it focuses on are all basically practical, everyday concepts and objects that anyone can relate to, such as clocks, other ways of measuring, construction, transport, communication methods etc.

A good pamphlet guides you around the different floors and sections. The display has around 3,000 scientific and technological discoveries and inventions through the centuries, including Pascal’s 1642 calculator, Foucault’s 1855 pendulum, and two models (1878) of Bartholdi’s Liberty Enlightening the Worldfor the Statue of Liberty in New York City (one in the church, one in the entrance courtyard).

Comunication hall

Each of the 7 collections is divided into 4 time periods, the earliest prior to 1750 and the newest after 1950, so the visitor can follow the development of each theme. Start on the second floor with Scientific Instruments, and Materials. In Scientific Instruments the highlight is probably a reconstruction of the lab of Antoine-Lourent de Lavoisier (1743-1794), who laid the theoretical groundwork for modern chemistry and the chemical industry. Also interesting is an early electron microscope by Siemens. On the First Floor are Energy (note Michael Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction, which helped lead to electricity), Mechanics, Construction, and Communication—this was fascinating, covering printing, mass media, sound systems, telephones, cameras, and modern global communication. Some highlights are Telstar, the first TV satellite; Thomas Edison’s phonograph; Alexander Bell’s phone; Eastman’s roll-film camera, and daguerreotypes by Louis Daguerre (1787-1851), the father of photography. On the Ground Floor is Transportation, with a good collection of steam engines, early cars, and bicycles of all types, including the very modern Velib that is so popular as a short-term rental bike in the city (**remember that in France, Ground Floor = first floor in USA; First Floor= 2^nd floor in USA and so on). Suspended from the ceiling of an ornate entrance hall with wide staircase, is a remarkable old plane, Clement Ader’s Avion 111. We nicknamed it the “batmobile” as it looks very bat-like. Even more amazing is that it was steam-powered!

At one end of the ground floor wing, a few steps go down to the former Abbey Church of St.-Martin-des-Champs. Although ‘restored’ in 1854-1880, the basic structure of the choir and its apse chapels is perhaps the earliest surviving Gothic vault in Paris (1130-1140). For us, this was probably the most interesting part of the museum as it’s here that lofty dreams and spiritual ideals come together. Nowadays, the church houses a collection of early planes, suspended from the ceiling, and early cars, on a series of glass ramps and platforms. We found it really interesting to see actual planes, cars, and pumps displayed in the soaring space of the former priory church—it seemed fitting and appropriate to us, to have the idea of flying linked to the vast spaces of a place devoted previously to worship. Among the highlights are Foucault’s pendulum; the plane of Esnault-Pelterie (1906) in which Bleriot made the first flight across the Channel in 1909; a Breguet plane of 1911; an early Panhard car (1896); and Peugeots of 1893 and 1909. There’s also an 1852 Tuxford steam tractor, the start of the mechanization of agriculture. This church section is like a small museum in itself!

Clement Ader's Avion III

The only drawback is we wished that more of the information was in English: the titles all were, plus information about the main pieces, but not many of the details about the individual items. However, it’s still possible to take in a huge amount of new information.

So…well worth a visit and easy to get to.

The museum has a very pleasant café-restaurant called Des Techniques A Toutes Vapeurs (roughly “All kinds of techniques with steam”), with inside and outside seating, if the weather is good. The day we went it was warm and sunny so we sat outside in the courtyard of the old priory next to one of the large entrance halls. The food was good and it’s a lovely lunch place, especially if you use it to break up the museum visit. We splurged with a leisurely lunch of large plates of very nice salads served with slices of artisanal bread, rather than the usual baguette, and a whole bottle of wine (rather than a lunch pichet). Merveilleux!

Address: 60 rue Reaumur (3^rd arrondissement).

Metro: Arts et Metiers or Reaumur-Sebastopol (Note, it’s not far from Les Halles and Pompidou Center).

