Paris, November 2000 home
It's hard writing about a trip to Paris without resorting to clichés. The broad boulevards, beaux-arts buildings, and sidewalk cafes, while definitely contributing to the ambience we expected, are not all that Paris is about. In fact, we had our richest experiences in the neighborhood walks that we took each day.
There are some clichés. Each day we noted examples of how Parisians are caricatures of themselves. Riders of the Paris Metro are treated to accordion players, brass bands, and violinists. There was a duo with an accordion and a double bass. One station had an accordionist playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Art students were sketching and painting everywhere - from the Passages (covered shopping streets) to in front of every monument and landmark. Every art museum we visited had artists copying and interpreting classic works of art. It seemed like the entire population of Paris was in cafes. People actually wore designer clothing. And all the time, people walked around with fresh baguettes. While nobody wore berets, other distinctively Parisian styles abounded.
We last visited Paris in 1984. The change that was most apparent was how Parisians regard American tourists. Perhaps this is due to the feeling of internationalism fostered by the EU; perhaps it's due to the distance that France has come since Charles DeGaulle. In any case, in sharp contrast to the treatment we received 16 years ago, we found that we were not only welcomed, but were treated with warmth and genuine hospitality. People went out of their way to give directions, help us with our purchases (no matter how small), and help us with our faltering, often atrocious attempts at speaking French.
We stayed at Hotel des Grandes Ecoles, perfectly situated on the Rive Gauche in the 5th Arrondissement, a 3-minute walk from Cardinal Lemoine stop on the Metro. This charming hotel is quiet, clean, reasonably priced, well located, and they take credit cards. The French provincial wallpaper and window opening onto the garden courtyard charmed us the moment we opened the door to our room. The hotel was recommended to us by Jack (www.jack-travel.com) as well as many others.
We arrived Monday morning after an overnight flight, sailed thru customs and got onto the train. (It's amazing how well European cities design their airport and rail connections.) Despite only 5-hours of drug-induced sleep, we began our ambitious plan to see everything. We started by walking thru the Marias - one of the old sections of Paris, now the home of the Jewish section and the Picasso Museum.
For those of you who are planning future trips to Paris, we combined the walking tours of Jewish Paris Walking Tour (Toni L. Kamins) www.jewishtravel.com/features/toniparis3.html
Jack Travel www.jack-travel.com (Jack has become a good friend - his website on Paris is superb and truly enhanced our enjoyment of the city)
For some of Paris, we used Frommer's website walking tour www.frommers.com/destinations/paris/0062010008.html However, as it has no map, it was somewhat hard to follow.
We also used the numerous walking tours in our Paris Eyewitness Guide. Augmenting a specific area with the ones from Jack Travel and Toni Kamins added depth and insights that the general guides lacked.
The Marais' crowded winding streets are rich with Parisian and specifically Jewish history. Eastern European Jewish delis were side-by-side with North African Sephardic shwarma/falafel joints - and the entire neighborhood is threatened by trendy boutiques. We were welcomed into a small orthodox synagogue, Agudath Hakehilot, designed by Hector Guimard, the architect who designed the Art Nouveau Metro entrances. Of course, we also sampled the poppy seed pastries in the deli, and took a detour to visit the wonderful Picasso museum, housed in a mansion that is a sight in itself.
Paris is a city that doesn't start much before 9:00 or 10:00, a challenge for us early risers. The second day we started by visiting one of the lively Paris street markets. Rue Mouffetarde, just 5 minutes walk from our hotel, is a lively market street packed with delicatessens, bakeries, butchers, florists, pastry shops, and cheese shops - one that specialized in just goat cheeses. Each shop spilled onto the street with beautiful artistic displays of whatever it was selling. Like most of Paris, it wasn't touristy; it felt like the genuine Paris.
After walking on Rue Mouffetard, we remarked that we had not seen any tacky shops selling Chinese-made replicas of the Eiffel Towel, cheesy tee shirts, and meaningless trinkets anywhere in Paris! Since we had been walking throughout most of the touristy areas, this seemed amazing. Were visitors so taken with the real Paris that buying junk would seem too artificial? Would the presence of such magnificent works of art make these trinkets less appealing? In fact, it wasn't until we were leaving Paris on our final morning when we finally found shops with these trinkets. Since Paris' historic preservation is the result of extraordinarily powerful zoning ordinances, perhaps the zoning board had the good sense to exclude trinket sales to a small 'zone de plastique'.
The next day we strolled up the Champs d'Elysee, (does one ever simply walk on the Champs d'Elysee?) climbed up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and walked arm-in-arm under the Eiffel Tower, across the Pont Neuf, through the Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis. Almost every day and evening, we walked past Notre Dame. While its detailed magnificence is best seem in sunlight (the sun illuminated the front in the early afternoon), it changes in different light, just like Monet's Cathedral at Rouen series. We walked through Place de la Concorde, home of Robespierre's overworked guillotines, walked along the Seine, across nearly every bridge.
Travelers to New York shouldn't miss the Met. But travelers to Paris have a weighty burden - there are at least a dozen 'must see' museums, including the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Pompidou, Arts Africains, Carnavalet, Rodin, Picasso, Marmottan, and the Jewish Museum. Other must-sees were unfortunately closed, like the Guimet. Disappointing were the Guimet's temporary galleries, and the Institut du Monde Arabe. If we had more time in Paris, we would have visited still more museums.
