Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Marais

This morning saw us catch a cab to Place des Vosges as the starting point for our exploring the area adjacent to and within The Marais.  Having listened to the pronunciation on the translator a dozen times as Frank practiced playing it for the cab driver, I was able to tell our driver myself where we wanted to go. Language has been little issue so far.  As long as I try to communicate it seems ok. People really will meet you in the middle as much as possible so with their limited English and my very limited French we manage.  The translator has been great to support sound food choices so we are certainly not starving. We found a road that had a large number of camera stores and lots of good street art, so both of us were happy.  Frank purchased a tripod for his camera.  As for me I took photos of the street art.  
We then walked down toward the Bastille memorial, checked out some markets and headed back to Plave des Vosges as a marker enroute to look around The Marais.  An old part of Paris and the traditional Jewish area, it was certainly worth a look around. Unfortunately Gypsies were here in numbers too.  Favorite place to hang out seems to be bus stops and phone boxes.  One family has a couch dragged up against a phone box, and had the baby confined in its own play area, while they lived on the sofa with all their gear stacked around them.  Not the lifestyle I would choose. Further on we discovered a market.  Not large and with a mixture of clothes and cheap items for sale.  The part I enjoyed though was the fresh produce.  Fruit and vegetables pretty standard, except for the tomatoes. Mthese were so lush and full that they looked like they had seams.  Not sure how else to describe them...they looked so good. The thing of most interest beside the chickens a la Venice style (with head and feet) though, was the seafood.  Huge octopus, small stingrays, fish I can only guess at and sea molluscs I can't identify....and of course, vongole....just for my friend Christene. 18.10.2012

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