Short Trip to Paris

Even if very short and constantly under rain and cloudy weather, a short trip to Paris is always a valuable urban experience. Here are a few pictures taken arriving to Paris, going from one place to another and back to the airport.

Always nice to arrive at Orly, a place that still has some flair of the modernist Airports of the Sixties and Seventies, where you could expect to meet Jacques Tati or  Brigitte Bardot.

Leaving the RER at Chatelet Les Halles under the rain, it seems to be the perfect weather to have a coffee on the roof terrace of the Centre Pompidou (and check if it still exists). I haven’t been there for decades and unfortunately I’ll have to wait a little bit longer, since Tuesday Centre Pompidou is off.

The (terrific) labyrintic Forum des Halles shopping complex is undergoing radical renovation works, trying to become more open and human than it was before.

From the very touristic area of Beauburg and Quartier Latin I walk towards the III Arrondissement where many creatives have settled in the last years in Les Marais.

The center of the III Arrondissement is occupied by a ringfenced garden, one of the many that features the image of Paris in everyone’s imagination, with numerous green benches, beautiful plants and flowers, a small biotope around a bonsai-lake, playgrounds, a gazebo for concerts and other leisure facilities.

It is also a place for collective memory. This is the list of jews that was arrested during WWII under the Vichy regime.

Monumentally friendly the administrative building of this neighbourhood has open doors and rather relaxed appearance, waiting for the elections.

Nearby the steel structure of a covered market is in renovation.

A very small triangular square at the confluence of two streets is the place for trees, an ornamental iron spring and the  covered café terrace with coloured chairs. In Paris you can have coffee outside even if it’s raining. Culture is more important than comfort.

An empty space between buildings, a rare vacant lot along the densely built street front, is occupied by a multicultural and multiethnic market, Le Marché des Enfants Rouge, unfortunately almost closed by the time I arrive.

Just on the corner some political activist from the Socialist party. This weekend 44 millions French voters will have to choose a candidate in the first round of the presidential elections. Polls say that the socialist average man will beat the husband of Carla Bruni.

For those who come from the province like me, the subway is the landmark of big cities and the Metropolitain in Paris is the most charming in the world.

Contemporary architecture has a difficult task to cope with historic buildings, even when it is an average pompous neoclassic railway station.

Art Nouveau made an attempt to be modern and decorative at the same time, rather convincing actually. Why has it extinguished so fast?

Back in the metro to catch the last flight back home.

A quick view over the Stade de France, building cranes and the rows of trees along the streets of the northern suburbs on the way to Charles De Gaulle Airport.