Jacky had already been to Toronto and Bristol on her current consulting contract, and I had not gone along. Now she needed to go to Paris. I still had a lot to do at Kestrel, but it’s been a long time. Then I got on the internet and discovered plane fares too good to pass up. Oh, all right! Went ahead and booked tickets.
Certainly we didn’t want to stay at a large anonymous hotel. Suppose there’s any chance of finding a B&B or something along those lines? More research on the web; found someone with an apartment to rent, left bank, by the day, week or month. Enquiries via email.
Well, the Boul Mich apartment was not available, but there were two others, one near the Eiffel tower, one on the right bank. All this via email, one exchange per day. Just at this time, PacBell started having email server troubles, and it was never clear whether a message had gotten through. To boot, the apartment rentors wanted a contract and a check via snailmail. The calendar was running on, and I reluctantly abandoned the negotiation, booked at a small hotel near the Sorbonne instead. FF490 per night; exchange rate about 7 francs per dollar. Can’t complain.
Weather underground said Paris was cloudy, rainy, highs in the 50s. Sounds like California. It was certainly such a day as we boarded the mid-afternoon Super Shuttle. Pleasant chat with a Canadian fellow-traveler as we rode to SFO.
We were on Air France, an Airbus said to be brand new. We had reserved our seats on the internet, aisles in front of one another. I then asked our neighbors; one of them was willing to swap, so we got to sit together, an aisle and a window. Long flight, as always.
We landed about 2 PM on a sunny, chilly day. Hunted out an ATM, got a thousand francs cash. We also have a handful of French coins from some previous adventure. The ticket machine at the airport’s rail terminal took credit cards, but didn’t like mine for some reason, and we didn’t have enough coins to pay cash. The nearby newsstand wouldn’t make change; the attendant sent me across the concourse to the Bureau de Change, where the guy changed a hundred, but would only give me FF30 in coin. By itself, that would have been too little to do any good (typical!), but with the coins we already had, it was enough.
While we were doing all this, we missed an express train into the city, but there was a train every fifteen minutes, so it was no big thing. Nice to be on a train: more space, better view, a landscape already greening with spring.
Train tickets are validated through readers, much like BART tickets, once at each end. At the Luxembourg station, the reader gave us our tickets back, but wouldn’t open the gate. After several tries, Jacky’s ticket worked, but I was stuck. The booth was unattended, so I couldn’t appeal for human help. If we somehow paid the wrong fares, why did it let Jacky out? and how do I add some value onto mine? Finally, some other traveler lent me his ticket – which also didn’t work – and held open the exit gate while I hopped over the turnstile. Wearing a backpack full of a week’s things, it wasn’t much of a hop, but it got me out. Merci, m’sieu!
Maps of the local area at the Metro entrances. The Hôtel Cujas Panthéon was about three blocks away, on Rue Cujas near the Panthéon. Rue Cujas turns out to be one of only about eight streets that were here with the Romans, crossing Boulevard St Michel. Not much traffic, and the hotel stands just above a Chinese restaurant. Always a good thing.
As always in Europe, we had but to declare our names and Madame handed us a key, no registration, no credit card, no nothing. Very civilized. Room 42 was large enough, but as always in Europe, no larger. It looked out onto a quiet courtyard. Should be fine.
We dumped our stuff, went out to collect some anti-jetlag photons. Nice neighborhood, but after being jammed on the plane, the crowds on Boul Mich were a little more than we wanted to deal with, so we went to the Luxembourg instead. Lots of people there, too, enjoying the sunny day.
A kids’ amusement area, a pond with stick-controlled model sailboats. Nice. The Luxembourg itself is now the French senate, and the front side is guarded by armed sentries. They take the threat of terrorism seriously here. We wandered along past Hôtel le Clément, naturally on Rue Clément. That was another one I had looked at on the web, and it would also have been fine. These are only two-star hotels, but we don’t see any need for more. Rue de Seine is the neighborhood grocery street, pleasant to walk down. We got half a dozen clementinen for the morrow. The booksellers occupy the quai, their merchandise all of it old, some of it antique. I bet they don’t make much of a living. |
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Notre Dame is really spiffy – completely cleaned up after lo these many years, with no scaffolding at all. Hard to believe! |
The inside is dark and plain. It’s kind of a two-trick pony: big and has stained glass. I’m afraid the churches of Bavaria have spoiled us. Here’s an example of the light-hearted innocent humour of the Church.
Saw another area with a merry-go-round; it turned out to be at the ice rink at Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.
Dusk, chilly. Wended our way back to the left bank. Can we find somewhere to eat? One restaurant was unlocked, but not open until 7 – and it was just coming up on 6.
Mexi & Co was half pub, half order-at-the-counter restaurant. Get your own beer from the cooler. We tried some very pale Peruvian brew, better than expected. Chicken burritos, FF132. We did ok.
