Last peonies at the market

I love peonies. I love the big heavy bud as much as the flower. I thought the season was over as my flower man at the market hadn't had them for a few weeks so I pounced on these. I hope they last in this week of 30c temperatures. Maybe I should keep them in the fridge?

Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte

Chateau Vaux le Vicomte is one of our favourites. It is only 45min from Paris (if no traffic) and was the inspiration for Versailles.  The owner, Nicholas Fouquet, was a court financier and it is a little unclear if he was clear about court finances and his own.  Louis XIV was invited to stay after its completion and was extremely jealous of its magnificence. Fouquet was arrested and his estates were confiscated. He should never have used gold plates when Louis XIV only had silver.

Louis XIV employed the same trio for Versailles - the architect, Le Vau, the decorator, Le Brun and the landscape designer, Le Notre. The perspective of the gardens is incredible. From the end of the gardens looking back to the chateau it seems as if the two lower, side wings of the chateau are attached. They are actually stables which are behind the chateau. There are hidden basins and fountains and the chateau is surrounded by a moat.

The children love to visit as you can hire children's period costumes to wear while inside the chateau. You can also hire golf buggies to wizz around the gardens. Click here to go the Chateau le Vaux Vicomte website - there is a great clip of an aerial view over the chateau and wonderful photos.

I must admit that I have flown over the chateau in a helicopter. A long time ago we were treated to a weekend away involving a surprise helicopter trip. We were flying back to Paris (the pilot had a road map and we were following the highway) and he radioed in to get permission to swoop over. Magnificent.

http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/

18 Juin 1940

Today is the 70 year anniversary of General de Gaulle's speech calling the French to fight back after German occupation. The speech was made from London to the French via the BBC. You can read the speech in English here. There is more background to the speech here in the Guardian article about great speeches of the 20th century. I didn't realise that De Gaulle had literally just fled France and arrived in London one day before. 

I passed this little ceremony at Place 18 Juin 1940 (you can see the name in the centre of the photo if you have amazing eyesight) by chance this morning. The mayor of the 6th arondissement is the man wearing a sash. It was rather moving when everyone sang the national anthem, La Marseillaise. There were only about 100 people present.  I couldn't get any further back to take the photo as I was already standing on the road - but somehow I felt slightly safe as there were so many police with guns around.

It only struck me today that whoever was living in our apartment in 1940 was under Nazi occuption.

Slightly dangerous?

Note in the above photograph that there are 3 little men signalling when you can cross the street.

Note that there is a red man on the far right and a red man on the far left and man in the middle is green.

I am not sure that it is clear from the photograph but the little man that is green is actually for the part of the road that is furtherest away. The two red signals are for the two interior lanes of the road which are the BUS LANES. 

The Boulevard Montparnasse is now divided like this

Lane 1 (furtherest lane) - normal traffic flowing west (he with the green light)

Lane 2 BUS LANE travelling west (he with the red light)

Lane 3 BUS LANE travelling east (also with red light)

Lane 4 normal traffic flowing east (light must have been green as I am already standing at the bus lane bit)

Do you know how easy it is to look at the furtherest little green man and see he is green and then step out into the traffic - and then get hit by a bus?!!!!

Green Paris

I took this photo from Pont Marie when walking home after lunch in the Marais. Paris is grey for so much of the year. Even the Seine looked green last week.