Today was "All Saints Day" which is a National Holiday in France. Most stores were closed, as were public offices. Church bells rang constantly through the day.
All Saints Day is celebrated here by people placing flowers on the graves of loved ones. Although Diane and I had spent a large part of yesterday strolling Pere Lachaise Cemetery, I decided that today was a good day for more Cemetery strolling. Diane was keen on just hanging around the apartment, so I went alone to Montparnasse Cemetery.
I don't have pictures to post today because something is going wrong with my system. I suspect it's just my card reader, but I can't get my pictures off my 8 GB Compact Flash card. I've got a spare 2 GB card which I've swapped into the camera, but the couple hundred pictures I took today are at risk of being stuck on the 8 GB card (I backed up all prior days on both my and Diane’s laptops). I'm going to buy another CF card reader tomorrow to give that a try. I hope it's not my camera because that would be a disaster.
There were a lot of people at Montparnasse Cemetery and flower sales were blooming. There are many graves though that are now so old that no relatives come to visit anymore. I was careful to keep low-key and not intrude into the goings-on. I tried to find specific graves of artists whose work I admire, but only found Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (they were lovers and are buried on top of each other, so if you find one you find them both). I really made a point of trying to find Samuel Beckett's grave, but had to give up. The only other famous grave I successfully found was that of poor Alfred Dreyfus.
When I got back, Diane and I went grocery shopping. We bought a large glass bottle of tomato soup and some bread for lunch. We also bought a pizza for supper.
After lunch we took a long Metro ride to 16th Arrondissement, and walked Frommer's Walk Number 18 which is titled "Art Nouveau to Art Deco”. The walk highlights a number of apartment blocks and mansions architected by Hector Guimand. Of his many accomplishments, Guimand designed the ubiquitous Art Nouveau Metro signs. It was a very interesting walk. There are some spectacular houses out there.
2 comments:
How unique it must be to experience a national holiday that is not your own. And then to have just the opposite experience on Boxing Day.
Again I have learned something new about Brian when he mentioned his admiration for Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Although I am not familiar with their works, I do know that they were leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, existentialism, and Marxism. Pretty heavy stuff.
I will keep my fingers crossed that the new CF reader will do the trick so we can continue to enjoy your photographs.
:-)
November 1, 2010 10:05 PM
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. – Aristotle
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