Birdlady42
Sorry for the click bait headline, but it’s kind of true. Two more things we wanted to do today were see the Montparnasse Cemetery and Notre Dame – post fire.
The cemetery is massive and fascinating. It has ancient crypts and fairly modern ones all mixed together. Many famous people are buried there. We found the two I was seeking out thanks to handy laminated plans they provide at the entrances: Jean-Paul Sartre and Guy de Maupassant. I read works from both of them in French class and then in French literature in college. I also, of course, studied Sartre’s existentialism in Philosophy classes.
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| Guy de Maupassant |
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| Jean-Paul Sartre |
On our way to the cemetery, we discovered the local Saturday market that I knew must be nearby. I found a couple cool things and we bought a large tray of the most flavorful raspberries I’ve ever tasted. The market covered at least 3 or 4 blocks down the middle median of the street just to the side of the massive Tour Montparnasse. After the market and the cemetery, we had lunch at a little brasserie on a nearby corner.
During lunch, a large caravan of Gendarme vans started showing up blocking the street at our corner. We knew there were supposed to be protests in Paris today, like most Saturdays. But we didn’t expect to accidentally end up so close
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| hmmm….lunch just got interesting |
to them. As we looked at the maps, we weren’t entirely sure we had a way to get back to the hotel due to all the streets that were starting to show up as closed. By the time we were ready to leave, though, the police blockade had moved away and we figured it had passed us by without incident.
Then as we approached our hotel, we could see that at the next cross-street there were even more police than at the previous corner. We finally heard the drums and megaphones and shouting as we sat in our hotel looking out the window. After a while, it seemed to die down. So we ventured out. To get to Notre Dame, we really needed to go right up that street along the Parc Luxembourg. The receptionist at the hotel just said “Faites attention!” (be careful) when I told him where we were going. We got to the corner just as the last stragglers of protesters were filing through the intersection. There were many, many fully armed – and armored – police between us and them, so we felt safe blending in the with locals along the sidewalk.
From what I’ve pieced together on the news, it started out as a climate-change march, with some participation by Greenpeace. Then Gilets Jaunes protesters (upset with pension changes Macron has implemented/proposed and just government in general) merged in. Then the ultra far right and anarchists joined in. When we got onto the street where they had marched, we were caught off guard by all the destruction we found. Broken glass, a pile of burned motorcycles in the street, dumped cans of paint, graffiti, and a bank with broken doors, windows and paint poured on the ATM. The graffiti covered anti-Macron (Gilets Jaunes) messages, anti-capitalism messages and climate ones. There was even the remnants of a fire in the middle of the street. I felt bad for the small business owners that were in front of their shops cleaning up the glass and trash they left behind – not exactly good for the environment or the hard working-class that many of the protesters claim to be defending.
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| Sorbonne |
After we got past the next circle, we were out of that destruction and in the neighborhood of Sorbonne University. I fantasized about going there for college when I was in high school. I dragged Brian into a nearby bookstore, because I can’t stand not shopping for books. I picked up a volume of works by Collette in French as well as a couple gifts. Then on to Pont St. Michel to see Notre Dame. Fortunately, we’ve seen it before it was nearly destroyed by fire earlier this year. But we wanted to see how it looked now. We went clear around it to see it from all sides. They’ve shored up much of it with wooden structures and scaffolding. I can’t imagine the enormity of the work ahead to restore it, but I am happy to see it is started.
So to sum up, cemetery full of dead people, peaceful-protest-turned-violent, and a burned church. Not the cheeriest day, but interesting.
After that long walk, we are resting in the room and enjoying some take-away pizza for dinner in our room.
More photos from the cemetery:
