Travel Around The Clock

Once upon a time there was a french man. His name was Claude Baudard de Saint James and he was treasurer of the French Navy. One day he bought an estate close to the Bagatelle and commissioned a landscape architect ( François Joseph Bélanger , the same who had created the Chateau de Bagatelle ) to develop the project for a garden, something that had to be surprising, original and full of character. Today not much of the ancient splendor is left and the garden and its buildings are a bit run down but the place still retains an intriguing charm especially considering its location, in this bourgeois area of the Ile de France surrounded by modern buildings and with view over the Defense skyscrapers. La Defense -Paris We bumped into this little gem while walking from Levallois Perret (our home during our first 6 months in France) and Bois Boulogne , the biggest park in Paris. And we decided to make a stop to enjoy a bit of calm and its eccentric beauty. Parc de la Folie Sai...

Italians are well known for their anarchic and crazy driving habits, and anytime anyone tells me about it, I don't even make the effort to deny it because it is simply the truth. Italians (especially in the cities) are wild drivers and too often disrespectful of any driving rules (or common sense). The road is a jungle to us (I'm including myself only for nationality reasons)! But, even if I find painful to share any charts' supremacy with the Frenchies (see our disputes about football!) I must admit that we are not alone on the top of the bad driving habits chart, as French drivers are not less undisciplined than us. We've moved to Levallois Perret a few months ago; a wealthy residential area just out of Paris' peripherique. It's very quiet and in general a very nice banlieu to live in, but it took me not longer than a week or two to notice  that drivers are not that polite... First, they park anywhere and anyhow out of the parking lines: ...

I found my little spot in my new city . It's the perfect place for a walk, a run, for reading a book or just to rest from the stress of life and the job hunting. It was love at first sight since I crossed the bridge from Levallois Perret . But I have to admit it, I didn't discover anything. The place has been popular with locals and non locals for a long time. To be honest, actually it had even been used as a painting spot and inspirational subject by various Impressionists a couple of centuries ago! Monet , Sisley and Van Gogh where very familiar with the area and have depicted it from various perspectives. But the most famous painting is a Seurat's A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte . And now the Ile de la Grande Jatte it's my place..... This floating strip of land gently lies on the Seine and has a couple of little parks, a nice vegetable garden, an apiary, the ` Maison de la peche et de la nature ` and a nice `Temple de l'amo...