I spend a few hours today, finally, doing my laundry at the scary laundromat. As it turns out, it was not as difficult as I had imagined. I find that to be true, more and more. Things are never as bad as your fear or your paranoia, or whatever keeps you back, imagines them to be. If you just push through, you come out the other side more confident in general. OK....rather dense thoughts for just doing laundry......but, there you go.
After laundry I went to an area not too far from my neighborhood, called Cite des Fleurs. Being only April, there were not a lot of flowers yet. But the architecture and the history, made it a place worth visiting.
It is a street, that's probably about two or three blocks long, but not divided into blocks, all one long street, and it's gated at each end. At certain times (like Sunday's maybe, when the residence are home...and holidays) they close off the street entirely to the public. It was built as a sort of "planned community" in the mid-1800's. It had very strict rules regarding the building heights, garden sizes, etc. Over the years, the architectural facades of the houses have diversified, with many styles....all lovely in their own way. All the yards, (or the majority of them) have high fences or walls and gates so that you cannot really see the gardens. It's still a lovely street and I got as many pictures as I could.
One of the houses, near the end of the war and the occupation, housed brave members of the resistance who were providing false papers those in hiding. The plaque outside the house explains how the gestapo killed the owner of the house and all the others were sent to the camps where they later died. A sad chapter in the story of this lovely street.
What beautiful buildings and the wisteria is gorgeous!
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