Three days before Christmas

It was 10:30 when we hopped on Vélib bikes at the Bastille, and rode down rue St. Antoine. We were bundled up for a cold winter's day, but the sun was working hard to keep us comfortable. On rue de Rivoli we passed the Hôtel de Ville, with it's skating rink out in front, and we turned right on Boulevard de Sébastopol to return our bikes to a Vélib station near the Beaubourg. We were going to our French/English conversation group, for a little Christmas party, and then to a nearby bistro for their plat du jour.

It was a perfect winter day in Paris. The sky was blue and the air crisp as we crossed over the Seine after lunch.

All of the shops were dressed for the holiday season, and street artists were helping Santa to spread his Christmas cheer.

We walked for hours, wandering in and out of shops, going to outdoor Christmas markets, enjoying the sights, and joining the crowds in front of the department store windows. Everywhere we went people were wishing each other "Joyeux Noël" or "Bonnes Fêtes".

After we walked through the Marché de Noel in front of l'église Saint-Sulpice, we went into the church to see La crèche de Caltagirone. At l'église St. Germain des Prés, the organ was playing during a service, and we stopped to listen for a moment before going across the street for an expresso at Les Deux Magots.

As night fell, Notre Dame was magnificent under a full moon. We stopped to try to capture that beauty on film, and surrounded by tourists, we enjoyed hearing so many different languages being spoken in such a peaceful setting. As we headed home across l'île Saint-Louis, we felt pleased for ourselves and for all of the visitors to Paris who were blessed with such a beautiful day.

The gift of love. The gift of peace.

The gift of happiness.

May all these be yours at Christmas.

Bonne Fête de Noël dans la paix et la sérénité

 

The last night of the year

On vous présente tous nos voeux de bonheur pour l'année 2008

We wish you a happy and prosperous 2008

July, August, September

Eight years ago, when we bought our barge, we moved into a village that we never knew existed until after we had been living there for several months.

Being a member of the international barging community means that you live in a "moving village" with different neighborhoods that appear wherever there are boats, water and something to throw a rope around.

This summer, for the 15th anniversary of the DBA-Barge Association, a new neighborhood formed in the Bassin de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. By the end of June, barges started arriving in Paris from Holland, Belgium, and France, with many others coming from England, crossing the channel to arrive at the basin for a long weekend celebration.

Either by the canal St. Denis or by the canal St. Martin, boats cruised through the streets of Paris, passing through the locks one barge at a time, and entering the basin at the rate of 15 a day. By the weekend the basin, which is usually home to a few 38 meter barges and a couple of day trip boats, was transformed into a village of well cared for barges, each one decorated with code flags and pennants, and it was a beautiful sight.

(Photo - Gail and Walt "Les Vieux Papillions and Pauline from "Peppa")

The rally brought together 60 barges, and there were planned events, but the highlight of the rally was, as always, spending time with other boaters. It was a chance to catch up with old friends, and to meet boaters whose paths you had not yet crossed along the waterways.

After the rally, barges that wanted to stay in Paris either came here to the Arsenal or they moored near the Eiffel Tower at the other port in Paris that used to be called Port Grenelle. This immediately increased the number of people that we knew in Paris, and we were lucky enough to be invited to a couple of great parties on some spectacular barges, with friends that are gifted in the kitchen.

While shopping for dinner at the morning market at Place d'Aligre on the 13th of July, we drifted into Le Baron Rouge with friends and began what turned out to be a spectacular day. From the Baron we moved directly to lunch on "Libertijn's" deck, and the lunch lasted long enough that dinner became irrelevant, and we just moved down the street to the local firehouse for the Firemen's Ball.

France's national holiday is July 14th, and because the French love to have a good time, the celebration starts the night before with different firehouses hosting dances.

It was a warm summer night, the dance was under the stars in one of the firehouse courtyards, and the crowd was a mix of young girls there to flirt with the firemen, families with kids and people of all ages just out to enjoy one of the few warm summer evenings.

We danced with friends and friendly French people, talked with the firemen, met other Americans who live in Paris, and enjoyed the party until well after midnight. When we were walking out, there was still a long line of people waiting to get in, and the real party was just warming up.

The good weather held up for the next night, the 14th, and we went across town with friends who were staying in the Arsenal to enjoy a pre-fireworks pot luck dinner at Port Tour Eiffel. Many of our winter port neighbors were staying on this side of town during their required 21 day absence from the Arsenal, and several others had cruised over just for the day so that they could moor close to the Eiffel Tower and enjoy a great view of the fireworks that were set off from the Trocadero.

