TOURISTS looking for old Paris charm and a taste of La Vie en Rose should head to Belleville, a largely overlooked part of the city and the birthplace of Edith Piaf.Only five Metro stops from town hall, Belleville has retained much of its working-class identity and bubbles with concert halls, theatres and bars.Add waves of immigrants and young creative types out drinking, eating and carousing, and you get a funky atmosphere similar to New York’s East Village.It offers much for the visitor, not least a panoramic view over Paris that rivals Montmartre, and is free of peddlers and hawkers.Yet few tourists stray farther than Pere Lachaise cemetery, burial place for celebrities including Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison and Piaf.Even the success of La Vie en Rose, which won actor Marion Cotillard a best actress Academy Award and rekindled interest in Piaf, isn’t drawing the masses to the area.”It’s an area that hasn’t yet been discovered by tourists,” said Sophie Millot, a culture official from Paris’ 20th arrondissement, or district, on the east side of the city.”At the moment, it’s Parisians who are starting to explore.”Belleville has suffered from a bad reputation, cemented by the 1952 film Casque d’Or (Golden Helmet), inspired by the true story of rival bands of Belleville thugs.
Category Archives: France
When Picasso, the great 20th century artist, died in 1973, his vast private collection of works was donated to by his family, largely in lieu of massive inheritance tax bills. This museum was subsequently created by the state in his memory.An overwhelming collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings and ceramics created by the artist is on display in this renovated 17th-century mansion, the Hotel Sale, in the heart of historic Paris. The museum tells the story of how Picasso, who was born in 1881 and began studying art some 14 years later, learned and developed his skills. The choice of the elegant Hotel Sale as the location for the museum, considered to be one of the finest houses in the Marais, was the subject of some debate after a competition was held to find a suitable place to display Picasso’s modernistic work. Roland Simounet’s inspired combination of the elegant interior of the building with modern display techniques emerged the winner. The mansion has since been restored by Bernard Vitry and Bernard Fonquernie of the Monuments Historiques organisation between 1974 and 1980, and again in 1985.The museum contains documents and photographs relating to Picasso’s life, in addition to his own artistic output, and private collection. Picasso favoured contemporaries such as the post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse, whose paintings he bought to add to his collection. Matisse also owned works by Degas, Rousseau, Seurat and de Chirico. A second-floor area houses temporary exhibitions and there is a library on the third floor. This a fascinating stop on any art lover’s sightseeing agenda.
PARIS takes on a French Riviera feel as a 3km stretch of the banks of the river Seine has been turned into a palm-lined sandy beach.
The usually busy roads lining the river in central Paris have been closed to traffic until August 21 and redecorated with sand, grassy areas, deck chairs, hammocks and palm trees.
The annual “Paris Plage” initiative, begun in 2002 and since copied by Berlin, Rome and other European cities, has proved hugely popular with locals and visitors alike, with up to four million people soaking up the sun every year or attending the many free concerts, sports and other activities.
Paris’s Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe set up Paris Plage as part of what he called a “new era” to reclaim the city for its people. The summer beach – and a hugely popular bike rental scheme – helped get him reelected in March.
This year’s beach fest kicks off officially with an orchestra and 120 singers outside Paris city hall performing Beethoven’s ninth symphony, part of which – the Ode to Joy – is the anthem of the European Union.
France on July 1 took over the rotating EU presidency.
The concert will be followed by a giant evening picnic along the whole length of the artificial beach.
Another feature of the 2008 edition is the upgrading of a one-kilometre stretch of the temporary beach along the Canal Saint-Martin in northern Paris to include activities such as canoeing, rowing, sailing, and ballroom dancing.
Four tonnes of sand – twice as much as last year – have been used this year along the Seine and the canal, officials said, adding that the total cost of the summer beach was €2 million euros ($3.26 million).
Paris Plage’s debut in 2001 met with scepticism, laughed off as yet another gimmick by Delanoe.
Co-opting a riverside road for the duration would disrupt traffic, critics said, and why waste money dumping tonnes of sand and moving giant palms to remind people stuck in the city they would rather be strolling down the Promenade des Anglais in the posh Riviera resort of Nice.
But most tongues have been quieted by the millions of visitors to the site every year, plus a spin-off industry of Paris Plage products and the fact that other cities have followed suit.
Several suburbs around Paris, many with immigrant and lower-income residents who cannot afford to take holidays, have set up their own smaller versions of Paris Plage, as have some regional French cities.
And the trend has also spread to Brussels, Prague, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome and Budapest among other cities.
Birthday of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, an 