It's not quite light yet and I'm struggling to make sense of the grey shapes surrounding me. The unfamiliar contours of walls and furniture seem oppressive in the gloom, as if they are closing in on me from all sides. The alarm goes off and my husband stirs beside me, reaching slowly out from under the duvet to silence the noise, but something is wrong. I can't hear church bells. Where is the loud, insistent call to mass that marks the usual start to my day? Silence now. I don't think we're in Paris any more.
We left our rented apartment in the Marais reluctantly, heavy rucksacks and cases containing the remnants of three months worth of life in the City of Light. They were digging up the Rue Rambuteau as we left, an honour guard of diggers and cable layers to provide a parting salute as we trudged to the métro station, sand and cement caking to the wheels of our cases. Where once I had walked with a light step down the narrow staircase leading to line eleven, my gateway to discovering the city, now I slowly and painfully manoeuvred my luggage into the corridors and through the turnstiles to wait for a train that would take me away from there. Through twists and turns and changes we passed through the public transport system and out into the confused glory of the Gare du Nord, melancholy point of departure for us and thousands of others.
The previous day we had queued in the cold outside the Hôtel de Ville, trying to squeeze the last drops of cultural stimulation out of our adopted city by going to see the Sempé exhibition that had just opened. Slowly we filed past cartoons from every point in the long career of the man, examples from books and magazines interspersed with biographical information. I was taken with the idea of Sempé rushing around Paris on his scooter, sketchpad under his arm, recording the minutiae of life, before meeting his intellectual friends for coffee in a St. Germain café. A black and white shot of him at his drawing board provoked a pang of jealousy even, his complete absorption in a loved activity in the unmistakeable setting of a high-windowed Parisian apartment being something that I deeply envied. I thought that a nearby display of books, Petit Nicolas and his friends all lined up, heralded the end of the exhibition, but no. The turn of a corner revealed a vast room filled with original drawings, the distinctive ink and watercolour pieces depicting Paris and beyond, seen through the eyes of a master artist.
The views of the Luxembourg Gardens were achingly recognisable. The broad avenues of trees and the high metal gates, with the smooth pale stone of the Sénat in the background, where I had walked so many times. All of this was just across the river. We could have walked there right away, or taken the RER. It wouldn't have taken long and we could have been in our own little Sempé scene... except that we had to buy a new case and pack and clean every last detail of ourselves out of our apartment, erase ourselves from these streets and these scenes for good. We will remember the city, but will it remember us? The signature Sempé Parisian picture shows an elderly lady in the midst of giant, towering Haussmanian buildings, a tiny speck of a person taking up an insignificant amount of space on a big canvas. It's a big city indeed and people can feel overwhelmed by it, but no matter how tiny they are they are still interesting to Sempé. They are still characters worth drawing in the fascinating setting of the cityscape. They are part of Paris, as we were, once.
It turns out that Sempé travelled a fair bit, turning his keen eye onto people and places from St. Tropez to New York. He seems to have been perpetually bubbling over with ideas, forming several high profile creative partnerships and maintaining a prolific level of output through the years. There was a sense that wherever he went he saw pictures worth immortalising. He noticed the details that told unfolding stories, from the precise blue-green paint hue of a Parisian bus to the overheard snatches of conversation effervescing amidst the tables and chairs of a corner café. Thrown into the midst of the city I made similar observations, each day presenting me with something fresh and new, another aspect of the local colour to muse upon, fall in love with and write about. The long walks by the Seine and afternoons spent stirring hot chocolate and watching the world go by have come to an end, but the narratives will go on. The city will carry on living without me in it. Other people will experience it and make their own memories as they stumble on the cobbles, trying to avoid the cyclists and the mopeds. Other people will become a part of it and live the Parisian way of life in all its intensity. They will be inspired by it. It's an amazing place and I loved being there. I recall it now under the dull cloud of an English November day and as I struggle to rouse myself amidst the drizzle, I smile.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Podcast: The Métro
My little homage to the Paris métro system, complete with sound effects recorded on Line 1 as we travelled to Concorde to stock up on Heinz beans at the WHSmith!
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Rue Mouffetard
Our first introduction to Parisian life took place on the Rue Mouffetard, nearly five years ago. We had visited Paris before, staying in a hotel and being entertained by raucous Bastille Day celebrations, doing all sorts of touristy things and loving them. Almost a decade later we decided to take a different kind of break in the city, renting a tiny apartment at the top of a tall, old building for ten days. There we started to fall in love with Paris properly and now we make the trip from the Right Bank to the Left Bank regularly to revisit our old haunts.
The Rue Mouffetard is an extremely lively street, set on a hill running down from the Place de la Contrescarpe to the Place Monge. In places it has tacky souvenir shops, créperies and bars, but there are also the many little essential outlets that remind you that locals live here too. We stayed at number 106, directly opposite a dry cleaners where we could see the clean clothes spinning round on a carousel, bagged and fresh, ready to be reunited with their owners in a swoosh and a sweep. Just a short walk from our front door was a bakery that sold the lightest, fluffiest brioche au raisin, swollen to perfection with a rich, vanilla-infused créme patisserie filling. My husband got into the very French habit of going there early every day for pastries and bread. He also started to eat vast quantities of fresh fruit. It was spring and the combination of greengrocers on the street and the twice weekly market on the Place Monge provided us with an abundance of produce.
The weather was just starting to warm up after the winter and on Sunday morning we flung open the high French windows to find the street below even more alive with activity than usual. A band was playing and soon the street was covered in confetti as a parade passed through. Children from the local nursery school emerged wearing home made hats and masks, and there was a general festive atmosphere in the bright spring light. It turned out that it was Palm Sunday and a procession had been organised, wending its way from the church of St. Etienne du Mont, just behind the Panthéon, round the 5th Arrondissement and down the hill to the church of St. Medard, just at the end of the street where we were staying. We had ended up with a front row seat at a big local celebration, the music and sunshine streaming into the apartment and making us feel part of the whole thing.
In the years that followed we began to stay elsewhere in the city, but returning to the Rue Mouffetard retained that pleasant feeling of familiarity. We happened to watch the film “Three Colours: Blue” and discovered that the street and the surrounding area play quite an important role in the plot. The central character goes there to effectively start a new life, and the cafés and alleyways that become home to her over time were recognisable to us. When we go back now we quite often stop for coffee in the bar featured in the film. The chairs there are rickety and the staff often possess a harassed, almost surly air, but perhaps we love it all the more for that. It's certainly a good place to sit for a while and watch the busy street, where there is always something going on. Good humoured loudness abounds into the early hours, when people are out buying crépes and kebabs amongst the closed up shop fronts of the grocers and the fishmongers, their voices echoing off the graffiti covered walls.
Living in the Marais is great, but the character of the place is noticeably different. People seem more polished. There are designer boutiques aplenty and you notice well-groomed individuals stepping out with looks that have definitely been “put together”. Across the river there are more students, who are content to wear worn-in clothes for years until they fall apart. I remember my first adventures out and about on the Left Bank, seeing ladies wearing battered old Converse trainers and flat, sturdy brogues with skirts and dresses, their hair waving free of the tyranny of straighteners. I felt instantly at home, which is probably what continues to draw myself and my husband back there. In what we think used to be an old bookshop, innocent at the front but getting progressively more “adult” as you ventured further into it, there is now a lovely Salon de Thé. Where once an old man sat behind a grubby counter in the half-light, there are now racks of tea caddies, all neatly arranged against freshly painted, pistachio green hues. You can sit and sip tea on light coloured, overstuffed sofas, admiring the limed-oak floor and looking out at people passing by the window. They walk down the street that we know so well, that unforgettable place where we first lodged properly in the city, the place where the chain reaction that brought us back here first started. Satisfied, we cross the bridge and go back again to the place that we now call home, seeing all the names on the doorbells as we pass and wondering who they belong to, what brought them here and which special places they know in Paris that bring the comfort of the familiar to them.
The Rue Mouffetard is an extremely lively street, set on a hill running down from the Place de la Contrescarpe to the Place Monge. In places it has tacky souvenir shops, créperies and bars, but there are also the many little essential outlets that remind you that locals live here too. We stayed at number 106, directly opposite a dry cleaners where we could see the clean clothes spinning round on a carousel, bagged and fresh, ready to be reunited with their owners in a swoosh and a sweep. Just a short walk from our front door was a bakery that sold the lightest, fluffiest brioche au raisin, swollen to perfection with a rich, vanilla-infused créme patisserie filling. My husband got into the very French habit of going there early every day for pastries and bread. He also started to eat vast quantities of fresh fruit. It was spring and the combination of greengrocers on the street and the twice weekly market on the Place Monge provided us with an abundance of produce.
The weather was just starting to warm up after the winter and on Sunday morning we flung open the high French windows to find the street below even more alive with activity than usual. A band was playing and soon the street was covered in confetti as a parade passed through. Children from the local nursery school emerged wearing home made hats and masks, and there was a general festive atmosphere in the bright spring light. It turned out that it was Palm Sunday and a procession had been organised, wending its way from the church of St. Etienne du Mont, just behind the Panthéon, round the 5th Arrondissement and down the hill to the church of St. Medard, just at the end of the street where we were staying. We had ended up with a front row seat at a big local celebration, the music and sunshine streaming into the apartment and making us feel part of the whole thing.