Our friends on "Les Vieux Papillons" had pulled out all of the stops and made enough Cajun food to feed everyone in the port, and anyone else who happened by. We ate well, drank Champagne and watched the fireworks in comfort from Papillion's deck. The evening was perfect, and when it was over we headed for home.

Even though we had not planned to return to our barges on the other side of Paris on foot, the fact that they had closed all of the metro stations near the Eiffel Tower for crowd control, meant that we had to start out that way. By the time that we had walked far enough away to be able to find an open metro station, we were enthralled by the beauty of the moon shining on the Seine, and we all decided to walk back to the Bastille. We left at just after midnight and didn't get back to our boats until after 2am, but no one was complaining, because Paris on a warm summer night is a magical place.

Click here to see our 14th of July photos

At the end of July we went to the captain's office to tell them the date and time that we were going to leave for our required absence from the port. At the appointed time, we entered the lock, they let the water out and when the gates opened onto the Seine, we turned left and headed up to the Marne towards Epernay. We love the Marne with all of it's wonderful Champagne villages, and we planned to cruise along and stop where ever and whenever nice moorings presented themselves.

We didn't get very far. Instead of cruising down to Epernay, we stopped in Meaux for one night and ended up staying there for a couple of weeks.

When we arrived the port was full, and friends from Roanne on "Peppa" let us moor on them. In the morning, when boats left, we were able to move over to an empty pontoon, and after that the days just flowed along like the river current.

Boats came, stayed for a day or for several, and we got into the rhythm of the place. It was peaceful.

Meaux has a nice Saturday market, but aside from that, there isn't much to do, so after being very busy in Paris, it was nice to find a place where we were not tempted to leave the boat everyday.

We read. We worked on projects. We did nothing and enjoyed it immensly. The biggest event of the day was the arrival of a new boat. With the strong river current, neighbors would go out to catch the lines for the newcomers, and sometimes this resulted in conversations that started on the pontoon and ended on someone's deck. Joie de Vivre, a New Zealand boat from Roanne pulled up on our pontoon one day and stayed just like we did. Then we all did nothing together, and several times we discussed the joys of being lazy during dinner on our deck.

We met new people and spent time with old friends. We realized that even though we live in Paris, we still haven't moved out of the village. The port would empty out in the morning and be full again by noon. Some days we didn't know anyone and other days, we knew everyone on the block. Most neighborhoods change over the years, but in Meaux, we sat back, relaxed and watched our neighborhood change twice a day.

Back in our Arsenal mooring, we felt right at home as our winter neighbors returned to port. Our winter life doesn't start until our French classes resume in October, so September was the time for us to enjoy Paris.

Our family came to visit and we play tourists walking all over Paris together, stopping for a meal or a snack as the mood struck. Friends that we had made through our website, but had only met through email, were able to stop by and introduce themselves, and we had the pleasure of meeting them in person. We lunch, brunched and dined with new friends that live in Paris, and old barge neighbors and French friends passing through Paris came to stay at what we are now calling "Hotel Eclaircie".

One glorious Sunday, while we had our friends the chefs on board, we shopped for lunch at the Bastille market. Another San Francisco fireman and his wife were in town and lunch on the back deck was the plan.

Our guests arrived at 1pm and left at 8pm in proper French Sunday lunch style. They lived in Paris last year, so they already knew how to relax at the table.

The sky was clear blue, and the sun was warm. There were people out enjoying themselves in the park across from our back deck, music drifting down from the steets above, and more boats than usual cruising by our "table with a view". It was a beautiful day on our back deck, and the perfect end to our summer.

Summer Photos

Everyone leaves Paris in August - except us

Firemen come to the port to train

This guy came to the park on the other side of the port to do his laundry. He saw us taking his photo from our back deck, so he took one of us.

Second course of our Sunday Lunch

Velib, Paris'newest transportation system meant that we no longer have to carry our bikes off the boat and up 50 stairs to ride through the streets of Paris. We couldn't wait for our annual pass to arrive in the mail.

Now we hop on a bike more often than taking the metro.

There are so many things to do in Paris in the Summer, that we reluctantly left the port at the end of July for our required 3 week cruise.

We had an Elvis sighting along the Marne canal. The sister commmerical barge named "Graceland" passed us just before Elvis appeared.

April, May, June 2007

In Paris, last fall was summer, winter was fall, and spring was winter.

April announced itself with rain and cold winds, and after a two week heat wave at the end of the month, where everyone worried about global warming, the cold weather returned. People who live in Paris dug into the back of their closets to bring out their winter clothes, and the poor tourists had to layer everything that they had packed just to keep warm. The souvenir shops were selling more umbrellas and rain ponchos than T-shirts and sun hats. It was cold, it rained most of the time, and we felt sorry for the soaked and shivering tourists who, we imagine, had planned their trips picturing romantic strolls along the Seine under a blue sky with warm spring breezes.