Open Tues-Sun 10am-6pm, Thursday 10am-9:30pm

Entrance euro 6.50/adult. No senior reduction. Student and group rates. No security check.

www.arts-et-metiers.net (click on the British flag for English)

As we clear the ground in our southern Limousin property, we occasionally find quite large lumps of quartz, which we put to one side for use in rock gardens.

However, it looks as if we’d better take a closer look at it. We lie on the edge of a vein of gold-bearing quartz that passes through St Yrieix-la-Perche, famed for the clay that led to the start of the Limoges porcelain industry.

Today’s local newspaper reminds us that the Limousin has known two gold rushes. The first ended when the Romans took over from the Lemovices, a Gaulish tribe that used to make gold coins, and gave its name to Limoges.

The second covered the first half of the 20th century, and at its peak the mine at Chéni, near St Yrieix, employed 250 people. The biggest Limousin mine, at le Châtelet in the Creuse, employed 1,000! It closed in 1955, after producing 11 tonnes of gold.

More recently, a subsidiary of Areva produce 40 tonnes from a mine near St Yrieix between 1982 and 2002, when it closed because the gold price had dropped to €10,000 per kilo. Now it fetches four times as much, so people are getting interested again.

Vivienne Mackie pays a new visit to a Saumur troglodyte cave.

Mention the word “Troglodytes”, and pre-historic cavemen spring to mind, or we conjure up images of trolls and dwarves. I think of the folktale of “Three Billy Goats Gruff” and can imagine the trolls in the story retiring to caves such as these.

The area around Saumur is literally riddled with miles of caves, and the reality is just as fascinating as the images we conjure up. We discover that you don’t even need to have cliffs to have these caves, as many are underground.

Some 90 million years ago the sea, which covered part of France, gradually receded, and tufa (soft limestone) slowly formed from marine sediment. In medieval times, wine growers, artisans, quarrymen, bargemen of the Loire river, or people fleeing persecution dug the tufa to make underground caverns, shelters, or houses. Or they extracted the creamy stone to build churches, castles and houses above ground.

Today the caves, known as the “troglodytes” (“troglo” for short), are used in many ways—for wine caves, to cultivate mushrooms and snails, as museums, as dovecotes, as chapels, as restaurants and shops, and still as living areas.
The best way to get an idea of what these fascinating caves were, and are still, used for is to do a Troglo Tour. One of the highlights of a Troglo tour is an underground marvel, a mystery church, 22 km west of Saumur, in the village of Deneze-sous-Doue. Or was it a church? We actually don’t know enough about the history of the cave to make a final judgement.

On the surface the village of Deneze-sous-Doue is rather dull, but dig a bit deeper and a unique subterranean sculpted world lies below in the cool, damp caves. One brochure says it’s a controversial popular work of art. One guidebook calls it Pagan art. Another theory says that Protestant stonemasons during the 16th-century Wars of Religion chiseled more than 400 figures into the walls, floors and ceilings. Whoever those anonymous artists were, they carved hundreds of truculent sculptures, and caricature bodies in the tufa rock in these underground caves.

This is the Cave aux Sculptures, which is absolutely fascinating.

Loire cave sculptures 1

It’s not that easy to find, as the signs are small and faded.  Go down a narrow lane to a mini car park with a tiny kiosk at the side.  A small church is at one side of the car park (where we walked first, not realizing where the caves are). In this church Catholics and Protestants supposedly worshipped amicably on alternate days, so one wonders why the Protestants took to hiding in the caves. It’s all just part of the mystery.

At the kiosk a woman sits, selling tickets at the top of the stairs. The land around there is flat, so it’s a huge surprise to climb down underground and be in deep caves. She promises to come down and give us a tour, which she does. And that is how we meet Annie Brethon, the curator, who talks passionately (in French only on that day) about the carvings. She’s been involved in their care and upkeep since the caves were rediscovered and then made public many years ago.  We hear her romantic interpretations, which are often political and satirical, loaded with great symbolism, intertwined with history, guesswork and supposition.