In the years that followed we began to stay elsewhere in the city, but returning to the Rue Mouffetard retained that pleasant feeling of familiarity. We happened to watch the film “Three Colours: Blue” and discovered that the street and the surrounding area play quite an important role in the plot. The central character goes there to effectively start a new life, and the cafés and alleyways that become home to her over time were recognisable to us. When we go back now we quite often stop for coffee in the bar featured in the film. The chairs there are rickety and the staff often possess a harassed, almost surly air, but perhaps we love it all the more for that. It's certainly a good place to sit for a while and watch the busy street, where there is always something going on. Good humoured loudness abounds into the early hours, when people are out buying crépes and kebabs amongst the closed up shop fronts of the grocers and the fishmongers, their voices echoing off the graffiti covered walls.
Living in the Marais is great, but the character of the place is noticeably different. People seem more polished. There are designer boutiques aplenty and you notice well-groomed individuals stepping out with looks that have definitely been “put together”. Across the river there are more students, who are content to wear worn-in clothes for years until they fall apart. I remember my first adventures out and about on the Left Bank, seeing ladies wearing battered old Converse trainers and flat, sturdy brogues with skirts and dresses, their hair waving free of the tyranny of straighteners. I felt instantly at home, which is probably what continues to draw myself and my husband back there. In what we think used to be an old bookshop, innocent at the front but getting progressively more “adult” as you ventured further into it, there is now a lovely Salon de Thé. Where once an old man sat behind a grubby counter in the half-light, there are now racks of tea caddies, all neatly arranged against freshly painted, pistachio green hues. You can sit and sip tea on light coloured, overstuffed sofas, admiring the limed-oak floor and looking out at people passing by the window. They walk down the street that we know so well, that unforgettable place where we first lodged properly in the city, the place where the chain reaction that brought us back here first started. Satisfied, we cross the bridge and go back again to the place that we now call home, seeing all the names on the doorbells as we pass and wondering who they belong to, what brought them here and which special places they know in Paris that bring the comfort of the familiar to them.
Square du Temple
The Square du Temple is not one of the city's grand, expansive parks. It is a green space squeezed into the Marais in the shadow of the old covered market, the Carreau du Temple. The market, a former haunt of second-hand clothes merchants, is in the process of being turned into a “space for all”, including a Judo hall. Whether the area actually needs such a facility remains to be seen, but for now the curling, exposed iron ribs of the partly demolished structure provide a useful landmark for orientation. If I see them, I know I'm on the right track for the park.
The first time I passed through the little green swing gate, my husband turned to me and said: “You'll like this place, it has ducks.” Ducks there were indeed, with their own charming pond, island and duckhouse, prime real estate in the heart of the 3rd Arrondissement, pleasantly shaded with trees and bushes. There were also people. The overburdened confines of the buildings surrounding the square had overflowed out into park, and the benches were crowded. The well-provisioned play area was filled with excited children and harassed parents. It was a warm summer evening and the few remaining Parisians left working in the city in August seemed to have all paused there too, on their way home, ties loosened, sandals kicked off, sweating gently, leaning on the bandstand or reposing peacefully on the lush grass.
At lunchtimes the park can be packed with teenagers from the local schools, jostling for position on the bandstand as they eat their burgers and frites. Prim office girls and shop assistants juggle sandwiches and mobile phones, their hair starting to tumble out of that morning's hastily formed topknot or ponytail. Elderly Chinese couples walk the paths slowly, continuing their daily constitutional from the Place de la Republique and pausing occasionally to rest in the warmth of the sun, watching the pigeons strut from bench to bin in search of food, and lost somewhere in the midst of a thousand memories with faraway looks in their tired, clouded eyes.
One afternoon I sat there in the blazing heat on the only free bench I could find, one that was in direct sunlight. In front of me were sunbathers, bronzed and content to sleep the rest of the day away as they slowly cooked in the city's summer oven, while I barely glanced up from my Kindle. Just me and the collected short stories of Guy de Maupassant, absorbed for half an hour or so in my local park. As I read stories set in a Paris long past, today's Paris was happening all around me. Toddlers made their unsteady way towards the slides and the climbing frames while cyclists wheeled their bikes across the square, cutting off awkward corners and traffic clogged junctions with a peaceful saunter through the calm greenness. Getting up to start the short walk back to the apartment, I exited the park via the farthest away gate, near to the offices of the Mayor of the 3rd Arrondissement. At the bottom of the steps there stood a young couple, just married and smiling. The bride looked relaxed in a simple white dress and with tiny white flowers entwined in her loose, curly hair. Along with her new husband she was surrounded by a small group of well wishers, dressed in their best, laughing and taking photographs. The sun shone brilliantly down on all of them from a huge, cloudless sky. It was a beautiful day to be married in Paris. The park gate clanged shut behind me and I headed back through the Marais streets, smiling as I took each sandalled step. Now boots are the most appropriate footwear and the park benches are often soaked with rain. When venturing to the park on drier days I have to wear a scarf and the ducks on the pond are now fluffed up against the approaching winter, but hopefully that young couple are still enjoying matrimonial bliss as I am still enjoying the Square du Temple, that tiny square of nature so close to the tiny square of Paris that is my home.
