Paris Day 4 ~ Part 3

Montparnasse Cemetery.
I didn't have a lot of time there, as it closes at six - there's a bell beside the main entrance and it starts ringing as a warning. But I really enjoyed a short wander round. The contrast with the old monuments and the modern buildings around them was quite startling...In one photo you can also see an old windmill.

Juvenile chaffinch....

I got a new (hopefully) squirrel-proof feeder this week. One plus (??) from the squirrels is more spilled seed on the ground, so we've had the chaffiinches, who are ground feeders, around more.
This is a little juvenile one. But tonight I noticed he had finally decided to brave the Globe Feeder. It might actually, for the time being at least, be effective, since I saw a squirrel reduced to foraging on the ground today when the only options with seed in them at the time were the globe and the nyger feeder.

The windows badly need cleaning!

Paris Day 4 ~ Part 2

 In the afternoon we walked along the Promenade Plantée. Being Easter Sunday and beautiful sunshine (mostly) it was almost as packed as the Champs Elysées had been on Friday. So it wasn't easy to take any photos of the actual walk, just the city views seen from it.

I presume the first photo is some sort of nest for bumblebees or ladybirds or suchlike. It was actually quite near the end of the walk. This is the first time we didn't continue walking on to the Bois de Vincennes - instead when we got to the end of the main part of the walk we found the metro station at Daumesnil, which was on one of "our" lines, and brought us along an interesting overground route most of the way.

Favourite cards

May was not a productive month - most of my favourites are from the mixed media challenge on SCS. I think that was helped by the fact that there were two Fridays on which I wasn't working!

Paris Day 4 ~ Part 1

Day 4 was Sunday, and we were starting to flag a little after all that walking.
In the morning, I went to the second-nearest bakery, and got some tasty croissants for breakfast plus some even tastier patisserie to stand in as a birthday cake on Monday. I was so glad that I went - I wasn't sure they'd be open on Monday, being Easter Monday and a lot of places were going to be closed, and in fact they were closing for a week's holiday so they wouldn't have been open on Tuesday either. We went to the local market which is an organic one on Sundays, and then to the Luxembourg Gardens, buying salads and bread for lunch on the way. I'd been planning to get something in the market, but we should really have got there a bit earlier; somebody else bought the last three onion tarts as I stood in the queue.

 Most of these are just street shots. I'm not sure what the fourth one is meant to be - but having recently watched The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, it rather reminded me of the dinosaur in the film. The first one is the front of a hotel on Boulevard Raspail.

bakery

Flower seller at the Metro entrance, Marché Raspail

Where we were staying...

On the street round the corner from our apartment, was a beautiful Art Deco building dating back to 1910. Several well-known artists had studios here, including Man Ray. This photo shows the typical decor - and reflection in the window from a tiny little triangular park just opposite it. Then a wide-angle view, and a close up of some of the ceramic detailing, created by Alexander Bigot.

31 bis, rue Campagne Première

These are some of the beehives in the Luxembourg Gardens. Last time we were there, we actually saw the beekeepers working on them. This time, we arrived just after the hives had had their Spring inspection, with the following results;  out of 21 hives, 2 didn't survive, one was found to be in weak condition, and the remainder were all thriving and would probably to be divided to avoid a swarms.

Paris Day 3 ~ Part 4

Just a few photos from our Saturday afternoon outing. Having looked at stripy Breton jumpers, looked in BHV and looked in Dehillerin, my final decision for spending some birthday money was the stripy Breton jumper in ArmorLux - so that's the third sign down. The first sign was a travel agency, the second photo was just on the wall somewhere...

We passed this almost every time we went out. C had problems with the smell from all the seafood - but I think the displays are amazing,

We went to Bon Marché hoping to have afternoon coffee and macarons, but it was so crowded that we gave up on that idea. Instead we went over to their food hall and bought macarons to have in the apartment, along with some lovely soup and good bread since we didn't feel we needed a dinner that night.

Bon Marché