Not the 6th

When we lived in Paris, we lived on the Left Bank in the 6th arrondisement. Paris divides into 20 different sections, arrondisements, and we fell in love with ours. When we're back in Paris, we make our pilgrimage to the street where we lived. Of course, we had to take Charlie this summer.

We used to know an Englishman with a passion for a jazz club in Chelsea called the 606. In his mind, no food was as good, no club as exciting. He often muttered after tasting a bite of food or looking around a place, "It's not the 6." Jeff and I have, only half-mockingly adapted this phrase in comparing other places to our former abode.

A couple of weeks ago, we were in Paris and we didn't visit the 6th. We didn't even step foot on our preferred Left Bank. We'll correct this anomaly when we're back in December with JL, DR & GRLs....but it made me realize that we no longer own any part of Paris. [We never actually "owned" our apartment, but it surely belonged to us for a time.]

This is sad, but it gives us freedom to explore other parts of the city, something we didn't do as often as we might have done when we lived there. After all, they're not the 6th.

On our recent trip, we spent a fair amount of time in the 11th & 12th arrondisements. The Place de la Bastille, the grand square that's actually a noisy, chaotic traffic circle, is part of both districts. As the name suggests, this was the site of the prison fortress that protestors stormed in their violent search for firepower at the start of the French Revolution. Today a tall monument commemorating a later revolution, the July Revolution of 1830, presides over the occasional rallies and demonstrations and continuous barrage of traffic.

The bubble-wrapped, determinedly modern opera house, developed by President Mitterand to bring classical music to the masses, hulks behind the July Column.

Despite the noble intentions, the Place exudes something seedy along with the exhaust. (Definitely not the 6th.)

That didn't stop Luke and Roy from enjoying a tattered strip of carnival and arcade games all decked out for Christmas. Or the locals and tourists who swarm the Marche de la Bastille that occupies the Blvd. Richard Lenoir every Sunday.

Luke's photos capture the color and vibrancy of the market better than my words could.

Blvd. Richard Lenoir is built over the Canal St. Martin, a waterway forged through the city in the early 1800s, on order of Napoleon Bonaparte, to bring water to the masses. [Maslow would appreciate the shift in priorities for the masses from water to opera.] The canal totals 4.5 km in length, 2 km of which runs underground. You can take a boat ride down the canal that includes a plunge into the tunnel under the Place and the marche. We opted to walk along the wide, tree-lined boulevards built over the canal with Louise & Phil and girls who came to join us for the weekend.

Our route took us through a large swath of the 11th, past parks and playgrounds, until we reached the locks of the canal where we watched a boat emerge and rise up from the pressure and energy of the water rushing into the confined area.

Across the way in the 12th arrondisement, we witnessed a sensational rise of another kind at

the quarterfinals of an ATP tennis tournament. First we watched Roger Federer coolly dispatch his opponent, but the real show began when Paris' own Gael Monfils took the stage to battle Andy Murray. The crowd banged steel drums, chanted and even performed an awkward rendition of The Wave to show support for Monfils who responded with leaps, twirls, dynamic, and incidentally winning, tennis. His posse, a group of young men and women dressed for the club scene, led the charge. [Lucky Luke happened to be in the right place for autographs from both players.]

Roger Federer is already a tennis legend, but the tennis world has discovered an emerging superstar in Monfils. And we've discovered an entirely new Paris. Not the 6th, but that's not all bad.