The first time I passed through the little green swing gate, my husband turned to me and said: “You'll like this place, it has ducks.” Ducks there were indeed, with their own charming pond, island and duckhouse, prime real estate in the heart of the 3rd Arrondissement, pleasantly shaded with trees and bushes. There were also people. The overburdened confines of the buildings surrounding the square had overflowed out into park, and the benches were crowded. The well-provisioned play area was filled with excited children and harassed parents. It was a warm summer evening and the few remaining Parisians left working in the city in August seemed to have all paused there too, on their way home, ties loosened, sandals kicked off, sweating gently, leaning on the bandstand or reposing peacefully on the lush grass.
At lunchtimes the park can be packed with teenagers from the local schools, jostling for position on the bandstand as they eat their burgers and frites. Prim office girls and shop assistants juggle sandwiches and mobile phones, their hair starting to tumble out of that morning's hastily formed topknot or ponytail. Elderly Chinese couples walk the paths slowly, continuing their daily constitutional from the Place de la Republique and pausing occasionally to rest in the warmth of the sun, watching the pigeons strut from bench to bin in search of food, and lost somewhere in the midst of a thousand memories with faraway looks in their tired, clouded eyes.
One afternoon I sat there in the blazing heat on the only free bench I could find, one that was in direct sunlight. In front of me were sunbathers, bronzed and content to sleep the rest of the day away as they slowly cooked in the city's summer oven, while I barely glanced up from my Kindle. Just me and the collected short stories of Guy de Maupassant, absorbed for half an hour or so in my local park. As I read stories set in a Paris long past, today's Paris was happening all around me. Toddlers made their unsteady way towards the slides and the climbing frames while cyclists wheeled their bikes across the square, cutting off awkward corners and traffic clogged junctions with a peaceful saunter through the calm greenness. Getting up to start the short walk back to the apartment, I exited the park via the farthest away gate, near to the offices of the Mayor of the 3rd Arrondissement. At the bottom of the steps there stood a young couple, just married and smiling. The bride looked relaxed in a simple white dress and with tiny white flowers entwined in her loose, curly hair. Along with her new husband she was surrounded by a small group of well wishers, dressed in their best, laughing and taking photographs. The sun shone brilliantly down on all of them from a huge, cloudless sky. It was a beautiful day to be married in Paris. The park gate clanged shut behind me and I headed back through the Marais streets, smiling as I took each sandalled step. Now boots are the most appropriate footwear and the park benches are often soaked with rain. When venturing to the park on drier days I have to wear a scarf and the ducks on the pond are now fluffed up against the approaching winter, but hopefully that young couple are still enjoying matrimonial bliss as I am still enjoying the Square du Temple, that tiny square of nature so close to the tiny square of Paris that is my home.
Monday, 31 October 2011
A Breath of Fresh Air
On Sundays they close many of the streets in the Marais, including the one where we live. They have a whole city-wide programme of closures called “Paris Respire”, literally meaning “Paris Breathes”. On certain streets cars are banned and pedestrians, cyclists and roller skaters are given free reign. In practice near us this generally means that the roads become blocked with people milling about, having leisurely Sunday conversations in great giggling groups, whilst the car drivers who have managed to persuade the police manning the barriers that they have a genuine need to drive through the blockade edge slowly past, scared and frustrated expressions fixed on their faces. It is possible to pick up a Vélib and potter about the local streets, past the National Archives and round the narrow lanes with alarmingly crooked overhanging buildings, taking in the neat courtyards and little garden squares as you pass. You don't pick up any degree of momentum, though, or get anywhere particularly fast. You stop and start, ringing your bell and trying to be polite but firm with your “excusez moi” and “pardon” as you try to weave your heavy mount through the crowds.