The caves were hidden for hundreds of years and found by chance by school kids in 1956. There are probably more caves behind these caves that we see, as they had collapsed. But there’s no money for more excavation right now. At first, after the kids found them, the local villagers put a tin roof over the top, but it got too hot and the carvings started to crumble. Now they have a concrete roof, so it’s evenly cool. And damp. We can also imagine the high humidity slowly helping to dissolve the sculptures.

Loire cave sculptures 3

The carvings are all in relief, not free-standing, so were easier to sculpt. The art is a bit primitive, and rather crude, not fine stonework in the classic sense, so it could have been done by ordinary people, whom Annie speculates the stonemasons were.  She feels they were Protestant masons meeting underground, for safety.

We look in amazement, as the figures are clustered up and down the walls, along the ceilings, on the floors, executed with amazing detail. They are grinning, grimacing, smiling, smirking, writhing. The figures are big, small, separate, intertwined. She tells one story about a figure, who was an Indian from Brazil. Is it true, or far-fetched? Are some of these figures really Catherine de Medicis and various French kings, such as Francis 1? Did the stonemasons satirize Catherine, who was Catholic and supposedly notorious for over-indulgence and even crime?

Annie points out what she mockingly calls a “Pieta”, with an ax instead of a cross, and tells a complicated story of women’s underwear: how wearing long, pretty underwear allowed women to ride their horses more freely. Whatever the story behind these carvings, they are fascinating.

The series of carvings is a ruin really, so what we see is fragmented and the mystery remains as to when it was done and what it actually was. We also see the remains of an oven down there.  Built by whom? For what?
Local people who care have applied for historic monument status, but lots of paperwork and money is needed so the sculptures are still waiting to be saved. Annie is so enthusiastic and talks so passionately about the sculptures that we hope her arguments for their salvation will be heard.

Definitely worth making the effort to find this unusual sight. The day we were there no flash photography was permitted and the lighting underground was rather dim, so it was difficult to really capture visually what these sculptures are like.

La Cave aux Sculptures, 1 Rue Principal, 49700 Deneze-sous-Doue, Loire
Tel: 33 (0)2 41 59 15 40

Hours for 2012;
April 1-Oct 31, daily except Monday (but open If Monday is a public holiday) 10:30am-1pm and 2-6:30pm
Now, languages offered are French, English and Spanish
Tariffs for 2012:

Adults €4, children 6-13 €2.50, groups €3
Cash or credit card
Inhabitants of the Commune, free.

Read the account of Vivienne’s earlier trip to this region, which covers other subterranean wonders.

Back in the middle of the 20th century, we still believed that some illnesses were triggered by letting ourselves get too cold. A lot of volunteers got free board for a couple of weeks at the Common Cold Research Centre in return for allowing themselves to get cold and wet a few times. That series of experiments proved that you don’t catch a cold by getting chilled. We now know that you get the shivers because you are already suffering from a virus infection.

Does cold weather make you sick in any other way? Well, yes, extreme cold can damage you body. Reduced blood supply to extremities can cause chilblains and frostbite. Under prolonged exposure to cold, under conditions where your body cannot maintain your blood temperature, you start by losing the ability to use your muscles, and later you suffer hypothermia. Your core temperature drops. Your get sleepy and lose the will to do anything. If you aren’t removed to a warmer environment, you eventually switch off and die.

Here in the middle of France, the temperature hasn’t reached freezing for ten days, and it’s been below -15°C several times. There is a chance that daytime temperatures will rise  to around +4°C next week, but it will probably snow when they do.

So far, I haven’t heard of many people dying because of the cold, but there are plenty of people working long hours in difficult conditions in order to keep everything working. Today’s local paper showed photographs of men using pneumatic drills to break up and remove ice that was forming continuously from water seepage through the walls of two railway tunnels about 150km north of here. They were doing this round the clock, in between the times when trains passed through. And they weren’t just chipping stalactites and stalagmites away from the sides  of the tunnel. The ice accumulating on the floor had risen so high that it threatened to derail the trains.