In our old home port of Roanne, the constant rain kept everyone from finishing spring boat work, and many boats were still in Roanne when the rain caused a canal bank to collapse. The Canal Roanne à Digoin runs right next to its source, the Loire River, and a breach in the bank not far from Roanne dumped all of the water out of the canal and back into the Loire. The 18 kilometer stretch between locks lost some 500,000 cubic meters of water overnight, and the people in the port of Briennon and along the canal found their boats and their lives on tilt when the woke up the next morning sitting on the muddy bottom.

Friends in Roanne, being boaters who are used to changing plans at the drop of an Avis de Batellerie, just made a slight mental adjustment and started looking at their boats as homes. Instead of cruising along the canals, they are relaxing in Roanne, or taking other types of trips, and everyone seems quite content with the forced change of plans. It is funny to think of the question that boaters are frequently asked by friends who are thinking of visiting during the summer, "Where will you be in June (or July or August)? It just goes to prove that life on the canals is full of surprises, and surely no one in the port would have answered "Roanne" to that question a few months ago. Until the breach is repaired, the boats in the port of Roanne are not going anywhere. The word is that the canal is scheduled to reopened on the 15th of August.........on verra!

On May 8th, wearing our Gortex rain jackets and Gortex pants, très à la mode this spring in Paris, we went to the Champs-Elysées near the Arc de Triomphe to watch the annual parade to remember of the end of WWII in Europe.

We were not alone, news cameras were at our side. After the election, everyone was interested in seeing Jacques Chirac for the last time, and maybe even catching a glimpse of Nicholas Sarkozy.

Waiting for the parade to start, the soldiers spoke quietly, and the horse smiled.

The Republican Guard has their stables are on Boulevard Henry IV, near the port, and we love seeing the horses as they pass through our neighborhood on their way to special events.

The Republican Guard has a horseback band that is thrilling to see and to hear.

Jacques Chirac passed by in a black sedan with a police motorcycle escort. He waved goodbye to the crowd, and everyone tried to take his picture.

Some of the tourists staying at the Marriott on the Champs-Elysées must have all been out late the night before because they were still in their PJ's at 10am, and it looks as though they were wondering who was making all of that noise.

Paris creates one dazzling event after the other, and each one is more impressive than the last. The city leaders are very imaginative.

On May 13th, to celebrate the new world speed record of 574 kilometers per hour, set by the TGV that runs between Paris and Strasbourg, the SNCF, the French National Railway System, ran the train through the center of Paris, on the Seine River!

There were bands on all of the foot bridges that it passed under, and we went to see Jackie, our French teacher, whose band was playing on the Passerelle Solférino, near the Musée d'Orsay.

Just as we arrived on the bridge a dark cloud passed over and dumped buckets of rain on the band as they were in the middle playing a sunny little tune. A small crowed had gathered, and everyone scattered, eventually regrouping under the bridge. The music started up again after the band dried off their instruments, and blotted the water off of their sheet music, and after awhile, their happy music coaxed the sun out again.

Jackie's band, Afreybo, is made up of people, most of whom, work in the fields of medicine and science. They relax away from work by being playful with their music and their band uniforms, which are lab coats with self mocking cartoons drawn on the back. For this occasion they were also wearing caps celebrating the "SNCF World Record 2007".

To announce that spring was here, Paris transformed the plaza in front of the Hotel de Ville, where the skating rink had been during winter, into a whimsical garden.

When it started raining on market day, as it often did this spring, we found a comfortable place to wait out the storm at Le Baron Rouge. You can taste by the glass, or you can buy a bottle and a plate of cheeses and pâtés to share with friends while waiting for the rain to stop. In fact, with its ambiance bon enfant, this little wine bar is not only a warm refuge on a cold or rainy day, but also because of its stone walls, it is a cool hideout on hot days too. We know this because the first time that English friends from the port brought us here, it was one of those hot "summer" days that we had last fall.

On June 21, the longest day of the year, it was warm and although there were clouds in the sky, it didn't rain.

It was "La Fête de la Musique", and we walked from the Arc de Triomphe back to the Bastille, stopping to listen to different musicians along the way. Near the Louvre, we found some comfortable chairs near a fountain and we stayed for awhile to listen to the music and to watch the people strolling by, hand in hand, enjoying Paris on one of the best nights of the year.

Even if the seasons seem a bit out of sync, Paris is still a great place to be.