Partager Paris - Vendanges des Montmarte

A celebration that has been held every year since 1934 to celebrate the harvesting of the grapes at the foot of Montmarte.

Our Photo Meet-up group courageously cheered the parade along as it wound its way around the petits rues of Montmarte.  Although it was a bit cloudy and rain visited us a few times, the day was kept bright and shiny with the help of the Island dancers, drummers, and the sips of delicious wine along the way!

It is held every year, usually the first weekend of October, so make you plans now!  Keep a check on next year’s agenda and come and join in the fun! 

www.fetedesvendangesdemontmartre.com

PPxx

Partager Jardin des Plantes's Secret Spots .....

The Jardin des Plantes, also known as the Medicinal Garden of the King, located in the 5th arrondissement,  is a well-known place, well trod by the gens who live nearby.  It is the main botanical garden in France, covering 24 hectares, 235,000 square meters, or easier for some of us to grasp ... 69 acres.  In 1626, Louis XIII was confronted by botanist and king’s doctor Jean Hérouard, for the need of a garden for medicines and research.  It was then open to the public in 1640.  

Les Grandes Serres

I have been there many times, but it wasn’t until mon amie asked if I had ever visited the Alpine Garden and other “secret” corners of this famous place ...  that I realized I had only skimmed the surface of flowers to admire and the caché places to be found here.  

Our visit was to begin with the newly reopended Les Grandes Serres, or HotHouses (more to come ...), we headed in their direction.  After circling the gardens for the entrance to the green houses, we find they are closed on Tuesdays!   A quick decision was made to continue our day there, visiting the "hidden" areas of the garden that mon amie had promised me. We headed in search of the  Alpine Jardin.  What a wonderful surprise of over 3,000 different species of world-wide mountain plantes and flowers (from the Alpes, Pyrénées, Corsica, Balkans, Maroc, and Himolayans) hidden between the zoo and greenhouses ...  AND, Personne, no one, was there!  just us!  The gardens have small paths which circle aound, up and down, just like you are doing a bit of mountain hiking in the middle of Paris!  I felt like yodeling just a little, but I was afraid I would scare the deers seen peaking thru the fence ...

The Alpin Garden can be visited every day, but a TIP ... if you go during the week you can enter free of charge!  If you happen to visit on the weekend, look for the ticket booth for the Hothouses.  You can buy your tickets there.

The Alpine Garden will be closed at the end of October,so take some time to visit now!

One of the secret places in Paris!  

More secret places to come ....  PPxx

Partager Life

ELEGIAC :   Relating to the mourning or remembering of the dead, expressing sorrow.

I’m pretty sure that everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001.

The moment is sealed into your memory,  into a place that can be recalled in a single heartbeat.  I can still feel, see and smell the moment.  I was in Hull, England, whiling the day away.   Turning the corner, a bright light caught my eye as I  passed an electronics store on one of the small streets,  witnessing the blast and then the Towers going down.  Smoke.... Smoke, the flurry of all that were near.   Surely this is the latest movie trailer, I thought ... but the coverage was too real for that; my fears were mounting.   After several minutes of staring, watching the same scene over and over ... I realized this has happened, this HAS really happened.  No movie, no wild, sick imagination from some Hollywood somebody trying to top the latest disaster film.  C’est absolument vrai.  


So far in my life, I have been fortunate to have never felt the lag of time that occurs when disaster envelopes you.  I was suspended in that repeated scene, not knowing what to do.  I was far from home, and seeing disaster around every corner.   I blanked as to my next move.  

Then the thoughts of those;  those thousands , millions of people whose lives would never be the same after those few moments .... after this massive intrusion upon US soils, the workplaces, the vie quotidian, the future thoughts, the futures that would never be ...  The sadness, the fury, the disbelief, the nausea that jumped upon us all as New York, the emblem city, had been ravaged by who and why?   How can anyone begin to know how to handle this?

We are required to move on, to make tragedies a new start, yet, all the while, remembering that this did happen, and that our lives should reflect our tragedies as well as our best moments.   May our best moments take hold of our lives.

Today is an elegiac day.   

PPxx