I used to love ski-ing, but I’m not flexible enough now, and my circulation isn’t as good as it was. Now cold weather makes me sick – at least when it goes on for weeks  and I’m not on a winter holiday.

does-cold-weather-make-you-sick  hypothermia extreme-cold

Vivienne Mackie visits Provins, which has been a World Heritage Site since December 13^th, 2001.

This pretty medieval town is easily accessible from Paris (a 2-hour drive), so is perfect for an overnight stay.

Provins skyline

The initial approach to Provins doesn’t look that inspiring, although you can see the tower and the cathedral high on the hill, and doesn’t prepare for what you actually find: a wonderful, partly walled Medieval town. Follow the signs to Old Town, which take you first up the hill around the back past the Visitors Centre, a very friendly place where you can get a good map, lists of restaurants and hotels etc. We found a great “gite” that way. (www.provins.net ).

More than a mile of crenellated ramparts circles the haute ville (upper town), which we entered through the Jouy Gate. Restoration work is being done on one of the old 13^th century entry gates—St-Jean’s Gate—plus on parts of the walls and ramparts but that doesn’t detract from how spectacular they are.

Provins walls

Provins was famous in the 12^th and 13^th centuries for its huge trading fairs, or foires, after the Counts of Champagne introduced a passport of safe passage across their territory for merchants. Carts and wagons full of goods from all over Europe and further thronged the streets—cloth merchants from Flanders, Lombardy money-changers, spice merchants from the Orient, poets and intellectuals.

The center of the upper town is the Place du Châtel, a large square (with easy parking) surrounded by half-timbered buildings and several cafes, including some good creperies. In the center, the well and the Exchange Cross date from the 13^th century. The cross was used as a public notice board for the edicts of the counts.

The upper town is crowned by the 12^th-century Tour César (Caesar’s Tower), a turreted, fortified keep that overlooks the fertile countryside. We also visited the domed Saint-Quiriace Collegiate Church, erected in the 12^th century, but never completed due to the French kingdom’s financial difficulties. The dome was built in the 17^th century following a fire.

Of note is also the Grange aux Dîmes (Tithe Barn), a huge 13^th-century building used by merchants during the fairs to sell their wares. If you have time (we didn’t) you can also visit the Underground Galleries.

A stroll the following day took us down to the ville basse (lower town).

Rose de Provins

Walking on the narrow cobble-stoned streets, lined with grey stone buildings, or lovely half-timbered houses painted in different colors, brings alive the atmosphere of long ago—it’s easy to imagine the folk in the previous centuries walking around and living here, as the atmosphere and surroundings are very evocative of the past. Peer up or down very narrow alleys, marvel at huge stone doorways.

The presence of history is very strong. But, it’s also a modern town, living in the present, and celebrating its past. Typical boulangeries, boucheries, charcuteries are busy and stand next to modern ATMs and banks, and a Monoprix store was bustling that Sunday morning. It’s interesting how a supermarket and all the small speciality shops seem to co-exist quite happily. The section of old town down the hill has a very pretty pedestrian street, both it and the Mairie (Town Hall) gorgeous with thousands of brightly colored chrysanthemums in the autumn. The Mairie is literally draped with chrysanthemums, all carefully tended and trained on wire frames.

The old Saint-Ayoul Church was busy that Sunday morning—families with small kids talking and romping, even a dog sitting patiently at the door. People are going about the business of daily living in this amazing historical town. The square in front of this church was one of the earliest commercial and trade fair areas and has been rebuilt many times since the 11^th century. The portal is modern, by sculptor Georges Jeanclos.

One of the counts of Champagne—Count Thibaud IV— brought back the ‘Damascus rose’ from the crusades. This ancestor of present-day rose varieties was formerly known for its medicinal properties. The Damascus rose, which features in Provins as part of their heraldry, is sweet-scented and sweet-tasting and rose petals are used in wines, jams, honeys, ice cream etc.