If you want sheer cycling romance then nothing really beats crossing one of the old, cobbled bridges across the river to the islands. You can pause briefly at the bridge's curved summit and look down at the sunlight dancing on the water, before bouncing down the gentle slope to the steeply banked waterside roads of the Île St. Louis. Here there is some traffic to contend with, mainly taxis on a Sunday morning, but the roads are not wide enough to be driven along at speed, so the pace remains relaxed and you don't generally feel intimidated. I like to think that I become something of a curiosity to the rich, luggage-laden tourists in the backs of the cabs, me riding the sturdy Vélib with my mass of thick, wavy hair struggling to break free of my cycle helmet.
The ultimate Sunday Vélib treat, however, is to go right down by the Seine onto the smooth, fast tarmac usually reserved for cars speeding across the city. The busy quayside highway that takes up the lower part of the riverbank near to the Hôtel de Ville and the Place du Châtelet is reserved for non-motorised traffic from the morning until five in the afternoon. A substantial chunk of road is available for people-powered transport, joggers and promenaders. It is a popular spot, with everyone from kids on wobbly trikes to roller bladers dressed in head to toe, aerodynamic lycra taking advantage of this opportunity to just play by the riverside. The cordoned off sliproads down to the quays are steep, so you can freewheel down and let yourself loose onto the road with a flying start, racing under the bridges and easily outrunning the gently meandering boats that are your neighbours. Keeping a careful eye out for your fellow road revellers doesn't preclude the chance to absorb the more grand sights around you – the Pont Neuf up ahead or the Conciergerie, with its current cloak of scaffolding, across the gentle swell and bubble of the Seine's waves, so close beside you as you cycle along.
This Sunday we had friends staying with us and introducing them to the Vélibs was a wonderful way of showing them this place that has become our city. Paris, in all her glory, opening up one of the main thoroughfares of her bustling centre to enable it to be more fully admired, as well as providing original transport to augment the experience. Like schoolchildren we jostled to overtake each other, laughing as we got to grips with the eccentricities of Vélib steering, out in the sunshine by the Seine. As we parked the bikes the sun had disappeared behind a cloud and we returned to the more sedate pace of walking. Whether we're on two wheels or on two feet, though, these are our streets now. Filled with cars or filled with people, these are the cobbles that pave our home town. Paris and the spirit of freedom, so encompassed in the Vélib and the whole programme of “Paris Respire” Sunday street closures, has taken hold of my husband and I, and I don't think that it will ever let us go.
If you want sheer cycling romance then nothing really beats crossing one of the old, cobbled bridges across the river to the islands. You can pause briefly at the bridge's curved summit and look down at the sunlight dancing on the water, before bouncing down the gentle slope to the steeply banked waterside roads of the Île St. Louis. Here there is some traffic to contend with, mainly taxis on a Sunday morning, but the roads are not wide enough to be driven along at speed, so the pace remains relaxed and you don't generally feel intimidated. I like to think that I become something of a curiosity to the rich, luggage-laden tourists in the backs of the cabs, me riding the sturdy Vélib with my mass of thick, wavy hair struggling to break free of my cycle helmet.
The ultimate Sunday Vélib treat, however, is to go right down by the Seine onto the smooth, fast tarmac usually reserved for cars speeding across the city. The busy quayside highway that takes up the lower part of the riverbank near to the Hôtel de Ville and the Place du Châtelet is reserved for non-motorised traffic from the morning until five in the afternoon. A substantial chunk of road is available for people-powered transport, joggers and promenaders. It is a popular spot, with everyone from kids on wobbly trikes to roller bladers dressed in head to toe, aerodynamic lycra taking advantage of this opportunity to just play by the riverside. The cordoned off sliproads down to the quays are steep, so you can freewheel down and let yourself loose onto the road with a flying start, racing under the bridges and easily outrunning the gently meandering boats that are your neighbours. Keeping a careful eye out for your fellow road revellers doesn't preclude the chance to absorb the more grand sights around you – the Pont Neuf up ahead or the Conciergerie, with its current cloak of scaffolding, across the gentle swell and bubble of the Seine's waves, so close beside you as you cycle along.
This Sunday we had friends staying with us and introducing them to the Vélibs was a wonderful way of showing them this place that has become our city. Paris, in all her glory, opening up one of the main thoroughfares of her bustling centre to enable it to be more fully admired, as well as providing original transport to augment the experience. Like schoolchildren we jostled to overtake each other, laughing as we got to grips with the eccentricities of Vélib steering, out in the sunshine by the Seine. As we parked the bikes the sun had disappeared behind a cloud and we returned to the more sedate pace of walking. Whether we're on two wheels or on two feet, though, these are our streets now. Filled with cars or filled with people, these are the cobbles that pave our home town. Paris and the spirit of freedom, so encompassed in the Vélib and the whole programme of “Paris Respire” Sunday street closures, has taken hold of my husband and I, and I don't think that it will ever let us go.
