Springtime in Paris: Les Halles to Montmartre

Having crossed the Seine islands and the Quartier Latin off our itinerary a day early, we could now dawdle as much as we wanted on Monday without fear of running out of time. We began our morning with an easy Metro ride to Châtelet in the first arrondissement, then walked north through the centralized shopping area still known as Les Halles. This was once the main wholesale food market of Paris, housed within a massive iron and glass structure that became the template for market buildings throughout Western Europe. That market succumbed to the forces of modernization and was demolished in 1973, to be replaced by a massive transit hub and a popular underground shopping mall.

The Saint-Eustache church is the second or third largest in Paris, depending on what parameter is utilized. It is rarely emphasized in travel guides but it represented yet another addition to our growing list of impressive churches in Paris. Saint-Eustache had one of the most conspicuously Gothic presentations of all the churches we had seen, with arched flying buttresses flanking a typical sixteenth century façade. Certain details betrayed a transition into Renaissance aesthetics, such as the simplified rose windows and rounded arches.

On Mondays every market in Paris is closed so I chose the next best thing, a gourmet food street. Rue Montorgueil has been a destination for premium ingredients since the seventeenth century, when the street began to host fishmongers bringing in their Atlantic catch through the northern gate in the old city walls. The street felt somewhat sleepy when we arrived as it was only nine thirty and many of the shops didn't open until ten. It was immediately clear that the produce here was not expected to be ordinary, with stalks of asparagus as thick as ropes and artichoke heads the size of canteloupes. Taking in a cheese counter in Paris can be almost a religious experience, and here some of the most tempting products from all of France were artfully cut and displayed to show both rind and body.

I hadn't wanted to repeat our mistake of the previous day where we spoiled our appetites for the Bastille Market by eating an American style breakfast. We fed the kids some snacks at the apartment but otherwise I persuaded everyone to forgo our first meal until we found something appetizing on Rue Montorgueil. There were several chic and alluring French restaurants along the street but of course none had opened at this early hour. Our strategy paid off when we came across a gorgeous patisserie with outdoor tables, where the kids consumed their choices while I contemplated the ancient street's unusual swirling pattern of square cobblestones. Meanwhile Mei Ling had found one of her countrymen who owned the cafe next door. He was from Zhejiang province and had followed other émigrés from his local area decades earlier. Others had followed him in turn and now there was a whole enclave of Zhejiangese in Paris.

By now it was after ten and the local branch of one of Paris's most famous chocolate stores had opened. The original outlet of À la Mère de Famille opened in Montmartre in 1761 and operated continuously through the French Revolution until 2000, when it was acquired by an established family of Parisian confectioners. The Dolfis revitalized the store and opened fifteen more outlets around Paris, and the brand has become the best known in the city over the last quarter century. The interior of the store was very colorful and emanated a gourmet ambiance. The two bars we bought tasted amazing although I can't claim to be a chocolate connoisseur. Rue Montorgueil came to an end all too quickly and we continued to walk deeper into the second arrondissement.

It was rather quiet in central Paris on Monday morning. It seemed that most people were at work or otherwise indoors. The streets were still intriguing but the atmosphere was not as vibrant as it had been on the weekend, when pedestrians had surrounded us and bicyclists were whizzing past our noses. Ian was the first to notice the pixelated graffiti that often appeared on the limestone walls of corner buildings in various neighborhoods around Paris. We saw them first in Batignolles, then in Le Marais, and now here in the second arrondissement. They were always placed about ten feet off the ground, probably to make them difficult to vandalize, and appeared to be fashioned from small adhesive tiles although it was difficult to be sure from a distance. I probably would have dismissed them but just to satisfy Ian's curiosity I looked them up with AI and learned they were the work of a French artist who calls himself Invader, a tribute to the Space Invaders video game everyone played in the 1980's. Invader has been installing ceramic tile mosaics in Paris since the 1990's, which explains why they were so ubiquitous in different areas of the city. He has also staged what he calls invasions in many other French cities as well as in other countries, where he installs several mosaics over a fixed period of time.

