I sleep through the alarm until 9:30, which is very late for me. I don’t have the energy to do much. Croissant and espresso for breakfast. I stay close to home in the 14th arrondissement and explore Parc Montsouris to the south. A pretty park with big trees and lake. I think of fish.
Once I start moving, it is easier to keep moving than to stop. From the park, I walk around the walled Reservoirs de Montsouris. Like the Jersey City reservoir, it is a gigantic enclosed container built in the late 1860’s to replace provide water to the city. There is not much to see from the outside except large glass buildings. I can’t tell why they are there.
I walk…eventually I arrive at the Cimetiere du Montparnasse, about a mile away from the apartment. It is cemetary of monuments. Everything is stone, no grass anywhere. Slender trees shade the avenues. Some plots have live potted plants. A funeral is in progress.
I pass by the Institute of Sensory Education where this phrase intrigues me: Oeuvre Des Juenes Filles Aveugles - Work of Young Blind Girls.
For dinner, I stop at a corner cafe at Ave du General Leclerc and Rue d’Alesia and order sausage and potatoes with a biere blanche. The cafe faces an intersection of 6 roads. Surprisingly, traffic flows smoothly and nobody honks their horn.
Before going to bed I plan for tomorrow. My two goals are to visit Les Catacombs and the fishing store on the Ile Saint-Louis. I climb into the loft bed and fall immediately to sleep.
Husband and Wife
Work of Young Blind Girls
The Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde
Little Lucy
Tom Baker, as Doctor Who, Ran Through this Street
The View from the Apartment