Head in the Clouds
So many of the things that tourists are encouraged to do in Paris involve exhilarating climbs and panoramic views. The Eiffel Tower, of course, is the most famous. A trip to the top is an exercise in patience as much as anything else, with long and slow-moving queues for the cash desks and the lifts followed by the undignified scrum for the best viewpoints on each level. It is worth it, though, to see far out to the city's boundaries and appreciate the unique architecture and spread of the place – all elegant domes and spires, broad avenues and the graceful spans of the bridges, populated with tiny people, cars and métro trains.
One chilly morning, years ago, my husband and I were near the front of the line for the first climb of the day up the bell tower of Notre Dame. Up and up into the frosty air we climbed, steadying ourselves with brief clutches at the cold stone walls. At the top the wind was bitter and cutting, but the resigned faces of the gargoyles and grotesques still looked out over the rooftops. Encountering them up close revealed how detailed the carvings were. Turning a corner brought us face to face with an enormous bell, encased in its own wooden frame and mercifully not in full chime, not even swinging gently as the stiff breeze blew, but taller than us and at least twice as broad. The scale of things out of the ordinary is what makes these ascents so memorable – life size statues and gigantic bells contrasted with the minute, toy-town city streets below, then the whole mass distorted perceptions reversed as you make your way down again.
A visit to Montmartre offers up a whole new series of elevated sensations. This part of Paris clings to the hillside, the buildings like barnacles on a ship's hull. You walk through a warren of narrow, steep paths, uneven cobbles ready to trip you, stairways leading to café terraces, front doors or simply just new streets and alleyways. At the highest point in the city sits the Sacre Coeur, the pure white basilica that teases you with glimpses of its huge dome and pinnacles from behind walls and chimney pots for miles around. You can walk around under the painted vastness of the turrets or descend into the still, dark quiet of the crypt, but the thing to do really is to go up onto the roof. The tiny staircases and narrow walkways make you feel as if you are tripping, cat-like, across the church eaves. Up there, where the pigeons make their home amongst the marble, you are up above the city smog and closer to the sun that makes this great, white, shining pearl place almost glow against blue skies. You forget the crowds below and the jostling of tired bodies in the cramped streets. Up here you can soar over the city, from the train tracks of the Gare du Nord and out over all the zinc, lead and stones falling away from you into the distance.
To get to Montmartre you might have taken métro line 2, which has a few raised portions of track. The trains snake their way up out of their underground tunnels and over iron viaducts, following the lines of the streets below with often sharp twists and turns. As you look into the windows of the apartments and offices clustered at eye level around the track, you can sometimes glimpse the rear train coaches bending back towards those at the head, performing astonishing feats of flexibility to negotiate the bends. For more spectacular sights line 6 is recommended, this being a public transport artery so endowed with good views that it once featured in an episode of the American series “ER”. If you ignore the crush in the carriage and look out, you are treated at one point to the sight of the Eiffel Tower as the train crosses the Seine. There is water below and buildings close in on you from each bank, but as you make landfall and cruise above the cars stuck in the traffic jams beneath you can still see the giant majesty of the Tower's iron frame. On some days they hold markets on a few streets under the line, stalls with all their fresh goods and vibrant chatter sheltering in the shadows of the tracks, with animation of some kind going on at every level.
Paris at ground level can be hectic, so it is no surprise that viewing it from up on high is so often recommended. To climb up is to inhale the whole city in one huge breath, then release a sigh as the vast beauty of it gradually becomes apparent in the panorama spread out before you. You grasp the essence of the place, so compact and intense on terra firma but expanded somehow from up on high, with every angle revealing a sight to behold, everywhere something to see. Time slows down as you go up. You don't have to worry about weaving through the crowds or negotiating the streets – it's all there in front of you and you can properly appreciate it. Your own particular place in it all, whatever that may be, ceases to matter. You can see the city functioning as a big, beautiful whole, a teeming mass underneath the serene calm of an enormous sky, with clouds so close you could reach out and touch them.
One chilly morning, years ago, my husband and I were near the front of the line for the first climb of the day up the bell tower of Notre Dame. Up and up into the frosty air we climbed, steadying ourselves with brief clutches at the cold stone walls. At the top the wind was bitter and cutting, but the resigned faces of the gargoyles and grotesques still looked out over the rooftops. Encountering them up close revealed how detailed the carvings were. Turning a corner brought us face to face with an enormous bell, encased in its own wooden frame and mercifully not in full chime, not even swinging gently as the stiff breeze blew, but taller than us and at least twice as broad. The scale of things out of the ordinary is what makes these ascents so memorable – life size statues and gigantic bells contrasted with the minute, toy-town city streets below, then the whole mass distorted perceptions reversed as you make your way down again.
