Perhaps the state of the Porte Dauphine metro station should have given us a sense of trepidation. Carefully minding the step as we left the train at the terminus of line two, we did notice a very strong smell of damp, and climbing up to street level through the almost deserted station we could see that the steps were very wet. Not caring to take too much notice, however, we negotiated the maze of roads and traffic headed for the notorious Boulevard Periphique and made our way into the Bois de Boulogne for the first time.
Truly we could not see the wood for the trees. The Bois is vast and even with good signage, maps and an iPhone we had no real plan of attack, and thus fell to wandering aimlessly along the paths for a while. A group of mature Frenchmen playing petanque provoked a quickening of our pace. We had encountered such types before on a trip to the South. Foolishly sitting down to watch them, we saw their game gradually creep round by miniscule degrees until we could not help but think they were pitching their boules deliberately at us, Anglo-French relations dissolving in a rather genteel cannonball barrage, so we moved on.
As we strayed deeper into the trees the paths became more picturesque, with gentle bridged streams and nuthatches flitting between branches overhead. Relishing a tranquil escape from raucous city being we strolled arm-in-arm towards a distant lake. We must have looked the picture of idealistic contentment in the broken sunshine, admiring the last fading blooms of the summer roses in the beds and sitting on a bench to glance at our map, while high above us the sky was darkening. Should we hire a bike perhaps, or enjoy an ice-cream? The decisions that you ponder slowly are there to be savoured. You take delight in the well-oiled machinery of your thought processes. Then the drops of rain start to fall and the brain's decision hatch snaps shut with jolting rapidity. All at once having a clear view of the impending downpour, we ran for cover.
Standing under a group of firs for a long time we watched the sparse human population of the wood deal with the heavy rain. A young boy felt the irresistible urge to venture out into the torrent, clearly weighing up in his mind the cautionary words of his mother with his desire to know what it felt like to be underneath that amount of precipitation. He dashed out from the trees only to dash quickly back in again with a sob and a grimace. On the lakeside path an elderly lady and her young helper simply continued walking, not altering their pace at all. Presumably she could not go any faster and did not want to stop, so in her sodden raincoat and hat she just kept on going, dignified and unflinching while the rest of us cowered.
For a long while each time the shower seemed to be abating it then decided to come back stronger, so we watched the skies for what seemed like an eternity, looking for brightness instead of black. When finally there was warm sun again we combed shed bits of tree from our hair and began to pick our way back to the station through the puddles and the mud. Meandering became once again quite pleasant. We saw young children being led along on placid hired horses through idyllic forest clearings, as well as boats to be rented on a clear, still stretch of water. Far in the distance the Eiffel Tower peeped out from behind the trees. But as we reached the margins of the forest the clouds gathered once more and despite our best efforts we did not make it to the covered metro porch before the deluge found us. The road rapidly turned into a river but still a valiant street cleaner kept on sweeping through the flood as we, by now quite soaked, made our way down to the platform and the waiting train. I swear no one else seemed to have got caught in the shower. We were the only ones who sat quietly dripping on our way back into the city centre.
The sun was out again to dry us on our walk back to our apartment, but this time we didn't dawdle. However scenic the streets of Paris might be, we are slowly learning that her heavens cannot completely be trusted.
Monday, 29 August 2011
Friday, 26 August 2011
La Samaritaine
I have always been fascinated by La Samaritaine, the grand old lady of the Right Bank. She looms in chocolate and bronze over the riverside near the Pont Neuf, no longer polished and gleaming in the sunlight but slightly tarnished, aging gracefully as the river serenely flows at her feet. Her rooms are silent, quietly abandoned. She is a ghost living out the memories of a Parisian life gone by.
La Samaritaine was a department store. It also used to be the place to take tea, with a rooftop terrace affording what must have been the city's most civilised vantage point - a view from the sky a million times removed from the brashness of the Eiffel Tower or the seventies vision of modernity encompassed in the Tour Montparnasse. Perhaps La Samaritaine was always a place caught out of time, from somewhere else altogether where things were different, nicer, more genteel, more beautiful? In any case it fell victim to modern regulations when it was discovered that it was not safe in case of fire and since 2005 it has been closed.
There is something about so big a building and particularly such a grand one just standing empty. It seems eerie. You can't help but look and wonder what's going on within. What do the deserted corridors look like? What's left in the rooms? The outside is remarkably well preserved, though some of the window panes might be slipping slightly in their frames, growing crooked with the passage of time and revealing clothes rails still stacked up behind them, barren of course. When a puff of smoke drifts through the cracks from a passing car exhaust do the walls shudder with the knowledge that this smoke could mean fire, the thing that somebody somewhere determined would be this building's nemesis? Do they tremble just a little, preparing to bring the whole thing down in a tangled mess?
