Back from the city of light.
Please, if you have the chance to visit Paris any time in your life, go there. It is a wonderful, life-changing place and has something for everyone, no matter what you like to do. I heard that Parisians were very snooty and cold, but that was not our experience. I will say, they were very efficient, but even in their efficiency, they were pleasant and friendly and helpful and almost everyone was able to speak fantastic English (much to our shame and chagrin, because we did try to speak French, and they were quite encouraging about it, but many of them would say they spoke a "little" English and then go on to speak it extremely well. We improved over the time we were there though and were able to order in French and ask for directions in the Metro and even have small conversations about the weather and where we came from and things like that by the end of our holiday.)
Paris is an astonishingly beautiful city -- our little hotel window had a killer view of old St. Eustache and the Bourse du Commerce and many little French apartment windows with red flowers in the boxes and Juliet balconies and French doors behind (and also the very ugly Forum des Halles, which is a modern mall sort of thing in this old neighbourhood which was the scene of the assassination of Henri IV). We saw many sights -- all except the Musee d'Orsay from my list of to-do's -- poor William had a migraine on the morning we had set aside for the Impressionists. We ate lovely food --- cheese and bread and pastry and chocolate (except for Anthony who can't eat chocolate) -- and drank lots of coffee and wine (me) and walked great distances (many Parisian woman wear very elegant shoes and of course, they generally look a lot more "put together" than someone like me, even on their worst days, but I thank goodness for sensible shoes). We idylled away hot summer afternoons reading in different picturesque parks (while William caught European Pokemon, much to the envy of his fellow Pokemon hunters back here in Canada) and ate at sidewalk cafes and listened to music and hung out at the Paris Plage (the city brings in tons of lovely rose coloured sand and beach chairs and beach umbrellas and they have activities for children and dancing and ice cream on the banks of the Seine). We shopped along the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue St. Honore and in the Marais (mostly window-shopped because, as you know, I am not a shopper) and we had a bit of a book-buying frenzy at Shakespeare and Company (and felt like Hemingway or Scott Fitzgerald, sitting on an old couch on the second floor reading Proust's letters {that would be me}). We saw some political demonstrations (right outside our hotel, to Anthony's extreme pleasure, the Communist Party of France held a meeting -- one of the pamphleteers tried to engage me in conversation, but my French was not up to the task) and rode the metro (which is efficient and well-organized and safe) all over the far flung reaches of the city. I got to make a pilgrimage to Oscar Wilde's grave and that of Moliere (at Pere Lachaise Cemetery -- where there are lots of amazing people buried -- but my map was not easy to read and so I didn't get to see Sarah Bernhardt's grave and several others that I really wanted to see -- but it was wonderful to see Oscar Wilde (there were flowers there for him) and Moliere). We went to an organ concert at St. Eustache, which is where Moliere was baptized and where Liszt conducted (and one of the pieces was a very dramatic composition by Liszt himself). I can't describe how moved I was to stand in front of Botticelli's Three Graces at the Louvre or to visit Napoleon's tomb (where this inscription stands over the entrance to his very impressive coffin -- "I desire that my ashes repose on the shore of the Seine in the midst of the French people whom I have loved so much"). It really is impossible to list all the amazing things we got the chance to do and how happy we were to be able to be there and have these experiences.
I would go back in a heartbeat. There is the Musee d'Orsay to see and we didn't take the train to Chartres because once we were there, I realized that there were so many things we wanted to do right in Paris that it would push us over the top to try to go to Chartres as well. We didn't spend any time in Montmartre and I would like to go to the Cluny Museum and the Atelier Brancusi and the Centre Pompidou (which was close to our hotel, and visible from our window) and the Picasso museum and a gazillion other things.
Here I will end with a bit of Baudelaire -- not the sickly stuff from "Fleurs du Mal" but something more "upbeat"!
Treasure galore - ornate,
Time glossed -- would decorate
Our chamber, where the rarest blooms
Would blend their lavish scent
Heady and opulent
With wisps of amber-like perfumes;
Where all the Orient's
Splendid, rich ornaments
Deep mirrors, ceilings fine -- would each,
In confidential tone
Speak to the soul alone
In its own and secret speech.
No comments:
Post a Comment