A visit to Montmartre offers up a whole new series of elevated sensations. This part of Paris clings to the hillside, the buildings like barnacles on a ship's hull. You walk through a warren of narrow, steep paths, uneven cobbles ready to trip you, stairways leading to café terraces, front doors or simply just new streets and alleyways. At the highest point in the city sits the Sacre Coeur, the pure white basilica that teases you with glimpses of its huge dome and pinnacles from behind walls and chimney pots for miles around. You can walk around under the painted vastness of the turrets or descend into the still, dark quiet of the crypt, but the thing to do really is to go up onto the roof. The tiny staircases and narrow walkways make you feel as if you are tripping, cat-like, across the church eaves. Up there, where the pigeons make their home amongst the marble, you are up above the city smog and closer to the sun that makes this great, white, shining pearl place almost glow against blue skies. You forget the crowds below and the jostling of tired bodies in the cramped streets. Up here you can soar over the city, from the train tracks of the Gare du Nord and out over all the zinc, lead and stones falling away from you into the distance.
To get to Montmartre you might have taken métro line 2, which has a few raised portions of track. The trains snake their way up out of their underground tunnels and over iron viaducts, following the lines of the streets below with often sharp twists and turns. As you look into the windows of the apartments and offices clustered at eye level around the track, you can sometimes glimpse the rear train coaches bending back towards those at the head, performing astonishing feats of flexibility to negotiate the bends. For more spectacular sights line 6 is recommended, this being a public transport artery so endowed with good views that it once featured in an episode of the American series “ER”. If you ignore the crush in the carriage and look out, you are treated at one point to the sight of the Eiffel Tower as the train crosses the Seine. There is water below and buildings close in on you from each bank, but as you make landfall and cruise above the cars stuck in the traffic jams beneath you can still see the giant majesty of the Tower's iron frame. On some days they hold markets on a few streets under the line, stalls with all their fresh goods and vibrant chatter sheltering in the shadows of the tracks, with animation of some kind going on at every level.
Paris at ground level can be hectic, so it is no surprise that viewing it from up on high is so often recommended. To climb up is to inhale the whole city in one huge breath, then release a sigh as the vast beauty of it gradually becomes apparent in the panorama spread out before you. You grasp the essence of the place, so compact and intense on terra firma but expanded somehow from up on high, with every angle revealing a sight to behold, everywhere something to see. Time slows down as you go up. You don't have to worry about weaving through the crowds or negotiating the streets – it's all there in front of you and you can properly appreciate it. Your own particular place in it all, whatever that may be, ceases to matter. You can see the city functioning as a big, beautiful whole, a teeming mass underneath the serene calm of an enormous sky, with clouds so close you could reach out and touch them.
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Islands in the Seine
It is just a short walk from our apartment to the Île de la Cité, going past the Hôtel de Ville and across the Pont d'Arcole. The vast proportions of Notre Dame quickly come into sight and you soon find yourself consumed by the mass of people gathered by its entrance. There are those queuing to enter the knave and those attempting to take the perfect cathedral snapshot. They stand on benches, low walls and bollards, directing their friends into the frame with frantic hand gestures, or alternatively they crouch low to the ground, brows furrowed with concentration, as they struggle to accommodate the massive height of the cathedral towers in their viewfinders. It is a wonder that the island doesn't sink into the murky depths of the Seine or shake free of its foundations and float away, given the weight and activity of the thronging hoards. In the early evening the island's streets are burdened still further with battalions of police and processions of prison vans, taking the miscreants who have been dealt with at the Palais de Justice that day onward to whatever future has been handed down to them. All the while the ambulances come and go around the Hôtel Dieu, creeping their way through the crowds and the traffic with their sirens wailing.
The Île St. Louis is quieter. Skirting the back of the Hôtel de Ville we can cross the river using the Pont Louis Philippe and find ourselves amongst the smaller island's narrow streets. There are crowds here too, but they are walking around in the most part, stopping to admire the occasional shop window maybe, or queueing to buy the famous Berthillon ice cream, but not really congregating anywhere in particular. Sometimes the roar of a moped or the chime of a bike bell causes them to scatter, or a car might send them scurrying for the pavements, but overall the mood is relaxed. One hot and humid summer evening, when the nights were still light and warm enough for strolling, we heard the sound of Fauré's Requiem drifting out from the church of St. Louis en l'Ile, contemplative tones bathing the island in pleasant tranquillity.