You can also catch a train from Paris’s gare de l’Est (80 minutes each way). Make sure you get a map of how to get to the old town from the more modern train station at the bottom of the hill.

According  to Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, president and co-founder of the e-commerce site PriceMinister, online sales of unwanted Christmas presents will rise to around 3 million this week, compared with 2 million last year. Most of it is desirable stuff that has been heavily promoted – smartphones, the last Harry Potter DVD, Steve Jobs’ biography…

The reasons for immediate sale are :

• Receiving more than one of the same thing.
• Not getting the model that suited them best.

A week or so later, people start selling off stuff they have enjoyed but realise they will not use again, like the DVD they’ve watched ten times, and things they have never tried before but now realise they will not ever use, like smartphones and tablets.

Although traditionalists may find this shocking, it has its positive side. Instead of getting lost in the back of a cupboard, or ending up in the dechetterie, these brand-new items will be bought for around 20-40% below list price, and give real pleasure to someone else.

Since the French distribute presents on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day, the online sales start early. Kosciusko-Morizet says his site registered it first big surge of selling at 9:00 p.m. on 24 December, and was back in full swing around 8:00 a.m. on Christmas day.

Vivienne Mackie takes us down into the sewers of Paris.

For most, Paris conjures up images of the River Seine, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, and the iconic Eiffel Tower. But, beyond these icons are many other museums and sights that in any other place would be significant attractions. Paris also has a number of off-the-beaten-track treasures, one of which is Les Égouts, or the Sewers. Apparently tours of the sewer system have been popular since the 1800s during Victor Hugo’s time, so the off-beat has been around in this city for quite a while. Tourists were moved in the sewer tunnels in carts suspended from the walkways on the tunnel walls, and later by small carriages pulled by a locomotive. Nowadays it’s much easier.

Why an interest in the sewers of Paris?

Paris street sign

It’s a slightly round-about story that’s linked to Paris street signs. We always note the street signs in the city as they are often named after people who contributed to society or somehow left their mark.  They were philosophers, scientists, writers, politicians, artists and architects. (For example, Rue Cler after a military general). So, it’s an easy way to take in a bit more French and/or Parisian history. One such sign we found was rue Bruneseau in the 13th with the explanation, “Créateur des égouts”. Monsieur Bruneseau may have made one of the most significant contributions—to Paris and to the rest of the world – as modern-style sewers are one of the most important inventions that caused life expectancy to double.

Entrance to Paris sewers and museum

So we decided we had to check out the sewers. It’s actually very easy to visit this strange underground attraction. The entrance is beside the Pont de l’Alma, with a huge blue sign on the Quai d’Orsay.  From the bridge is a good view of the Eiffel Tower and the boats on the river. Parisian school kids regularly come on this tour, so if possible try to visit on a day when it’s not mobbed by excited young people.

This museum is really different from your mainstream city attraction. It’s part museum, about the history and development of the sewers, and water sanitation and purification since the Romans. And it’s partly a mini-tour of a small section of the sewers here. As I walk down the steps, into the underground of these Paris sewers, I can’t help feeling overtones of Hades and the River Styx. But, it turns out not to be gloomy or scary at all. It’s a self-guided tour with a brochure, and boards in the museum section, so you can stroll at a leisurely pace, reading all the signs and really gaining an understanding of how important this complex and highly-organized underground system really is. Sometimes free guided tours are available.

Explanatory sign in Paris sewer museum

The first underground system in Paris was constructed in 1370 and kings and governments since then enlarged the system as the city population expanded. The current 1,305-mile network of tunnels was constructed during the reign of Napoleon III, and is considered one of Baron Haussman’s finest achievements. If laid end to end, the tunnels would reach from Paris to Istanbul, apparently. It’s amazing how much is underground in the city, which is apparent when looking at this, and from watching the tunnels when going on the train and metro. The sewers also house freshwater pipes, telephone wires, traffic-light cables, and other utilities, and used to have the city’s pneumatic postal network (which was shut down in 1984).

