We decided to go to Paris with my mother for her birthday. Through lastminute.com, we book one of their surprise hotels. Knowing that France and the UK are notorious for having lots of low quality 3-4 star hotels (after all there are some, who believe it was staying in that Paris hotel which killed Oscar Wilde), we have low expectations and I am shocked at how absolutely ADORABLE, clean and friendly we find the Hotel Montparnasse.
The first thing we did that was wonderfully easy, was we took the Euro-Star. If you book last minute, it's not cheap but it's so expensive that if you spend 10 extra Euros you wind up in First Class! So, a first class ticket to Paris complete with champagne and a three course meal. The Euro Star used to have divine meals and now they're acceptable...but still, nothing like two hours with flowing champagne and winding up in Paris.
From the Gare du Nord, we hop on the Metro as soon as possible. After having lived for a year in Paris, I tend to think Gare du Nord is a rough neighborhood but my husband, Mr. Angleterre chides me that I am overreacting ( I seem to remember a similar reaction just before our car got lost in Overtown,Miami). Before our departure, we see a gang of 100 Angry Africans in Hoodies running out of the Gare du Nord followed by police cars and an ambulance--you do the math.
With the blink of an eye, we arrive at the hotel. Certain stops on the Paris metro have certain innate smells but everything else seems cleaner and cheaper than it used to be...but maybe that's because I'm not a poor student trying to stretch 5 Euros a day to get a cup of coffee. Friday night is a dream. We wander down through the amazing local open market stalls of fresh terrines and drippingly ripe fruit and pick a Brasserie for a delicious meal! For me, that is what makes Paris...PARIS. Lighting up all that Hausmann architecture at night and lining the boulevard with trees and having lots of wonderful, relaxed and cheap Brasseries where one can eat like a King or just be able to sit for hours drinking excellent coffee. This is where the Southern Europeans have us beat. Lifestyle. It's all about lifestyle. Enjoy the moment.
We wander back to the hotel faces red with the wine we drank and sleep like babies,well until the baby doesn't sleep:). Saturday is Marchee Au Puce day. I've been promised and I drag my shopping-adverse husband and my excited but somewhat lame mother and baby through the dodgy area between the metro and the market, trying to hurry them as quickly as possible, explaining that once you're in the market, it's much better...reminding my mother to close her purse, my husband to stop speeding away and constantly watching the stroller and the little hand which comes out of it to grab at any material we might pass on the way...
The Marchee Au Puce hasn't changed a bit. There's no time for me to hit the secondhand clothes venders because I know my husband is like a parking meter with shopping. You get two hours and then all h*ll breaks lose. We wander through the plastic shoes and the dodgy African Louis Vuitton vendors straight to the Antiques, which sadly now that I am older...I realize are often times fakes (probably created for Americans shopping here)or insanely overpriced (also probably created for Americans shopping here).
AND we discover another fabulous Brasserie right across from the market. Perfect, my husband gets to eat, my mother doesn't have to walk, they'll watch the baby and I'll be right back:). I speed-wander the aisles of the serious dealers, dreaming of where I'd put these beautiful Napoleonic beds and empire chests....until, we (they) decide it's time to go. As I always used to do for fun in Paris, we hop on a bus and just stare out the window at the miles of incredible architecture racked up one against each other and the funny thing is...these are the bad bits. We're not in Passy or the Bois de Bologne. This is the neighborhood where muggings are common by night and honour killings are ordered, but by daylight all you see are miles of white turn of the century cornicing and pedastals.
It's funny. I feel like this trip is visiting a Paris I don't really know. I never much hung out in Montparnasse and it's turning out to be quite charming for the bohemian history it has. I would suppose that would make it quite bourgeouis today...much like Islington in London or Brooklyn Heights in NY. My mother is too tired to go anywhere, which makes her weak and an easy target for babysitting! We dump the tired twosome and head onto La Coupole, a still famous restaurant, once famous for serving Sartre, Picasso, Cocteau, Brach, Hemingway...the works.
You would think a place like this might have mediocre food since it could just live off it's name, but the food and the service is SUPERB! We order a seafood platter and it's everything out of the sea...much of it, you wouldn't think was the part that was meant to be eaten..
Firstly, aside from the half lobster and crab, nothing is cooked. The oysters are rawed but so are the muscles, the clams, and something that looks an awful lot like a snail (escargot of the sea as our waiter calls it) are all served raw! Surprisingly, many of these items seem to taste better cooked and we learn quickly there's a reason ecargot are usually covered in garlic! Still, everything is divine. The service, the people watching, the food, the ambience...honestly, I feel like I am in a french movie and Thiery L'hermitte is going to come and finish the meal with us.
We wander the streets back to the hotel. Gosh, I REALLY miss living in a city with a pulse. Somewhere you walk outside and there are interesting looking people and they look interested as well and there's energy. The life force. Londoners are very good at hiding any of that energy and in Zurich, it's probably illegal...but Paris and New York and certain parts of Vienna and most of Italy and Coconut Grove all have that. I need it. I need to feel alive. Sometimes I feel like I'm on an emotional diet and I'm missing the life force. Why be alive if I'm not feeling it, exchanging ideas, being used for the things I have to contribute. Thank you Paris for giving me that...thank you for reminding me.
Sunday is a day I usually dread but in Paris, we awaken, have a fresh croissant in line from the bakery like everybody else and a big cup of chocolat chaud. We wander the Cimetiere Montparnasse and see the tombs of Sartre and de Beauvoir,Beckett, Jean Seburg and Saint-Saens. Inside Saint-Saens beautifully carved marble tomb, there are letters from all over the world. People thanking him and praising him. One Canadian in particular wrote that he listened to his music and thought of the peace his deceased wife must enjoy in the afterlife and the peace his music brought him. It was so beautiful, I cried...to know there are people like that in the world. Which means, it's not just me and Stephen Fry and a couple of sentimental academics, who have feelings like that...there are more of us out there.
As we left Montparnasse, we decided to walk the usual haunts - behind the Louvre, a touch of St. Germaine, Place de l'Opera. HenriIII said 'Paris is worth a prayer', well, I'd say it's certainly worth atleast a weekend. You don't have to see everything that way, but it reminds you...to pray. un bon merci pour tous.
Paris is like the lover I was too young to ever appreciate. I have returned to see it in my fullness of age and am aware of how lucky a silly little naiive society girl was to be protected and included and educated by this great world within a city.
a bientot j'espere...
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