On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Welcome MollyS, another first submission! I absolutely love these photos of Paris life. Seeing these photos makes me want to go to Paris and never leave. I could feel my breathing slow and a calm came over me. (Except for the last photo – as far as i’m concerned, they can send those modern apartments back where they came from.) ~WaterGirl
MollyS
I’m sure you have received many pictures of the Paris we recognize from movies and news stories. I’m sending pictures of Paris where many of the 2 million-plus Parisians live and where I’ve been visiting regularly for 8 years. My daughter spent several summers and a few semesters in Paris while working on her PhD in French literature. She met and married a terrific young Frenchman and they now live in the Seventeenth Arrondissement, north of the world-famous attractions along the Seine. The 17th is filled with excellent shops, markets, restaurants, and small parks that very few tourists venture up to see.
Paris has 421 municipal parks and gardens within its 40.7 square miles. (London, in contrast, is 600 square miles.) Le square des Batignolles, at 4 acres, is the largest green space in the 17th arrondissement.
Le marché biologique des Batignolles is an outdoor organic market, held every Saturday at the boulevard des Batignolles. The vendors are certified organic farmers.
Les artichauts… artichokes, along with radishes, scallions, and beets at le marché des Batignolles.
Christmas tree shopping, rue de Lévis. You select your tree, then if you don’t have a car (and most don’t) or a friend with a car, you tote your tree back to your apartment.
My daughter and son-in-law’s favorite local restaurant, Le Perroquet Vert, on rue Cavallotti. The nightly menu is written on the blackboard which is taken to each table and placed on a chair for the diners to make their selections. Every meal I’ve had there has been superb!
Montmartre, in the 18th, is a 15-minute walk up the hill from the 17th. This staircase is at rue Paul Albert, one of several sets of stairs leading to the hilltop and la Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. The climb up to the basilica is steep but once you’re at the top, you have all of Paris beneath you.
Old-style Paris apartments, on rue Armand Gauthier, traditional limestone buildings with wrought-iron balconies. The motorcycles are everywhere because if you’re not walking or on the Metro, you’re on a bike.
New-style Parisian apartments, on rue Mére Teresa. The building is in the Clichy-Batignolles urban development zone, which includes the new Tribunal de Paris, a 21st-century courthouse-complex. The complex provides offices and courts in addition to those in the Palais de Justice on the íle de la Cité.
Lapassionara
Thank you for sending these photos. They are so lovely.
Yutsano
Paging Suzanne! Suzanne please come to the white courtesy phone for an important message. Ms Suzanne!
I might have to throw the name of that restaurant at my folks. And hope they’re not serving all seafood that night. Stupid allergies.
lashonharangue
Great photos. I took an almost identical one of the staircase on the Rue Paul Albert. Must be a pretty common reaction to the view.
arrieve
Wonderful pictures of a part of Paris I haven’t seen much of. Thank you!
Auntie Anne
These are lovely! I adore the park and organic vegetable market pictures. You’re right – this is the Paris we tourists don’t get to see.
Wag
Alright. I’m hungry now. Let’s all go to Paris and eat beautiful organic veggies!
beautiful!
Mary G
@Wag: I want a Scotty to beam me up and drop me into that farmer’s market RIGHT NOW.
Benw
Quick request: please stop torturing us with Paris pics :)
VeniceRiley
I’M GOING TO MAKE MY WIFE TAKE ME THERE
stinger
Ahhhh. Yes, I love seeing pics of the non-touristy parts of Paris. Not that I mind seeing pics of the touristy parts!
Thanks for these, MollyS!
jl
Thanks for beautiful pix. My day is now de-sucked.
trollhattan
Two months late, my annual reconnection with La Belle France in the form of Le Tour has begun. I don’t care if you love or have no tolerance for/interest in cycling, to watch the mesmerizing landscape and villages and castles and cathedrals and Roman ruins roll past for three weeks is to fall madly in love with the joint. From Calais to the Pyrenees, the beauty, history and climate and geographic diversity are utterly compelling. Plus Phil Liggett at no extra charge and the world’s best athletes (fight me).
Coverage in the States. Two viewing options: real time complete stages very early in the day (some take five hours) or a rollup summary broadcast in the evening. See you in Paris.
TomatoQueen
Paris! If I could live in a closet in one of those flats on say maybe the 6th floor, with just a tiny corner of the view, I would be quiet and not tell anyone. (Not the modern block, do modern designers wander around the city with their eyes closed?)
randy khan
I would go to Sacré-Coeur just for the opportunity to take the funicular. Much more fun than the stairs.
The whole chalkboard menu thing always seems distinctively Parisian to me (although I suspect it’s not really).
Kristine
Someday, I want to visit a French farmers’ market. I need to plan that trip because damn, not getting any younger.
IOW, loved the photos.
J R in WV
Thanks for the photos! Now I know what we need to do in Paris when we next get to go there!
mrmoshpotato
These are clearly photos from MollyS-who-commanded-the-Sun because even after dark, the lighting is very good. ?
Thanks for the pictures, MollyS!
eclare
Wonderful pictures, especially the farmers’ market!
TomatoQueen
@trollhattan: I like the live broadcast but damn those people get up early. NBCSportsGold is charging some absurd sum for the all-singing all-dancing no-ads pass so I’m hoping for replays. Especially of the two Percheron-sized hosses on the Brittany coast from two years ago, galloping about as fast as they could cos the drone was making them crazy–well I don’t want that to happen again but it was nice to see two magnificent animals contrasted with the best athletes on the planet (won’t fight you there).
Omnes Omnibus
Cool to see some less common sights and sites.
Jack Canuck
@trollhattan: It’s a late night viewing experience down here in Melbourne. SBS is broadcasting complete stages, starting around 8:30 or so at night and running on until 1-2am. Sadly, I just can’t be there for the finishes these days – need my sleep, and I’ve got to go work (well, my front room at the moment, but still…). I’m just hoping it doesn’t get shut down due to an outbreak, France doesn’t seem to be doing that well at the moment. Fingers crossed, because I really missed in in July. It’s a great bit of escapism from the restrictions we’re under here at the moment.
Yutsano
@VeniceRiley: Paris Balloon Juice meet up? Although I’m flying into Frankfurt since Lufthansa still uses the 747. And I need me one more ride on the Queen of the Skies before they all retire.
Major Major Major Major
That last building is sweet.
donatellonerd
lovely pictures. markets are among my favorite places in Paris (and what i missed most during the lockdown). the leeks and artichokes are particularly tempting. and that is among the nicest modern apartment buildings I’ve seen here (my husband refers to most of them as rabbit hutches).
There go two miscreants
Very nice! The pictures of the market brought back memories.
MollyS
There were usually three entries when we ate there … two meat and one fish. And the desserts … le sigh …@Yutsano:
WaterGirl
@MollyS: You left the m off of .com, so your email address was new, I fixed and released here, but you will want to fix it on your next comment.