Paris sewer tunnel

The sewer tour includes a film, photographic exhibition, a museum hall, and a walk through the 18-foot-high by 14-foot-wide tunnels or on raised walkways above the actual sewage. In the past, you could do an underground boat cruise, but they were stopped after a bank heist in which the robbers made their getaway via the sewers. The museum has artifacts from way back, including old dredging boats, filters, de-sanders and work boots. We also see huge balls, used for cleaning out the tunnels.
As we wander we gain a better understanding of the history and importance of these sewers, and get a real feeling for the atmosphere down here. What hits us first is the smell. The smell is dank and musty, just off-awful, so take a deep breath and hold it a while then breathe through your mouth a bit till you adjust. Next is the sound – the sound of rushing water, glinting under the grates; some pipes dripping with condensate, shining blackly. It’s dark down there, but is well-lit, and the ventilation is good.

Short History

Before these sewers were built in the mid-1800s, the life expectancy of average Parisians was only 30 years. The Parisians dumped their waste right outside their doorsteps.  All this waste eventually found its way to the River Seine, which had then to supply the city’s drinking water.  Waste in the streets and filthy drinking water led to much illness and death, especially from typhoid and cholera outbreaks.  One solution, which didn’t change the problem, was to build mini-sewers in the middle of the roads with a collection trough just underground (but still exposed) that let the waste flow to the Seine.

Pipes sharing a Paris sewer tunnel

In the late 1700s Paris twice refused to build an updated water system, even though scientists recommended it. Voltaire criticized this refusal, and later even Louis Pasteur lost some of his children to typhoid. Under Napoleon 1 the first big breakthrough came: the first vaulted sewer network was built. Between 1805-1812 a man called Pierre-Emmanuel Bruneseau, the city’s municipal works inspector and a friend of Victor Hugo, was commissioned to undertake the building of many miles of new sewer. He laid new lines, extended the sewer tunnels, and disinfected and purified the whole network.
It’s all described by Victor Hugo in his 1862 monumental work, Les Misérables.
The next big breakthrough came with Napoleon III. Napoleon III and his advisors made the connection between wastewater, the need for clean drinking water, and disease, so in about 1850 he commissioned a huge new sewage system that would have a double water supply, one for drinking water and one for non-drinking water. He appointed Baron Haussmann, the prefect for the Seine, and Eugene Belgrand, an engineer, to design something underground to make Paris healthy and stench-free.
What exists now is an incredibly modern, very efficient underground system that collects and cleans wastewater and storm water before it is dumped (downstream) into the Seine, which still supplies drinking water.  Tout à l’égout (everything to the sewer) is now the motto (and the rule) for all water in Paris. The water eventually makes its way to enormous water treatment facilities in Achéres or Noisy-le-Grand.

What makes Paris’ Sewers Special?

An interesting feature of the Paris sewer is that it’s a complete underground network dug under streets and boulevards.  No other city in the world has a sewer network quite like this one in Paris. As mega cities develop the question of waste and sewage control becomes more and more relevant and perhaps they can learn from Paris. Each street in Paris, even if small, has its own sewer.  The tunnels are named for the streets that lie directly above them.  That sewer collects waste only from that street.  Longer streets have more than one collection basin. Victor Hugo wrote about the sewers in Les Misérables, saying there is a mirror of Paris under herself.  “Paris has beneath it another Paris; a Paris of sewers; which has its streets, its crossings, its squares, its blind-alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is of mire and minus the human form.”  (Les Misérables, Vol. V, Book II, Ch. 1)

Besides the history of the sewers, the museum also covers the current ecology of the river area. The quality of water is much better now, even compared to 20 years ago. Fish and birds are back in the river.

The tour ends with a Wallace Fountain and a bathroom (not linked!).   These Wallace Fountains (named after the English philanthropist – Sir Richard Wallace – who conceived and funded them) are in the form of green cast-iron caryatids in a circle with water coming up in the middle. They are dotted around the city and have become as much a symbol of the city as the Eiffel. The water is fine to drink—I’ve seen police filling their water bottles, school kids slurping, and old Parisiennes, loaded with shopping bags, lean and fill their cups.

