Amsterdam to Paris

Thursday, October 23, 2014

We spent most of the day in the car, driving south from Amsterdam, back through Belgium and northern France to Paris.  We dropped our car back at Charles De Gaulle airport, took the express train into the city, and then a quick two stops on the Metro to the St. Paul station in the Marais, our home for the grand finale of this trip.  

Our apartment is everything we could have hoped for in a great Paris neighborhood.  Marais is the French term for marsh, which this area was, until it was drained and turned into farmland in the 13th century.  It later became the preferred home of the king and the aristocracy moved in, building appropriately beautiful mansions, or hotels particuliers.  When the court decamped to Versailles, their beautiful baroque residences remained. During the 19th century, when Baron Haussmann leveled many of the city's old houses and narrow streets to create the city of wide boulevards we know today, the Marais escaped destruction.  Since the 13th century, the Marais has been the Jewish quarter of Paris; today, there are remnants of that, even as the neighborhood has become one of the city's trendiest.  The mansions have morphed boutique hotels, apartments, and museums, narrow lanes and alleys remain, and the streets are lined with chic shops, cafes, and restaurants.

We were delighted to find our apartment filled with art and books, with large French windows overlooking the porte cochere of the building across the street.  The neighborhood is lined with many of the massive pairs of wooden doors that once admitted horse-drawn carriages.  Now, they enclose private courtyards, and we have a peek into the one opposite our apartment.

We stopped at a nearby market, ate in tonight, and then went out for a walk.  The neighborhood is lively, restaurants and cafes full.  A few blocks on, we crossed the small L'Ile St. Louis to L'Ile de la Cite right behind the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  It was beautifully lit, gloriously decorated with intricate carving and statuary, standing solid and serene, as it has for centuries, over the noise and traffic congestion surrounding it.

Quite a way to end the day -- just magic...