Back to the hotel, where I asked Madame for the key to room quatre-vingt-deux. “Impossible!” said Madame. Fortunately, she’s been around American tourists long enough to translate it into quarante-deux (she says it quarante et deux). Ah, yes! I had had an uncomfortable nagging feeling about quatre-vingts, hadn’t been able to put my finger on the problem. Now I know.
We both lay awake for a while during the night, but slept this morning until about 8. Since it doesn’t get dark until 6, I presume we’re well west in the time zone, and therefore sunrise will be quite late. Indeed, Paris’ longitude is only 2° 20' E; it’s south of London-Greenwich more than east. The alarm went off at 6:30, and I saw no evidence of daylight out the window. Does this tend to create a city of night people? or a city of morning people?
The hotel serves breakfast in a stone-vaulted cave: café au lait, orange juice and three pieces of bread. Not as much breakfast as we’d like, but it gets us started, and we can hardly complain about the price: FF30 apiece.
Sunny and a bit on the cold side. We brought layers of clothing, and we’re wearing several. Passed the mint, displaying not only coins, old and new, but medallions. They probably make as much money from them as they do from coinage.
First stop was Sainte Chapelle. We saw it many years ago, were very disappointed until we discovered, more or less accidentally, that the real chapel is up a narrow spiral staircase. The lower chapel, this time, was nowhere near as disappointing as I had recalled it. |
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And the upper chapel, though its tall glass walls are pretty impressive, was not as overwhelming as I had recalled. |
They’re restoring Ste Chapelle. All of the south-side windows have been restored; there were scaffolds on the east end and off in the northwest corner. The north windows were pretty dull, and the building was pretty dingy on the east and north sides.
We went on across the river. Took Rue de Rivoli, to Place de la Concorde, where some of the statues are fun. Map
There were half a dozen shaggy little horses available for the riding.
Veered off toward the Madeleine, passed Maxim’s. Next door, Minim’s! How ‘bout that! Well, and why not?
A funeral was in progress at Ste Marie Madeleine. We watched as they carried the coffin out past us to a hearse parked in the street. Then to Boulevard Malesherbes (does that mean weed?), where Kristin had given me a recommendation to tea merchants Betjeman and Barton, and a tea called pouchkine. So of course I bought her some. It gave the hotel room a nice smell for the rest of our stay.
Stopped in at Gare St Lazare to see about washrooms, but there’s an admission fee, so we’ll wait until we really need one.
Getting cloudy, and quite chilly walking into the wind. Champs Élysées, walked along enjoying the shops. Found another pay station in an arcade – now that we need it – where we paid FF2 for a shot at the johns.
Sat on a bench across from the Arc de Triomphe to eat our clementinen. Good, cheap and healthy. It’s hard to get enough fruit and veggies on vacations – perhaps this will help.
They we walked down to the river, across the Pont de l’Alma, under the Eiffel tower, toward L’École Militaire, and beyond. Map Saw a sign for a Swiss village, wandered as far as Place Cambronne, no sign of such a thing (it turned out to be west of l’école, but we didn’t learn that until later).
There are lots of ethnic restaurants along Boulevard Garibaldi, including some Coréen places. It takes a minute to figure that one out! I wonder if illiterates have lower stress levels in foreign cities than those of us who are used to being able to read everything we see.
There are overhead railroad tracks, going underground into Gare Montparnasse, where we stopped for another washroom break (map). I put in my FF2 piece, the door didn’t open. Moomph! The story of my life. When Jacky came out of the next room in line, I borrowed it for myself. Asked her to keep her foot in the door, so I wouldn’t get a shower from the self-cleaning arrangement.
It was raining, off and on, and cold. We went to the cemetery, where the only famous name we saw was Sartre, buried with Simone de Beauvoir. César Franck, Guy de Maupassant, and a number of others are buried here. Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died, and I got no photos.
Pretty cold. We stopped for tea just outside the cemetery, a chance to warm our bones, then headed back toward the hotel. Stopped at a photo shop for new batteries, went to have a nap.
Went out about 6:20, wandered through the rabbit warren between Boulevard St Germain and the river. Last time I was here, I stayed at the Hôtel Cluny Square, right at the edge of the rabbit warren. Can’t complain about Cujas, though: it’s two or three blocks further, but quiet.
On Rue du Petit Pont we came upon the Indian restaurant Aarapana, which had Madras curry. Pretty good, and we only acquired smoking neighbors as we got ready to leave.
Wandered a bit, got lost a bit; but it was too chilly to do much, so we got ourselves found and wended our way back to the hotel. There’s a performance of Berlioz’ Damnation of Faust around here somewhere tonight, but we’re still pretty much out of it from the plane trip.
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