For a good general article see Europe for Visitors

Admission charge: €4.30 for adults, €3.50 for 6-16.
Open Saturday-Wednesday, May-September 11am-6pm, October-April 11am-5pm. Closed Christmas Day and New Year’s Day and for two weeks in January for maintenance.
Address: Quai d’Orsay and Pont d’Alma
Entrance at ground level between Quai d’Orsay and the Seine. Look for the blue and white sign and the booth behind it.
Metro: Alma-Marceau (line 9)
RER: Pont d’Alma Line C

I often check my website stats to find out how people find this site. Occasionally, like today, I discover a site that fills in the gaps in my somewhat personal offering.

If you regularly take family holidays in France, take a look at France for Families . The Harding and King families are doing what you do, and they pass on their knowledge. Yes, there are plenty of ads on the site, but there are also plenty of up-to-date links to stuff they have experienced personally, and advice based on their own experiences. They even publish a newsletter – something I’ve been too busy (otherwise occupies? lazy?) to do myself.

Like the British, the French have several proverbs (old wives’ tales, if that’s what you’d rather call them) about the weather. Here is a selection:

RAINY SAINTS’ DAYS

‘St. Swithin’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
Saint Swithin’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.’
Saint Swithun (the preferred spelling) was Saxon Bishop of Winchester.
Saint Swithun’s day is 15th July.

À la Saint Thierry aux champs jour et nuit;
s’il pleut à la Visitation, pluie à discrétion.
(St Thierry’s day  is 1st July,  la Visitation is 2nd July)

À Saint Henri suée, mauvaise moissonnée.
(St Henri’s day is 15th July)

S’il pleut à la Saint Médard, la récolte diminue d’un quart.

S’il pleut à la St Médard, le tiers des biens est au hasard.

S’il pleut à la Saint-Médard, Il pleut quarante jours plus tard
Mais vient le bon saint Barnabé Qui peut encore tout raccommoder
(Saint Médard is 8th June, and St Barnabé is 11 June)

S’il pleut pour la Saint Paterne, l’été sèche ta citerne.
(There are 4 different St Paternes. I presume the proverb refers to the oldest and most important, who was the first bishop of Vannes in the 4th century AD. His day is 16th April)

S’il pleut le jour de l’Ascension, tout s’en va en perdition.

SUNSET AND SUNRISE

Red sky at night,  shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.

Ciel rouge le soir laisse bon espoir, ciel rouge le matin, pluie en chemin.

Le jour de la Saint Vincent, si le soleil luit comme un chapeau, on aura du vin à pleins tonneaux.

(Saint Vincent’s Day is 22nd January)

WARM WEATHER

Till April’s dead, change not a thread.

Ne’er cast a clout till May be out.  (Actually, this May probably refers to hawthorn blossom rather than the month).

En mars crains les frimas, en avril ne te découvres pas d’un fil, en mai, fais ce qui te plaît.

(Since France is further south than England, winter is safely over a bit earlier).

Henry VIII did England a disservice. Think of all the saints’ days and associated proverbs we have lost.

Over 3 million tourists a year pay a visit to Mont Saint Michel, a mediaeval town dominated by a Bénédictine abbey, perched on a granite outcrop sticking out of a sandy bay. How many of these have visited the  underground chapel called Notre-Dame-sous-Terre, built around 970 AD?

A few metres from this is a dark, mysterious collection of cells. Somewhere for unruly monks to serve their penances? No. They were first used to incarcerate the enemies of Louis XI during the 100 Years’ War.

Later, during the French Revolution, the island was renamed ‘Mont libre’ but used almost exclusively as a prison, holding up to 700 inmates – dissident priests, criminals, and royalist rebels known as Chouans. This practice continued until the abbey was restored to the Bénédictines in 1865.

Creative Commons photo by http://www.all-free-photos.com/