On Rue Saint Marc we came to a poorly-illuminated gap in the wall underneath an unappealing Brutalist apartment building. Despite its inauspicious appearance this was the portal into an era of Paris that preceded the Haussmann renovations and has been almost forgotten. Passage des Panoramas was the brainchild of American inventor Robert Fulton, an enterprise to keep himself busy and generate revenue while he was attempting to convince Napoleon to buy his submarines and torpedos in 1799. With the assistance of skilled artists Fulton created panoramic paintings of famous cities within rotundas that he constructed on the ground floor of a luxurious mansion owned by another American entrepreneur. The panoramas served their purpose of funding Fulton's residence in Paris and were eventually demolished a few decades later, but not before the arcade that contained them had acquired a life of its own with a popular theater and a burgeoning industry of shops and bistros. By the twentieth century Passage des Panoramas had become the city's foremost destination for collectors of stamps and coins. A few of those historic shops still remain but in the present day the passage is best known for atmospheric bistros offering a wide variety of world cuisines. Once we spilled out onto Boulevard Montmartre at the northern end of the arcade we looked back and saw an entranceway more befitting of such a dignified legacy of Parisian history.

Boulevard Montmartre had also done well by the entrance to Passage Jouffroy, an extension to the arcade that was constructed around 1840. The arched entranceway was topped by four floors of the Hotel Ronceray, built at the same time as the passage. The uppermost level of the resplendently white hotel was a balustraded terrace. Within this arcade there were fewer bistros and a greater emphasis on retail shops and galleries. The main segment of the passage ended at the front door of another splendid, antiquated hotel. The Hôtel Chopin was likewise born with Jouffroy and exists entirely within it, maintaining an early nineteenth century aesthetic. I imagined that staying there would feel like being transported into the set of a Wes Anderson movie. Mei Ling saw an elderly lady wearing matching sapphire-blue coat and beret sitting alone at a cafe table, sipping a coffee and watching the trickle of pedestrians pass by. Despite my protests she went up to the woman to compliment her on her style using the translator app on her phone. Soon they were in animated conversation and traded WhatsApp contact info before we left.

The third and final arcade in the sequence was Passage Verdeau, opened in 1847 to keep the wallets of passers-by open for just a few minutes longer. This was the least busy of the passages, probably because it contained more high end boutiques oriented towards a clientele rather than passing shoppers. Verdeau had a more somber interior with extensive wood paneling that absorbed the light that entered through the glass and iron canopy.

Between Panoramas and Jouffroy we had passed from the second into the ninth arrondissement, a district we had only touched on when we visited the Galeries Lafayette. Passage Verdeau let us out onto Rue du Faubourg Montmartre which fortuitously guided us to Place Saint-Georges, an early nineteenth century bourgeois enclave that escaped modernization. Close inspection of the buildings revealed a more ornate, pale, late Restoration style of the façades that contrasted pleasantly with the solid Haussmann frontages we had been passing through. The asphalt roads gave way to swirling squares of cobblestone in the traffic circle, at the center of which was a monument to prominent nineteenth century illustrator and local resident Paul Gavarni.

I felt that the ambiance was subtly changing as we entered Quartier Pigalle. There was more open space and less of an emphasis on standardization, perhaps even a calculated move towards nonconformity. At the entrance to Rue Frochot a building sported a large, curved stained glass window in Art Deco style. We detoured a block east so as not to miss Rue des Martyrs, Paris's ancient connection to the hill of Montmartre. The street was named for Saint Denis, a third century bishop who was decapitated for his faith and then walked north up Montmartre carrying his severed head preaching all the way. Did it really happen? The physician in me considers it unlikely. An antique carousel marked the entrance to Avenue Trudaine, which led east along cobblestones towards the tenth arrondissement.

Pigalle is a traditional center for Parisian nightlife, but it felt quite sedate at noon on Monday. We continued on Rue des Martyrs into the eighteenth arrondissement and the foot of Montmartre. Here there was an unusual Art Nouveau brick church called Saint-Jean de Montmartre, completed in 1904 and representing a major stylistic departure from the Parisian architectural tradition. On the other side of busy Rue des Abbesses there was a small park featuring "le mur des je t'aime", a wall of dark blue tiles on which the phrase "I love you" has been painted in over two hundred and fifty languages. At the time of our visit half of the wall was obscured by a wooden support structure. There were quite a few people relaxing on the park benches or nursing coffees in the cafes on Rue des Abbesses, no doubt gathering their strength as we were for the steep walk up to the top of Montmartre.