Bike like a Parisian

September 27, 2022

A ride around Hemingway's Haunts

This is our first day with plenty of time to wander the streets on our bikes. It's another cloudy cool morning, starting off in the 50s with scattered showers. Good enough, we're excited to get going.

Our apartment in the Latin Quarter is near the neighborhood where Ernest Hemingway and his ex-pat friends hung out in the 1920s. We plan to ride around the neighborhood and more on a speed-dating loop of the sights, with breaks for art and food.

Our first stop is the Tuesday morning market at Place Maubert up the street to pick up a heartier breakfast than the usual bowl of granola.

Fantasizing about Bouillabaisse at the seafood stand as I stroll the market with my pain au chocolat

After devouring our quiche and pastries, we head off east in the bike lane along the Seine.

One of the calmer stretches in the bike lane.

Now and then, we spy a few sleek modern towers amongst the 400-600 year old buildings

We cross the river and ride north and east for the Bois de Vincennes, a woodsy landscape a bit bigger than the Bois de Bologne on the west side of the city. The two parks are known as the "lungs of Paris." The Bois is a peaceful break from the hustle of the streets.

Pretty Lake Daumnesil in the Bois de Vincennes

A little more rain in the park but it's still great to be out on the bikes

West of the park we stop at the Palais de la Porte Dorée – the national museum of immigration history – to admire the bas-relief on the facade. The stone tapestry illustrates the contributions of the colonies to Paris.

Palais de la Porte Dorée, a monument to the contributions of immigrants

Across from the Palais, we pass a towering 5 meter high statue of Athena, an arresting sight.

At the Fontaine de la Porte-Dorée, Athena stands in gilded bronze with Nike — the goddess of victory — on her left hand

More visual distractions abound as we navigate the roundabout at the Place de la Bastille. No pictures here, just focusing on the road. Onward we pedal to the Place Des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris.

Gate to the 15th Century Place Des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris

At the Place Des Vosges, Louis XIII is portrayed as a Roman emperor. The statue was a replacement for another one commissioned by Catherine de Medici in 1560. It was melted down during the French Revolution to make cannons.

The rain is picking up as we pull into our single museum pick for the day, Le Musee National Picasso-Paris.

The special exhibition featuring Picasso's paintings of his daughter is lovely, especially the moving short film where she remembers times with her father.

It's always a relief to come back out and find the bikes where we locked them up.

There's a break in the rain so we ride south over the Seine back to the Latin Quarter for lunch. On the way we stop at 74 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, where Ernest Hemingway lived with his first wife Hadley in 1922-23 when he was a struggling young writer.

"Such was the Paris of our youth, when we were very poor and very happy"- Ernest Hemingway

From there its a short trip to Le Closerie des Lilas, Hemingway's favorite cafe, for a wonderful lunch. I even get a compliment on my French from our kind server. All those je voudrais, s'il vous plaits and merci beaucoups couldn't have hurt.

We're getting the hang of biking here. Bikes go almost anywhere in any direction. Drivers generally give you space and wait for you to cross the street. The biggest challenge is dodging other bikes.

The big streets have bike lanes, often separated from the car lanes. There are a lot of transitions at intersections, from on-street to off-street lanes and from the left to right or right to left sides of the street. Cobblestones frequently pave the smaller rues and squares. Our nimble Bike Fridays are helpful with all the maneuvering.

Streets that begin with Rue are quieter and more chill than the boulevards so we like to ride the rues when its practical to do so.

New vocab - Sauf/except. Don't drive up this Rue unless you're on a bike.

There's one more Hemingway sight a few blocks from our apartment - Shakespeare and Company bookstore where the owner Sylvia Beach lent the writer many books while he was honing his craft.

Quite a bit to pack into a 26k loop. You can't beat a bike for sightseeing.

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The evening is reserved for a special treat. Terry got us tickets to see Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Palais Garnier National Opera House. Makes a girl feel like Cinderella at the ball.

Today's ride: 26 km (16 miles)
Total: 214 km (133 miles)

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