It’s a little intimidating trying to write
a blog about Paris. So many great writers have described its every season,
aspect and mood. All a humble tourist can do is to try to put together a set of
impressions that communicate something about our personal experience of this
beautiful city. Like New York, Paris is one of those places you somehow ‘know’
as part of your cultural capital, even if you’ve never been there. Expectations
are inevitable – the grand monuments and promenades, the charming stores and
street markets, the museums, the stylish Parisians (also described by many as
rude, arrogant and hostile to foreigners) – and the first of these expectations
to be challenged was the one about grandeur. Yes, it’s all there – the
cathedrals, the tower, the Louvre, the Arc – but the really lovely thing is the
human scale of the city. Thanks to Napoleon III and his town planner, Baron Haussman,
very few buildings rise above six to eight storeys. The bottom floors are
typically devoted to small (often tiny) shops, restaurants and businesses of
incredible variety, with apartments above. This means that there is no dead
commercial zone, and it also means a constant lively social life on the streets
as people shop, chat in bars and cafes, seek and provide entertainment, protest
(‘manifs’ are an everyday occurrence) and generally engage with one another on
the streets, even in the depths of winter. I really enjoyed seeing so many family
restaurants, tiny studios, quirky gift shops and boutiques, music stores, real
tailors and bootmakers, florists, bookanistes,
and specialists in every imaginable type of food. The front of each bakery,
butcher, fish shop, grocery, fromagerie and patisserie is a work of art and it
seems no self-respecting Parisian shopkeeper would settle for anything less. We
even saw a combined laundromat/art gallery.
The big international chains are all here,
it’s just that they don’t get to dominate. In keeping with the ‘small is
beautiful’ theme, we stayed in the Hotel du Theatre, a pretty little boutique
hotel in the 17th Arondissement, just off the Rue des Batignoles.
Decorated in the classic crimson and gold of traditional French theatre, the
hotel had small but comfortable rooms – with immaculate new bathrooms – and
friendly, helpful staff who all spoke excellent English but played along with
my lame French. Which brings me to the next challenge – where were all those
arrogant Parisians? Almost without exception, everyone we met was charming,
friendly and helpful. I think making an effort to speak in French helped, or
maybe it was being there in the off season, but the people were a delight. I
wonder if that myth stems from the French insistence on remaining French,
despite all the pressures of globalisation? From a very early age they learn to
value their culture (witness groups of six year olds in colourful tunics,
painting copies of Monets in the Louvre) and they don’t cave in to every
customer demand for bigger, blander rooms or fries with that. I think the
Gallic Shrug is an appropriate response to visitors’ efforts to make this place
like everywhere else.
So, Parisians were far from rude, but they
definitely were stylish. A smattering of high fashion along the expensive
shopping avenues, but mostly people dressed in jeans, boots and well cut
jackets. Caps, bags and scarves for colour and individual style – voila! It looks so simple, but somehow
they just do it better. Our daggy boat clothes certainly didn’t win any awards,
but we were an appreciative audience for the passing parade. I was amazed at
how many of the women and children, with their dark eyes and creamy skin, could
have posed for Renoir paintings (perhaps their great grandparents did?)
Just walking around, looking and listening,
was great fun, but if you needed to get somewhere, the Metro is a terrific
transport system – fast, simple and comprehensive. We bought Navigo cards that
covered the week from Monday to Sunday (5E for the card, 19E for a week of
heavy usage!) A bonus was the on-board entertainment, with talented buskers
hopping aboard between stops to sing or play for a handful of coins.
On our first day, we rugged up in a few
layers and took a long walk down to towards the river, via the Place de la
Concorde. It was magical to see the Seine for the first time (with the Eiffel
Tower in the distance, of course). With all the recent snow and meltwater from
the mountains, it was flowing fast and cold. Water craft were clearly
struggling against the current, though there were plenty of canal boats tied up
along the banks, many of them with gardens, clotheslines and garden furniture
that suggested they had thoroughly settled in. Highlights along the way: classy
shops along the Rue Haussmann, and the accompanying classy shoppers; a whole
shop featuring sculptures in chocolate; a delicious apricot crepe from a street
stall; flower shops; the Luxor Obelisk; the massive
square of Concorde, surrounded by beautiful buildings and statues; formerly
this was the Place de la Revolution where the guillotine was erected and Louis
XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed in 1793. It’s weird to imagine the
crowds of happy tourists replaced with cheering crowds as the heads rolled and
the cobbles ran with blood.
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