TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Travel France: Chapel Clinique Blomet, Bastille, Charlie Hebdo, Grand Mosque of Paris

Monday, June 1, 2015

Travel France: Chapel Clinique Blomet, Bastille, Charlie Hebdo, Grand Mosque of Paris

We're winding down our stay in Paris and we're trying to see as many places as possible.

Today we visited the chapel at the Clinique Blomet (its full name is Chapelle des Soeurs Sainte Marie de la Famille de la Clinique Blomet). This is a beautiful neo-Gothic chapel built in 1890 with lovely stained glass windows. It's very peaceful inside and is a wonderful place to pray. The chapel, which used to be part of a nunnery, is now that of a hospital. One needs to enter the lobby to get into the chapel.

From there we went to the Bastille Plaza where the ancient Bastille (prison) had been torn down in 1789 and 1790. Nothing remains but the square is there as a reminder of the French Revolution.

Still another place that I wanted to visit and did was Charlie Hebdo's office, the unfortunate scene of the terrorist attack of the satirical cartoonists last January 7, 2015.

Earlier in our visit, we had seen the Grand Mosque in Paris. It was near the Mosque where I first saw a graffiti saying, "Je Suis Charlie" here in Paris.

Near Charlie Hebdo's office, there are many graffiti and posters on walls related to the Charlie Hebdo matter. It was a sad event that has affected the French deeply.

We ended the day by having dinner at Chalet Gregoire in the Saint Germaine area. The food was good and I recommend this restaurant.

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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.