If you take up the right position at a corner café, you might be lucky enough to get a view of the Panthéon, its sheer size and majesty capable of being properly appreciated from here, looming as it does from its distant but elevated position on the Left Bank. Adjust your gaze slightly and you can see, just across the water, the shimmering glass of the Institut du Monde Arabe, a modern building in stark contrast to the ancient stone edifices all around it, but not at all incongruous. Looking out at these vistas one August night we saw black clouds gathering. As we waited to be served with ice cream, bright flashes illuminated the ink-black sky behind the Panthéon's dome. The approaching thunder began with a low rumble, but by the time our order was being scooped up it was repeating in loud, atmosphere-splitting cracks that seemed to be directly above our heads. The trees dotted along the quayside were now being shaken by an ominous wind that had blown up with alarming rapidity. We knew what was coming and tried to outrun the storm in a mad dash back to the mainland, but just before we crossed the Rue de Rivoli the heavens opened. Soaked with the heavy, warm droplets of rain, we kept on running and clutching our ice cream cones all the way back to the safety of our front door.
Amidst their surrounding waters the two central Seine islands rest, quietly at home. All of Paris is at the mercy of the great river that flows through it, topped up regularly by the deluges from above, but the islands are at the heart of the churning waves and more vulnerable still. The motto of the city translates as something like: “She is buffeted by the waves, but she does not sink,” and walking on the Île de la Cité and the Île St. Louis you feel the sense of defiance against the elements that these words encapsulate even more keenly. Perhaps these islands are concentrated microcosms of Paris as a whole. The contrast between the busy, brash Île de la Cité and the more calm, intimate Île St. Louis reflects the different faces of the city at large, the ways in which Paris can be so diverse and yet maintain that whole identity as somewhere unique, somewhere clearly Parisian amidst a mass of contradictions. Or perhaps they are just fine places to go out walking, with the river on either side of you, the comings and goings of the boats and the people, the flow of the water and the currents of the city swirling all around.
The Île St. Louis is quieter. Skirting the back of the Hôtel de Ville we can cross the river using the Pont Louis Philippe and find ourselves amongst the smaller island's narrow streets. There are crowds here too, but they are walking around in the most part, stopping to admire the occasional shop window maybe, or queueing to buy the famous Berthillon ice cream, but not really congregating anywhere in particular. Sometimes the roar of a moped or the chime of a bike bell causes them to scatter, or a car might send them scurrying for the pavements, but overall the mood is relaxed. One hot and humid summer evening, when the nights were still light and warm enough for strolling, we heard the sound of Fauré's Requiem drifting out from the church of St. Louis en l'Ile, contemplative tones bathing the island in pleasant tranquillity.
If you take up the right position at a corner café, you might be lucky enough to get a view of the Panthéon, its sheer size and majesty capable of being properly appreciated from here, looming as it does from its distant but elevated position on the Left Bank. Adjust your gaze slightly and you can see, just across the water, the shimmering glass of the Institut du Monde Arabe, a modern building in stark contrast to the ancient stone edifices all around it, but not at all incongruous. Looking out at these vistas one August night we saw black clouds gathering. As we waited to be served with ice cream, bright flashes illuminated the ink-black sky behind the Panthéon's dome. The approaching thunder began with a low rumble, but by the time our order was being scooped up it was repeating in loud, atmosphere-splitting cracks that seemed to be directly above our heads. The trees dotted along the quayside were now being shaken by an ominous wind that had blown up with alarming rapidity. We knew what was coming and tried to outrun the storm in a mad dash back to the mainland, but just before we crossed the Rue de Rivoli the heavens opened. Soaked with the heavy, warm droplets of rain, we kept on running and clutching our ice cream cones all the way back to the safety of our front door.
Amidst their surrounding waters the two central Seine islands rest, quietly at home. All of Paris is at the mercy of the great river that flows through it, topped up regularly by the deluges from above, but the islands are at the heart of the churning waves and more vulnerable still. The motto of the city translates as something like: “She is buffeted by the waves, but she does not sink,” and walking on the Île de la Cité and the Île St. Louis you feel the sense of defiance against the elements that these words encapsulate even more keenly. Perhaps these islands are concentrated microcosms of Paris as a whole. The contrast between the busy, brash Île de la Cité and the more calm, intimate Île St. Louis reflects the different faces of the city at large, the ways in which Paris can be so diverse and yet maintain that whole identity as somewhere unique, somewhere clearly Parisian amidst a mass of contradictions. Or perhaps they are just fine places to go out walking, with the river on either side of you, the comings and goings of the boats and the people, the flow of the water and the currents of the city swirling all around.
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