Chris (in Paris), his wife Joelle and I decided to go shopping yesterday at the street market at the Rue Daguerre. It's in the 14th arrondissement, near Metro Denfert-Rochereau. (We walk there from Chris' place via the Cimitiere Montparnasse, a neat above-the-ground cemetery, where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, among others, are buried). This is a market I used to frequent when I studied in Paris 25 years ago (25 years, ugh) - I lived around the corner. On the map above, I've marked the street market with a nice long yellow tint. The arrow at the end of the market is the bakery that I talk about below (and the cafe I talk about is right next to the bakery).
Here's the meatshop on the Rue Daguerre.
The street market at Rue Daguerre is only open until 1pm, though open most days (maybe closed Mondays). Here's a quick video of the market yesterday.
Chris likes to go to a great, very typical, cafe at the end of Rue Daguerre, at the intersection with avenue du General Leclerc, right on the NW corner. Chris and Joelle ordered "cafe" - i.e., strong black coffee - and I got my usual, a "creme" (a cafe-au-lait, though in Paris they're called cremes). Total for 3 coffees: 5 euros (should be 5 bucks, but with the screwed up exchange rate it's more like 7 now).
Here's a quick video of the cafe, with cameos by Chris and Joelle (Joelle was reading about the Rugby World Cup taking place in Paris at the moment - more on that shortly).
And finally, a woman sitting outside the cafe, as shot from the inside window.
Next we went to an organic bakery right off the Rue Daguerre. It's called, Moisan, and it's at 4, avenue du General Leclerc. They have great bread and pastries. Chris had us buy a "kouign amann" - pronounced "KOON-ya-man." Kind of a sweetened roll, from Brittany. Excellent. Here's a close-up of the kouign amman, with a row of palmiers in the middle.
Here's the bakery window.
And again, a quick video entering the bakery. Check out the bustle.
A closer look at the baked goods available in the bakery. It's funny, you probably can't hear it on the video, but the entire scene was one big "bonjour, bonjour, bonjour" as they served the never-ending swarm of customers.
And finally, rugby. It's the world cup of rugby here this month and the town is insane. The only sport I understand less about than soccer is rugby. Lots of ads all over town, and oh, they're the kind of ads that the French do so well.