As we're both fans of impressionist and post-impressionist art, the D'Orsay, Pompidou, and Marmottan are simply staggering. The Louvre is unequalled - perhaps only London's British Museum and New York's Met are in the same class. We could have spent the week in just these museums. We bought the museum pass, not because it's a 'great deal', which it's not. However, we found that buying a museum pass allowed us to skip long entrance lines, encouraged us to revisit museums, stop at one even just for a single exhibit that particularly interested us, and see more. The Paris museum pass did just that. We visited the Pompidou twice and the Louvre twice.
Like IM Pei's Louvre Pyramid, The Pompidou Center has been at the center of controversy since it was built. This building has its services (HVAC, elevators, etc) on the outside, and exhibition space on the inside. While not a stunningly beautiful building, it is indeed interesting. And the view from the top floor of Paris at sunset is unparalleled.
One highlight for us was the Musée d'Orsay, the relatively new home of the huge impressionist collection. The last time we were in Paris, these thousands of paintings were crowded into the tiny Jeu de Paume. The Musée d' Orsay, a former rail station, is the perfect setting for this collection. On the other hand the Marmottan, much smaller, is an equal treasure - the personal collection of the heirs of Claude Monet, housed in a mansion that provides a perfect setting for a wonderful impressionist treat.
The Pantheon, France's memorial to its heroes and famous citizens, was just a few blocks from our hotel. It's an enormous Greek classical structure, impressive from both the inside and outside. The railing was also at the perfect height for alleviating the pressure on Phil's aching back, already complaining bitterly from all the walking. We visited the Rodin Museum and later studied Notre Dame's gargoyles with our binoculars while lying on well-positioned benches. Each gargoyle has a unique grimace, and made us wonder about the use of drugs by artisans of the 12th century. We were also lucky enough on a sunny day (not a common occurrence in Paris) to see the magnificent stained glass of Ste Chappelle with light streaming through, illuminating its vibrant colors.
In the Opera Quarter (just north of the Louvre), there are Passages, covered streets lied with shops, perhaps the precursor to the all-too-familiar shopping malls that plague the planet. But other than their covering, they bear little resemblance to malls. Instead of being dominated by blandness, they are lively, unique, and thoroughly enjoyable. Not a single "chain" store to be seen! While too many were closed during a Saturday morning stroll, the ones we walked thru were charming. In one, art students sat along the narrow passageway sketching the complex scene.
The building boom in Paris was during the mid 1800s - a period known for extraordinary ornamentation. Entire boulevards were lined with Beaux Arts buildings, but the most ostentatious was the Opera de Paris Garnier, an 1875 riot of glided statuary, columns, and extreme detail. The number of beautiful buildings is astounding: Sacre Coeur, the Dome Church at Les Invalides, The National Assembly, Musée D'Orsay and the Jeu de Paume, and the numerous Hotels, the Petit and Grand Palaces.
We learned first hand about the French passion for setting their own trends when we visited an internet café to send postcards. A few years ago, we began to use email because it's easier, faster, and more inclusive, and allows room for a more meaningful message. It forces us to slow down and think of how we're feeling and how this can be conveyed.
However, the French don't use the QWERTY keyboard layout. It's not vastly different, but with enough changes (the "e", "m", the shift key, and most symbols and punctuation marks are in different places) to make one's brain work extremely hard to find and hit the right keys, (kind of like casting a ballot in Palm Springs). To make matters worse, Phil usually creates the first draft of the e-postcard, and Susan adds to it, edits and types it, as she's a faster typist. But as a touch typist, she was at a double disadvantage. Our advice: find a café with a western keyboard. They exist - we found one right near the Hotel de Luxembourg on Rue de Medicis.
Another highlight of Paris is, of course, the food. We pity anyone who arrives in Paris on a diet. Just looking at the pastries is enough to cause moderate weight gain. Even simple fare, like a cheese sandwich, is a culinary treat - served on a fresh baguette, filled with a tangy fresh goat cheese or a sharp aged sheep's milk cheese.
We went one night to the Polidor, recommended to us by both Jack and the Lonely Planet. A typical French bistro, the tart au chocolat there is to die for. Our favorite restaurant, however, was Le Petit Picard on Rue Ste. Croix de la Bretonniere, in the Marais near the Pompideau (recommended by Jack). We had a wonderful 3-course meal that included grilled mussels, a seafood main course, and desserts of rhubarb tart and chocolate mousse cake. All this for the equivalent of US$12/person! And the advantage of visiting Paris off-season was only one experience of needing reservations. We also dined at a non-descript mediocre Moroccan joint in the Rue St. Severin area. My guess is that any meal in this cluster of restaurants may not be a peak culinary experience, but there is an incredible array of international cuisine represented in these alleyways.
One night, looking for a break from rich French food but also wanting something we would never be able to eat at home, we stumbled across an Iraqi restaurant, L'Aigre-Doux, 59 Rue des Gravilliers in the 3rd Arrondissement, where we had some of the best food of our visit in a tiny, charming setting that only had 5 or 6 tables.
We violated every nutritional principle during the week. Paris has no shortage of patisseries (pastry shops), each different, each with more mouth-watering treats than the one before. The windows have magnetic powers. From chocolates, fruit tarts, cookies and cakes, it took every gram of our fading will power to resist having pastry lunches and dinners. Everything was beautifully displayed, and usually tasted as good as it looked. And we HAD to sample the chocolate noir ice cream at Bertillion!
It was sad to leave, made even more difficult by Air France's generous offer to be voluntarily bumped off of our overbooked flight. Perhaps on our next visit, we'll spend more time. It seems that we barely scratched the surface of Paris.
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