Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) was a holocaust survivor who spent many years working in Paris. He was a journalist, an author and a human rights champion who, among other things, won the Nobel Peace Prize (1986). He was quite an amazing man, who has a park named after him in the Marais. We visited today on a walking tour of our favourite Paris area.
Long before Elie was born, in the 13th century, the park was the site of a Knights Templar massacre when the Catholics decided they were a bunch of heretics. The park was called Square du Temple before having Elie’s name added. These days, it is called Square du Temple – Elie Wiesel.
The park is just across the road from the Market of the Red Children, so named because of a nearby orphanage where the children wore red clothes. The market, Marché des Enfants Rouges, is the oldest covered market in Paris, having originally been established, in The Marais, in 1628. It is still a very popular market with many stalls of fresh produce as well as places to buy prepared food.
We originally visited the market back in 2018, but entered from the other side. Today we walked by the back entrance.
I expect that Mr Wiesel visited the market regularly while he lived in The Marais. We didn’t visit the market today. In fact we didn’t visit anything before enjoying a long, leisurely lay in with tea, coffee and the World Service (for me, anyway).
And, of course, before heading out, I had to check that Mirinda was pleased with our accommodation. She’d slept very well and the lack of windows hadn’t bothered her. So, it seems we are staying here, after all.
The apartment is actually really nice. Oddly, there are two toilets, next to each other, which is peculiar and the only way to access the WiFi information is by using a QR Code which only works if you have a signal. Actually, I wonder why it wouldn’t have been easier to just write the password down on a piece of paper. Also, the TV remote doesn’t have enough buttons on it. It, oddly, has a bar for the volume control which you have to hook a nail on rather than just press. Very user unfriendly; very unlike Samsung.
Which leads me on to the possibly, biggest, problem with the apartment: it is all too reliant on technology. As I often say, just because you can do something, does not mean you should. Still, the shower is very good.
All of that, however, melted away as we headed out to greet the day. Well, what was left of it. After the hefty sleep in, we didn’t actually get outside until gone 11am. And we didn’t get far because we discovered that we are staying in a very self-sufficient street. Our first stop was the Wild and the Moon café across the road for coffee and some hippy breakfast.
Mirinda had a drink called hollyweed which, among various other natural ingredients, contains cannabis oil. The drink is supposed to chill you out. I think it worked because she remained pretty chill and her sense of direction appeared to have returned. It’s also important to note that the small bottle is not made of plastic. It is 100% compostable.
Wild and the Moon started in 2016 and has branches all over Paris. Well worth visiting for a coffee or organic pick-me-up.
But, back to the return of her navigation skills, Mirinda successfully guided us to the Temple/Wiesel park then to the archives where we had a romantic stroll around the decidedly not exactly romantic garden following a drink at the nearby Le Comptoir des Archives.
It was in this bar/café, enjoying a beer, where I demonstrated my great skill at language.
A young, English woman had walked into the café and asked the guy serving for something that sounded a lot like tea. He asked her if she wanted mint or Earl Grey. She then said, barely audibly, that she wanted to eat. He looked completely confused by this, partly, I assume, because he couldn’t hear her. I realised the problem and jumped to everyone’s aid and said “Manger.” This, he immediately understood and showed her through to the eating section.
I was a bit surprised she didn’t thank me but, she was probably too timid. Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself and the staff, obviously, started speaking to me in French. This was not the only time this happened today. At a bar we popped into on the way home, where Mirinda had a strange concoction, the waiter asked (in French) what she thought of it. I replied “Tres bon, oui, tres, tres bon!” That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s important to realise that I actually understood what he was asking me.
Then, during dinner, at the marvellous L’Etoile Berbère, Moroccan restaurant, the waiter thought we were from Quebec, which I attributed to my unusual French. Incidentally, the restaurant was excellent. The chicken tagine and sweet couscous was perfect and the little sweet cakes a delight. A beautifully out of the way, cosy and happy place.
However, the best thing we did today was a visit to the Museum of Illusions, an amazing place where things are not always what they seem. I thoroughly recommend it for an hour of delight. There were an awful lot of squeals while we were there, and not all of them were from us.
My favourite illusion was the same as one we saw used when we attended the Alice in Wonderland performance at the Vaults at Waterloo a few years ago. One person stands in one corner of a room while another stands in the other corner. One looks very small and the other very tall. Then the two change corners and the sizes change as they pass across the end of the room. It’s very freaky.
Mind you, the freakiest one was the Vortex Tunnel which had everyone feeling like they were falling over.
All round good fun, particularly when I managed a handstand on a convenient bench.
