Because we are in Paris for eight weeks we don't need to cram all of the museums, galleries and interesting places we want to visit into a few short days. So we spend quite a bit of time criss-crossing our local area - walking to the bus or train, walking to the big supermarket or to one of the many small ones, walking to the knife shop or to the wine store. So I thought I would try to describe where we are.
Firstly, we are on the right bank of the Seine, or the north bank. Also on the right bank are the Louvre, Tuileries, Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe, Bastille, Marais, Montmartre, Père Lachaise and Opera Garnier.
Inside the ring road, called the Boulevard Périphérique and marked in red on the map, there are 20 arrondissements, or neighbourhoods. We are in the first arrondissement, Arr. 1, which is the geographic centre of Paris.
The light grey area north of the river and including all of the Louvre and Tuileries is Arr.1. There are three main east-west roads. Firstly, the quais that run along the river and are very busy. Secondly, rue de Rivoli also incredibly busy and thirdly the delightful, meandering rue Saint Honoré, one way, busy in parts with loads of famous shops.
Our street, rue des Halles forms the end of rue Saint Honore where it turns south and dribbles into rue de Rivoli.
You can find us easily on Google maps by searching 22 rue des Halles. You'll see our yellowy coloured wooden entrance door and the shops below us on the street. Choose street view from the box on the lower right. Adjust the street view upwards and we are on the fourth floor, partly facing the street and partly facing the square. In the photo above, those are our five windows (front and left) that are open.
In 2008 (the view you see on Google maps) the square was a big, open square with us on one side and the Novatel hotel on the other. In 2015 it is a building site with a gigantic reinforced five-level concrete hole under the Novatel and lots of cracks in everyone's walls. In 2016 it will be a beautiful square again, with escalators in that hole that will lead to the underground shopping city of Les Halles and the metro and RER stations.
Our building owner has been assured by the construction company that all cracks will be fixed.
Directly opposite us is the building where we stayed on our last trip to Paris, in 2013. Our apartment was level 3 with four windows including the wide balcony. Lapeyre on street level is a shop that sells kitchens.
Also opposite, on the street corner is Gladines Restaurant, chock-a-block for 12 hours per day, six days per week.
Further along rue des Halles on our left, opposite Gladines is Mr et Mme Dheilly, Artisan Boulanger. Good bread but disappointing cakes.
For good cakes and reasonable bread, one needs to walk along rue St Honore, almost to rue de Louvre, sounds a long way but it is only 400m, to Gosselin, Boulangerie et Patisserie. That's Paul buying a mille-fueille with fresh raspberries for me and a La Religieuse (a fat nun) for himself.
Back on rue des Halles ....... next to the bread shop, and behind the motor cycles, is a green shop called Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles.
But we just call it 'the rat shop'. Yes! those are rats hanging there.
It must have a hundred rats of various shapes and sizes in the window, together with almost as many methods of catching them.
Looking to the right from our windows we find the local drug sellers, operating from the shop on the right of the Beirut Cafe. They are open twice per day for about 3 hours each time and have people queuing to get in. No-one stays longer than a minute or two, and no-one leaves with anything in their hands.
To see the other local sights we need to go for a walk.
Two shops up from the drug dealer is this gorgeous shoe shop specialising in brightly coloured suede. I am so tempted.
Then its under the colonnade and into the ancient heart of Les Halles - the original market of Paris - to Fontaine des Innocents. It has been here since 1550.
Walking passed the Fontaine des Innocents on our left is the gigantic wavy roof going up over the new shopping centre. This is only the upper level, there are about five or six levels of massive underground complexes below ground.
Once past the big chain stores like NifNaff and Sephora, that border Les Halles, the shops become more bespoke, like the American boot store - El Paso Booty.
Or the military grunge store. Fancy a new band jacket, Adam?
Or maybe some ordinary grunge.
Or some snappy black dude gear.
Here's the local plumber in his very classy shop front, with much welding going on inside.
And this is Bunnings. It is enormous, over three levels looking for all the world like Ikea. It includes a garden section and a workbench area with tools available in case you don't have a drill or hammer of your own. No BBQ happening out the front though.
Bunnings was originally Passage de l' Horloge or the Passage of the Clocks and would have looked just like this one very nearby.
Despite much of Les Halles being pedestrian, should you overstay your parking time, this is your fate. Because your car was not impeding traffic flow, it is not towed away - it stays here until you pay the fine and wait for it to be unclamped. If you were illegally parked, you may well come back to find no car at all. We have seen people running down the road after their car that is being towed away.
If you were on the fourth floor like us, and wanted to move house eveything would have to come down this ladder in that metal box - fridge, wardrobes, piano, bed, washer, TV, settees, dining table, pot plants and boxes. They take nothing loose, everything is in boxes. Fascinating especially for the big heavy items. My heart is in my mouth.
And what else but a traditional French restaurant called L'Escargot, on the border of Arr. 1 in the beautiful Montorgueil area. Can you see the golden snail sitting atop the name?
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