The Paris Water Pavilion is a building at 77 avenue de Versailles in the Auteuil quarter of the 16th arrondissement. It is a building from the nineteenth century that originally housed a steam-driven pump to bring up water from the Seine for the then-independent towns of Auteuil and Passy. It now Read More …
The Mirabeau Bridge across the Seine was built in the 1890s and was considered a remarkable technical achievement at the time. It connects Auteuil on the Right Bank (16th arrondissement) with Javel (15th) on the Left. The bridge was named after the Count of Mirabeau (1749-1791), a rebellious aristocrat whose Read More …
Rue d’Auteuil was the main street of the village of Auteuil, until that village was divided up between Paris and Boulogne in 1860. At that time more than half of Auteuil was incorporated into the city of Paris. This part is now the 61st administrative quarter of Paris and is Read More …
Looking back, I think the first time I ever even read about the Paris quarter of Auteuil was in a short story by Marcel Aymé (1902–1967) called Le décret (The Decree), a story about going backwards and forwards in time in which the narrator says: “During these famous seventeen years Read More …
This is a pleasant little three-star hotel in the Auteuil quarter, which I chose because I had never even set foot in Auteuil up to then and wanted to get acquainted with the neighborhood. Like most Paris hotels that are located in obscure corners of the city, this one tends Read More …
Here’s a Blast from the Past for you: an electric “Indicator of Itineraries” such as used to be found in about half of the Paris Métro stations. I came across this one — not hooked up and not functioning, but still — in the station Porte d’Auteuil on line 10. Read More …
In France there is a prestigious literary prize called the Le prix Goncourt, which is awarded each December to the author of “the best and most imaginative prose work of the year”. The winner is decided by a panel of ten prominent writers known as the Académie Goncourt after its Read More …
After checking into my hotel in an unknown city or district, one of the first things I like to do is take a walk around the block, just to see what is in the immediate vicinity before I get on a bicycle and venture further afield. By doing this I Read More …