It is easy to imagine such a mess at the moment, since the hoardings obscuring the ground floor and entrances are currently displaying a series of photos showing how the building was constructed. You can actually see the metal beams being lifted into place to create the central frame that the store was built around, the very thing that I had heard to be allegedly structurally deficient according to modern standards, unable to withstand fifteen minutes of fire. I've since read other explanations as to why the place was unsafe - flammable floorboards, old wiring, a propensity to fill quickly with smoke. Whatever the real perceived problem, a full evacuation of the store's occupants could not apparently be achieved within a reasonable timeframe in an emergency. So there must be no more occupants, for now.
Alongside the store's construction history you can view a plan for its future. The owners are trying to explain that they will preserve the historic traditions of a Parisian icon whilst making everything safe. This means that they have to perform a complex dance behind the original Art Deco facade (which will be retained), balancing complex financial calculations whilst also taking into account the depth of feeling for the place. The most lucrative use of this prime riverside site is, apparently, a mixture of hotels, apartments, offices and retail space, with a nod to all important social considerations in the form of affordable housing and a childcare facility. All of which sounds logical, correct, safe and sadly maybe a bit too sanitized and carefully thought out.
Parisians complain about what's happened to La Samaritaine for all sorts of reasons. There have been wrangles about ownership. People don't like the fact that it's been left empty for so long. Some see the safety concerns as a mere excuse to free up the site for development. Yet nobody can quite agree on what should be done with it. So now the plans are starting to move forward, or so it seems, overall it must be a good thing, but you have to hope that they don't lose sight of the fact that La Samaritaine just exudes something magical. It draws you in from across the river and sets your imagination off in all sorts of directions. It is another place from another time and making it all safe, new and shiny must not be allowed to take away any of the resonance that it possesses. This grand old dame, probably wearing a hat, looking out at the city, deserves the respect of a well-loved maiden aunt, otherwise maybe it would have been better for her if she had dissappeared gracefully in a cloud of smoke.
La Samaritaine was a department store. It also used to be the place to take tea, with a rooftop terrace affording what must have been the city's most civilised vantage point - a view from the sky a million times removed from the brashness of the Eiffel Tower or the seventies vision of modernity encompassed in the Tour Montparnasse. Perhaps La Samaritaine was always a place caught out of time, from somewhere else altogether where things were different, nicer, more genteel, more beautiful? In any case it fell victim to modern regulations when it was discovered that it was not safe in case of fire and since 2005 it has been closed.
There is something about so big a building and particularly such a grand one just standing empty. It seems eerie. You can't help but look and wonder what's going on within. What do the deserted corridors look like? What's left in the rooms? The outside is remarkably well preserved, though some of the window panes might be slipping slightly in their frames, growing crooked with the passage of time and revealing clothes rails still stacked up behind them, barren of course. When a puff of smoke drifts through the cracks from a passing car exhaust do the walls shudder with the knowledge that this smoke could mean fire, the thing that somebody somewhere determined would be this building's nemesis? Do they tremble just a little, preparing to bring the whole thing down in a tangled mess?
It is easy to imagine such a mess at the moment, since the hoardings obscuring the ground floor and entrances are currently displaying a series of photos showing how the building was constructed. You can actually see the metal beams being lifted into place to create the central frame that the store was built around, the very thing that I had heard to be allegedly structurally deficient according to modern standards, unable to withstand fifteen minutes of fire. I've since read other explanations as to why the place was unsafe - flammable floorboards, old wiring, a propensity to fill quickly with smoke. Whatever the real perceived problem, a full evacuation of the store's occupants could not apparently be achieved within a reasonable timeframe in an emergency. So there must be no more occupants, for now.
Alongside the store's construction history you can view a plan for its future. The owners are trying to explain that they will preserve the historic traditions of a Parisian icon whilst making everything safe. This means that they have to perform a complex dance behind the original Art Deco facade (which will be retained), balancing complex financial calculations whilst also taking into account the depth of feeling for the place. The most lucrative use of this prime riverside site is, apparently, a mixture of hotels, apartments, offices and retail space, with a nod to all important social considerations in the form of affordable housing and a childcare facility. All of which sounds logical, correct, safe and sadly maybe a bit too sanitized and carefully thought out.
