Category Archives: Paris maps

Petite Ceinture: Ring around the city

Posted on February 23, 2020 by Parisian Fields

About 10 years ago, Norman and I were staying in part of a converted workshop in a courtyard in the 14th arrondissement. One day, as we walked towards the Porte de Vanves on a Saturday morning to visit the flea market, … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris bridges, Paris history, Paris maps, Paris travel | Tagged 1867 Exposition, Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare de l’Est, Gare du Nord, Garigliano bridge, Grande Ceinture, Menilmontant, Montrouge station, Ornano station, Passy station, Patrice Rambaud, Petite Ceinture, Point du Jour, Recyclerie, Thiers enceinte | 9 Comments

Postcards: Little windows into a vanished Paris

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Parisian Fields

Many of our blogs begin with a postcard. That is not a coincidence. When we are rummaging through the bins of 1- and 2-euro cards at flea markets, we are drawn to images that make us stop and wonder, “What … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris bridges, Paris maps, Paris postcards, Paris travel, Seine | Tagged Écluse de la Monnaie, Écluse du Pont Neuf, Bains de la Samaritaine, Barrage de la Monnaie, bateaux-lavoirs, bateaux-omnibus, Bureau d’Omnibus de la Compagnie Générale, cartes postales, Exquise Goulliout, La Samaritaine, Marie Gabriel Biessy, Paris Flood 1910, Paris postcards, Pont des Arts, Pont Neuf, vintage postcards, voitures à voie ferrée Vincennes-Sèvres | 13 Comments

Les petits bleus

Posted on May 20, 2018 by Parisian Fields

Elderly guidebooks let you visit Paris in the past. We have three. Two date from 1927 – Muirhead’s Paris and its Environs (Blue Guides), and the Express Guide to Paris and Environs (Publications Anglo-Américaines) – and one from 1950: Nagel’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris civic functions, Paris history, Paris maps | Tagged Baisers Volés, Bourse, cartes-télégrammes, Central Telegraph Office, François Truffaut, George Medhurst, Grand Hotel, Petit télégraphiste, petits bleus, pneus, télégrammes pneumatiques, William Murdoch | 10 Comments

The lost neighbourhood

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Parisian Fields

Last month, I was inspired by one of Lawren Harris’s paintings to investigate gasometers in Toronto and Paris. A second visit to the Lawren Harris exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario evoked another parallel between the two cities: the destruction … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris history, Paris maps, Paris museums | Tagged Abbé Delagrive, Augustus Charles Pugin, Chateau d’eaux, David Hanser, Eaton Manufacturing Building, Ecuries du Roi, Empress Josephine, Hotel de Crequi, Hotel de Crussol, Hotel de Longueville, Lawren Harris, Machine infernale, Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, Quartier du Louvre, Quinze-Vingts, rue de Chartres, rue St-Nicaise, St-Louis-du-Louvre, St-Nicolas-du-Louvre, St-Thomas-du-Louvre, The Ward, Theatre du Vaudeville, Toronto City Hall, Tuileries Palace, Turgot map, Viljo Revell, William James | 14 Comments

A city built on air

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Parisian Fields

A few years ago, we found this postcard in a street market, showing a sinkhole in the Place Saint-Augustin. What on earth (or under the earth) had happened during the storm of June 15, 1914? We found one account in … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris cemeteries, Paris civic functions, Paris history, Paris maps, Paris streets | Tagged Antoine Dupont, Barrière d’Enfer, Catacombs, Charles-Axel Guillaumot, Cimetière des Saints Innocents, Cimetière Sainte-Catherine, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Feuillants des Anges Gardiens, Graham Robb, Gypsum, Inspectorate General Service of Quarries, Limestone, Louis XIV, Mouth of Hell, Place Saint-Augustin, Plan de Jaillot, Quarries, Rue d’Enfer, rue Denfert-Rochereau, Storm of 15 June 1914, underground Paris | 2 Comments

Lutetia, viewed by a 19th-century historian

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Parisian Fields

I have a weakness – no, a fondness – no, a passion for old maps of Paris. On a visit a year or so ago, I bought three old maps from an antiquarian bookseller. During our annual New Year’s tidy-up, … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris history, Paris maps | Tagged Abbaye St-Germain, aqueducts, Arènes de Lutèce, Bièvre River, Bibliothèque Nationale, Carnavalet Museum, cippe antique, Clos de Lias, Cluny Museum, Cybèle, Gregory of Tours, Histoire physique civile et morale de Paris depuis les premiers temps historiques jusqu'à nos jours, Ile de la Cité, Ile Louviers, Jacques Antoine Dulaure, Jacques-Marie Hacq, Jean-Pierre Adam, jeu de mail, La Petite Seine, Lutèce, Lutetia, Mont Locutitius, Musée des monnaies médailles et antiques, Notre Dame Cathedral, Palais des Thermes, Philippe Velay, Place Tudella, Prison de Glaucin, Roman-era Paris, St Bacchus, St-Benoit-le-Bétourné, Tour de Marquefas, Victor Hugo | 13 Comments

Death and taxes

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Parisian Fields

Whenever I buy postcards or other pictures of Paris, I gravitate to anything unfamiliar. So when I was leafing through some inexpensive engravings at an antiques fair on the Place St-Sulpice in June, I was immediately drawn to this one. … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris architecture, Paris history, Paris maps | Tagged Allée des Cygnes, Anthony Vidler, Antoine Lavoisier, Arc-et-Senans, Augustus Charles Pugin, Barrière de la Conférence, Barrière de la Cunette, Barrière de Passy, Barrière des Bonhommes, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Fermiers Généraux, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Jules-Adolphe Chauvet, Musée Ledoux, Napoleon III, Octroi, Parc Monceau, Paris and its Environs, patache, Place de la Nation, Place Denfert-Rochereau, Propylées, Rotonde de la Villette, rue Bruant, Salpetrière Hospital | 17 Comments

A virtual walk through old Paris

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Parisian Fields

In the novel Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, Emma Bovary does something that may sound as familiar to some of you as it does to me. She lives in the countryside, but she wants to be in Paris. So what … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris history, Paris maps, Paris streets | Tagged Bird’s-eye view maps, Grand Palais, Gustave Flaubert, Hotel de Sully, Les Plans de Paris, Louis Bretez, Madame Bovary, Michel-Étienne Turgot, Pierre Pinon, Salon du Livre, Turgot map | 14 Comments

Nine minutes, twenty-one seconds

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Parisian Fields

A recent New York Times article pointed out that the traditional division of Paris into Left Bank / Right Bank might be giving way to a more East-West distinction. (Some people will say that has long been the case.) And … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris gardens, Paris history, Paris maps | Tagged Charles Perrault, Claude Perrault, François Arago, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Greenwich Mean Time, Institut d’Astrophysique, International Meridian Conference, Jan Dibbets, Jean Prouvé, Map Addict, Mike Parker, Paris Mean Time, Paris Meridian, Paris Observatoire, Paris observatory | 3 Comments

A la recherche de Paris perdu

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Parisian Fields

I am no great fan of GPS or satnav systems. They convey a false sense of certainty about one’s location (What do you mean this is Montparnasse? It says Montmartre right here!) and are subject to garbage-in-garbage-out problems (if you … Continue reading →