Look honey — there's the Eiffel Tower
Romance. This is the first thought that comes to mind when most of us think of Paris. There no doubt about it, Paris reeks of love.
I’ve been hanging out in Paris off and on since I was a kid. In many ways, the city is like an old flame for me, one that I often daydream about with fond memories. This time I will be exploring it with my girlfriend Jory, who has never seen the place.
As we all know, it can be challenging to introduce a new love to an old flame. But of course I’m up for it as it’s one of my favourite cities to visit. We’ve got 24 hours before our plane leaves l’Aeroport Charles de Gaulle bound for Vancouver.
At 9 a.m. we step out of our hotel, aptly named the Hotel de Paris, onto the Avenue du Maine in the Montparnasse district. It’s a crisp and clear spring morning and the streets are teaming with action. A street cleaner on a futuristic green motorcycle zips by scooping dog shit and other random treats off the sidewalk. Men in bright green overalls are sweeping the gutters while Parisiens of all types walk past, most in a serious gait looking like the sky will drop if they do not get to work. Cars honk and spew polluted air while scooters and motorcycles rush to the front of the line and race off down the streets. I relish my fresh-out-of-the-shower feeling and take a deep breath of semi-fresh morning air, knowing that I will be scrubbing off the day’s grime from my body in a few hours.
In the Gare Montparenasse, one of the city’s main train and metro stations, the intensity of the commuting crowd is peaking. We push through the turnstiles and dodge 100 or so people at an intersection and slide into a mass of moving humans dropping further underground. It is such a wonderfully liberating feeling to be temporarily observing the big city commute. With so many immigrants and cultures melded into a vibrant and energetic place, Paris is one of my favourite places to people watch.
The sound of a cello dances up a distant tunnel as we walk by, creating a momentary escape from the hectic reality of the commuter buzz. Up a flight of stairs, turn left, walk another 50 metres, then turn right and down to the platform. The elaborate network of metro lines makes Paris a pleasure to explore. No point in the capital is more than 500 metres from a metro station. The light of a subway flickers in the dark tunnel and the air around us shifts distinctly. The silver unit zooms into view. We hop on and speed away.
Six stops later we emerge from the bowels of the city to look straight up at the Eiffel Tower. No matter how many times I see this structure, it always hits me profoundly. It is probably one of the worlds most recognized pieces of art. It stands there, strikingly phallic, with thousands of humans circling it, climbing on it and staring at it. As we walk up the perfectly manicured Champ de Mars gardens gazing skyward at the tower piercing the heavens, a true kaleidoscope of peoples from all corners of the globe stroll past. Algerian hawkers approach us with trinkets and souvenirs. "Mister, Mister. You must buy," they beg with pleading eyes and thick French-African accents, like molasses, pouring slowly from a jar.
As we approach the base of the tower a cluster of anxious and gasping people grab our attention. Sure enough, it's Boris Yeltsin happily soaking up the autographs and photographs with a serious security entourage and a fleet of black Mercedes waiting. It must be nice to be able to park your car directly underneath the blooming Eiffel Tower.
I join the small crowd and step in closer – close enough to smell booze on his breath. Jory and I walk away with that high that only comes from seeing such a recognized human personality in the flesh.
Bending our necks straight up, we admire the intricate mess of pig iron that makes up the tower. Built for the Exposition Universelle of 1899, at 300 metres high, it was the tallest structure in the world when it was erected. We decide to walk up, weaving upwards through the tensile masterpiece one step at a time. The panorama from the third level vantage is glorious: streets and quarters packed tightly for as far as the eye can see. Montmartre and the tall white silhouette of the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur pierces the skyline and a myriad of recognizable monuments penetrate neighbourhoods below us.
Back on the ground we meander along the Riviere Seine to the Musee D’Orsay, one of my favourite buildings in Paris. A former train station, the grand Orsay boasts a collection of works that cover the years 1848 to 1914. The Impressionism rooms and the work of Toulouse Lautrec are what I want to peruse on this visit. For a moment, I imagine myself living in Lautrec’s world of sin and debauchery, in Montmartre’s late 17 th century notorious nightlife: unknowing pioneers of art – drinking, dancing, drugs and women in a pulsing Paris. Wait a second. Whistler? Montmartre? Maybe I did live this daydream, but in Whistler’s hey day when locals walked the streets.
After a while, my mind becomes numb from art, my vision blurry and my knees sore. I seek empty benches and begin observing American tourists toting mini video cameras and hand-held personal tour guides, checking masterpieces off their list like they are flicking through the channels of a TV. It’s ironic, timeless paintings that would have taken ages to create, walked past and given a simple glance. I guess I’m as guilty as the next. Tragic humans, we are.
We decide to pick up a baguette, some olives, a chunk of cheese and walk over to the Tuileries Garden for a late afternoon repose. Generally I find big cities annoying after a while. Paris’s fantastically designed park spaces, however, make the city of 10 million-plus inhabitants feel liveable.
We find a park bench and take it over. Jory lays her head on my lap, stretches out and closes her eyes in the late afternoon sun. Parisiens have this sophisticated aura about them. It must be their clothes and the manner in which they carry themselves. Couples saunter past, business types and friends, all seemingly discussing art history, international relations or some other highly intellectual topic, or not. I watch children sail little boats across the large water filled basins and drift off into my thoughts.
We decide to go back to the hotel, clean up and head back out for dinner. The restaurant we've chosen is called Au Trou Normand in the happening Quartier Bastille. We find the joint after some lengthy wandering in the narrow and criss-crossed streets. Aptly named 'Trou', which means hole, we step inside to a small, jam-packed locals hangout. Long tables are lined up with white paper tablecloths, brimming shoulder to shoulder with locals gabbing about whatever.
The waiters find us a seat matter-of-factly and point to it, matter-of-factly, as they do. We sit down at a table for four and a couple sits down with us moments afterwards. Coming from Canada, the grand land of personal space, having two strangers join you for dinner, uninvited, takes a little getting used to. He’s a retired American philosopher, bearded, Earnest Hemingway-esque and living in Athens. She’s a younger Greek girl, probably half his age, going to La Sorbonne, Paris’s main university. After a few awkward questions, our discussion picks up speed. We discuss world issues, politics, Americanization, and the frightening impact of the U.S. on the rest of the world while we drink wine and wait for our food. Our conversation deviates to a number of deep issues, like a silver pin-ball zipping to and fro on the surface of a pin-ball machine. In France, dinner can easily take a few hours. We eat and say good-bye.
Jory and I step onto the street, into cool air and relative silence. I look back at the restaurant before turning the corner. It’s as if it isn’t there anymore, the restaurant blends into the surrounding buildings like paint on a palette. The stuff of novels. I shake my head and smile. Only in Paris.