Parisians complain about what's happened to La Samaritaine for all sorts of reasons. There have been wrangles about ownership. People don't like the fact that it's been left empty for so long. Some see the safety concerns as a mere excuse to free up the site for development. Yet nobody can quite agree on what should be done with it. So now the plans are starting to move forward, or so it seems, overall it must be a good thing, but you have to hope that they don't lose sight of the fact that La Samaritaine just exudes something magical. It draws you in from across the river and sets your imagination off in all sorts of directions. It is another place from another time and making it all safe, new and shiny must not be allowed to take away any of the resonance that it possesses. This grand old dame, probably wearing a hat, looking out at the city, deserves the respect of a well-loved maiden aunt, otherwise maybe it would have been better for her if she had dissappeared gracefully in a cloud of smoke.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Summer in the City
Paris in August can be sunny and bright, the dome of Les Invalides glowing golden under clear blue skies, but the intense light that illuminates a thousand happy tourist snapshots comes at a high price. Heat - oppressive and accompanied by sticky, dense humidity - scorches the city's cobblestones. One might forgive such an atmosphere on the coast, where one has gone to flop and swim a bit, but when negotiating the crowds on the metro it just becomes a nuisance.
Realising the pains of summer by the Seine, the Paris authorities thoughtfully install beaches on the quaysides. Real sand, deckchairs and ice-cream sellers quickly become sites of jollity. There are even cooling showers where kids and adults alike run through curtains of water. I thought I was being summer-savvy, wearing a light white sundress to wander over the river to the Latin Quarter on Saturday. Sadly all it meant was that I was still hot but couldn't try out the showery deluge for fear of my attire becoming see-through and indecent. Let that be a cautionary tale for all!
It turned out that the weather had its own kind of self-righting mechanism in the end, though. The heat built and built, clear skies giving way to dark columns of cloud. The airbourne moisture droplets evidently felt the spirit of revolution echoing still in the city's foundations and decided to form a collective cloudbank as the atmospheric pressure rose. Yes, it turns out that alongside summer heat thunderstorms are a key seasonal Parisian feature.
Thunder, lightning and rain of tropical deluge proportions swept in, trying to wash the heat away. Showers, when the come here, come in earnest. Huge drops of warm rain bounce off the typically Parisian zinc rooftops with resounding metallic pinging. It is necessary to race for cover if outdoors or, if at home, to rapidly pull in the shutters and close the windows lest your parquet starts to resemble a veritable "piscine". The other night there was no rain, but we watched as the sky turned red over the Pompidou Centre and bright white forks of lightning shot out from the clouds. Being in a top floor apartment here can be like having a front row seat at the apocalypse.
My very first visit to Paris was in the summer heat, more than a decade ago, with the fresh-faced young graduate who is now my husband. Then, as now, the extremes of city life struck me - extreme heat, extreme hustle and bustle. I remember escaping for a day to the Army Museum, seeking soothing shade in its cool cloisters and galleries. I remember too getting up very early and walking in the Jardin de Luxembourg, before even the toddlers were out sailing their toy boats in the lake. That is still one of my favourite places, somewhere to find peace and tranquility while the weather continues its tumult, providing an ever-changing backdrop to all of the great buildings and monuments that loom over us here, just in case we forget where we are.
Realising the pains of summer by the Seine, the Paris authorities thoughtfully install beaches on the quaysides. Real sand, deckchairs and ice-cream sellers quickly become sites of jollity. There are even cooling showers where kids and adults alike run through curtains of water. I thought I was being summer-savvy, wearing a light white sundress to wander over the river to the Latin Quarter on Saturday. Sadly all it meant was that I was still hot but couldn't try out the showery deluge for fear of my attire becoming see-through and indecent. Let that be a cautionary tale for all!
It turned out that the weather had its own kind of self-righting mechanism in the end, though. The heat built and built, clear skies giving way to dark columns of cloud. The airbourne moisture droplets evidently felt the spirit of revolution echoing still in the city's foundations and decided to form a collective cloudbank as the atmospheric pressure rose. Yes, it turns out that alongside summer heat thunderstorms are a key seasonal Parisian feature.
Thunder, lightning and rain of tropical deluge proportions swept in, trying to wash the heat away. Showers, when the come here, come in earnest. Huge drops of warm rain bounce off the typically Parisian zinc rooftops with resounding metallic pinging. It is necessary to race for cover if outdoors or, if at home, to rapidly pull in the shutters and close the windows lest your parquet starts to resemble a veritable "piscine". The other night there was no rain, but we watched as the sky turned red over the Pompidou Centre and bright white forks of lightning shot out from the clouds. Being in a top floor apartment here can be like having a front row seat at the apocalypse.
My very first visit to Paris was in the summer heat, more than a decade ago, with the fresh-faced young graduate who is now my husband. Then, as now, the extremes of city life struck me - extreme heat, extreme hustle and bustle. I remember escaping for a day to the Army Museum, seeking soothing shade in its cool cloisters and galleries. I remember too getting up very early and walking in the Jardin de Luxembourg, before even the toddlers were out sailing their toy boats in the lake. That is still one of my favourite places, somewhere to find peace and tranquility while the weather continues its tumult, providing an ever-changing backdrop to all of the great buildings and monuments that loom over us here, just in case we forget where we are.
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