Seine-Saint-Denis

Saturday night was a late night - battling French Swifties for seats on the midnight Metro is not the sort of thing that gets you to sleep early.

Breakfast (good) in the basement (not so good) around 8:30, then some reading and planning and we set off on another quasi-Agnes exploration day around 10.

We walked south-west to the Luxembourg Gardens, meaning we had to cross Rue de l’Odeon. The gardens were exactly what might have been pictured in the school texts 50 years ago. We strolled around under the trees as joggers slogged by, then went mainly west though quiet, unspoilt streets to 2 Rue Brea. It is a nothing building now with neither plaque nor historical interest, but in the 1920s and 1930s it was the shop where all Parisian artists bought paint, canvas and other materials. Agnes bought things there, too, because the shop's sticker is still on the back of one of her paintings from 1925. Marc Chagall had his studio just minutes away.

From there we went north east for about an hour and a half, through the universally ugly blob of a train station at Montparnasse and the bland, modern tower that seems to blight many Parisian street scenes, then around the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where we saw the balcony on which we stood last night. From there we went past the half-built Olympic stands, over the Seine and up to the 16th district and 7 Rue Eugene Manuel, (nearly) where Agnes died in 1939.

In many ways Rue Eugene Manuel was like Rue de l'Odeon: short, narrowish, blocks of 5-storey buildings on both sides and character-full. Agnes died in "7 bis Rue Eugene Manuel" (like 7A) in August 1939, three weeks before the start of WW2. 7 bis was behind 7, and was (at least from 1947) a hospital, but was then pulled down in the 1990s and replaced by an apartment block. We had to assume it had looked a little like 7, and we know it was tucked in behind No 9, so we were in the right spot, regardless of which buildings stood there. The fact that the building was later a hospital might also explain whey her last days were spent there, away from the avante-garde hotspot of Rue de l"Odeon.

From Rue Eugene Emanuel we walked back to the Eiffel Tower area and Trocadero Gardens, then on up to the Champs Elysees, did some Sunday shopping, then back along the CE to the river and to the hotel. There was a minor revolt when I stopped at a florist and Anne said (rather tersely) that buying flowers lacked logic as they would be crushed when packed next morning for traveling (or words to that effect) but I had been commissioned by Alistair to buy her a flower for Mothers Day. All forgiven once explained.

The forecast said that it would rain from 3pm, but at 3pm the midday clouds had lifted... although at 4:15 there was thunder and lightning and some pretty heavy showers. By then we were back in our room and planning an early dinner ahead of a 6am departure to catch a 7:15am train to Bamberg in Bavaria.

We walked out and turned right then right to find s place for dinner. The streets were mostly restaurant-less, but then we found a few cross- streets tucked behind the Pantheon that were full of Sorbonne students, cafes, and restaurants.

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