Love is All

So my birthday itself - starting with a couple of cards and a present to open in the hotel. A new tee-shirt to wear today. We went round the corner for a Parisian breakfast in a cafe and then down to Republique again but this time headed in a different direction - up the Avenue de la Republique towards Pere Lachaise. Past a street corner cafe on the junction with Rue Oberkampf where a large group of us ate on the first weekend in Paris back in 2010. It is also the street that Pascal took the bus down on his way to school in the beautiful short film The Red Balloon. Once at the Pere Lachaise cemetery we first looked for a local florists where L bought a single white rose - A Rose For Chopin - that we took with us into the graveyard. As well as the famous composer, we also saw the graves of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde and visited the infamous Mur des Fédérés ("Communards' Wall") that I missed the last time. Up in the north east coner of the cemetery it is where 147 prisoners were shot at the end of the suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871, and a place of great symbolic significance to the left in France ever since. The whole of that corner of the cemetery is filled with memorials to the turmoil of twentieth century European history and the struggles between left and right and between the two great European powers - France and Germany. There are several dramatic sculptures to the victims of the Nazi death camps, as well as graves of others who fought against the Nazis - some who were executed at the time and others who survived the camps and lived on into old age. The brief Paris Commune came about after the humiliating French defeat at the hands of the Prussians, in the process of creating modern Germany. Arguably that defeat prompted the severe French terms in the 1918 Armistice at the end of World War I that gave Hitler the sense of German grievance he needed to exploit in the lead up to World War II. But the Commune was also about the fight between left and right within France. A battle the left lost, at least partly because of the strategic re-design of the city that had followed the 1848 uprisings - creating wide boulevards linked to the train stations allowing for the rapid deployment of troops brought from outside the city and restricting the opportunities for barricading narrow streets.
There have been changes in the cemetery since I was last there, most notably the glass screen that now protects Oscar Wilde's grave from graffiti and lipstick. Overall it is a fascinating place, peaceful and yet busy with tourists, congregating around certain memorials, taking their pictures before moving on.
We too moved on and walked down Rue de la Roquette towards the Bastille, stopping for a cafe lunch about halfway down the street. Further on it was back into familiar territory again, passing bars and cafes we had visited before. In the Place de la Bastille there was an event protesting against landmines, with a pyramid of old shoes. L and I both signed the petition and got a sticker. We made our way back onto the islands, walking along the north side of Ile St Louis this time and then onto Ile de la Cite. There were long queues to get in to Notre Dame but we just sat outside for a while looking at the spectacular front of the building and watching the people swirling around. Still reminding me of pigeons.
On to the Pont Neuf and briefly along the Rive Gauche before back across the river. There have been a lot more padlocks added to the Pont des Arts bridge since I was there three and a half years ago! Into the Louvre courtyards and then the Tuillerie Gardens and Place de la Concorde for a view up towards the Arc de Triomphe. We then turned back towards the hotel, stopping en route for a quick drink in a 'Scottish pub' where an English football game was on the big screens. We chose a cafe on the corner of Republique for our evening meal.
Another backblip from my 'special birthday' weekend.