A Day in the Park

We had heard that a day along Canal Saint Martin and Parc de la Villette would be a fun filled day of watching hundreds (Maybe Thousands) of French people frolic in the park. As it turns out only some of that is true. We'll start at the end. . . In the Parc (Park). It was gigantic, but unlike the travel writers had promised there was hardly anyone there. Now, when one sets out to go people watching it requires lots and lots of people. The day was glorious, the weather calm and dry and partly sunny and church was out (Actually that makes no difference as the French don't go to church.) still no one showed up. We high tailed it to the nearest Metro and made for Place de la Republique. Now this what we are looking for. . . .dozens of nationalities,(Mostly getting along) hundreds (Maybe Thousands) of people and the required demonstration going on just to keep things interesting. This one had the Jews and the Palestinians going at it right in the center of the square. No, not real fighting, of course, but lots of yelling and name calling, etc. It was delightful. Other than that it was spectacular: Kids on skateboards, families with babies, families with Grandma and of course the young people setting under trees groping each other. All in all a fine day in the park. 

But back to the walk along Canal Saint Martin. Along the way we encountered a wild and crazy street market that topped them all for variety, freshness, rowdiness and ethnicity. Once again, mostly they are all getting along , but it is loud, rowdy, dirty and crowded. We waded in just to see if we could survive the onslaught of the senses (Smells, yelling, odors, noise, shoving, pushing and gesticulating) Now, normally we buy lots of stuff at these markets, but this time we considered ourselves lucky to just come back out the other end. We did. We're having a great time! I'll try and post a picture, but Paula says, "It doesn't show the hectic, frantic nature of the place.". . . But seriously, we couldn't just pull the camera out any old place, (it was safe . . . sort of) but finally Paula snapped this one of some apples! They looked delicious.