Paris: Day Four (part I)

After finally drifting off to sleep, sometime between three and four in the morning, slamming doors and stampedes up and down the stairs outside our door woke us … a little after ten. Sacre bleu! We were sweaty and disheveled and in no condition to make it downstairs to complimentary breakfast, factoring in how long it would take us both to get showered and dressed. I didn’t mind; I was exhausted and my body was really starting to feel it. My wife did mind, however, though I suspect memories of Crillon continental breakfasts may have been skewing her breakfast anticipation.

We compromised on – Starbucks! Yes, the omnipresent company I hate and my wife loves had an outpost two blocks away, on the Boulevard de Saint-Germain. Plus, we’d pass a post office and could mail out the half-dozen postcards she filled out the day before. By eleven we ourselves were stomping down those treacherous Hotel du Lys steps and were out in the warm sunlight of the Rue Serpent. This time we turned left on Rue Danton, and walked into our first French post office.

Which wasn’t too different from its American counterpart. Instead of a single feed line, though, there were four or five manned one-man counters, plus a smattering of self-service computerized stamp machines. My wife beelined for one of these, but we quickly proved unequal to the task. Much more difficult than negotiating a Metro ticket machine, since we had no idea how to figure out overseas postage amounts, and everything was in French. Fortunately, a helpful and cheerful woman who worked there spotted us in our plight, came over, and, without speaking a word of English instantly knew what we needed and prompted the machine to spit out the required stampage. We thanked her in our limited francaise and dropped the cards in an outside bin.

We crossed the busy Saint-Germain and the wife went into ’Bucks while I people-watched for fifteen minutes. What a gorgeous day! Temps in the seventies, no humidity. The sky was an absolutely crystal clear beautiful blue with no clouds about. My eyes rested upon the particularly French busy tiled roofs, the sandy shades of the buildings, the black-outlined windows with billowing drapes over flower boxes. Fifty or twenty bicyclists rode by, some in suits rushing to work, most in dresses or jeans. Lots of tourists and locals walking by; truthfully, it was hard to tell the difference. There was some construction going on an intersection away, plastic walls in a circle like some modern makeshift fort, but I didn’t see any activity there. My wife came out and ate at a nearby table while I plotted today’s strategy. Learning from our errors of yesterday, she bought a 64-ounce plastic bottle of water.

Notre Dame – that was our immediate target, walking distance about a half-mile away over the Seine on the Ile de Cité (City Island). We headed back east on the Rue Danton, past the post office, the Rue Serpente where our hotel lay nestled, past the triangular intersection of out-door eateries, past the Saint Michel fountain, up to the Quai Saint Michel / Quai de Montebello, the east-west thoroughfare that overlooks the Seine. On the southern side of this busy street are touristy gift shops; on the north side, straddling a long stone wall where you could see the river twenty or thirty feet below, were two dozen book stands. Apparently, dating back decades, peddlers are able to sell books from these olive green, permanently-installed giant cabinets attached to the stone wall. Overall, the book selections were eclectic. It was at one of these stands I spotted A Voyage to Arcturus in French. There were a lot of heady, classic stuff, philosophy, both Greek and French, lots of old, old paperbacks. Yet there was kitsch, too. One notable was Les Femmes du Dallas, with a picture of J. R. Ewing on the cover surrounded by six Texas blondes. One stand sold what seemed to be every single work ever written by Mary Higgins Clark. Another sold a dozen or so dog-eared copies of Ellery Queen. I did not check to see if these latter two collections were in French or English.

And ever-present, lording over us in all its medieval splendor, huge yet still far away, was the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

We crossed over the Pont Notre-Dame, the bridge onto Ile de la Cité, the birthplace of Paris over a millennium-and-a-half ago. There were crowds, but it was never crowded. The cathedral was drawing us forward, rather than us moving toward it. It’s surrounded by an odd, sandy lot, where a long line of sightseers snaked back, awaiting entrance into its cool interiors. Every now and then the wind would kick up a dust devil. There was one of those Harryhausen Titan giants to our right. As the line advanced, I came upon another black-clad beggar woman, but I couldn’t get my money out in time without halting the line and calling attention to myself. I promised to myself that I’d drop a few coins in her cup on the way out. (Alas, when we came out, a half-hour later, she was gone. “Off to the bank,” my wife playfully remarked. “Off to the Chanel Boutique,” I countered, which garnered a punch in the shoulder from her.)

The outside architecture of the cathedral simply enraptured me. I had read the description in Hunchback, but nothing does it justice except to see it up close in person. The three great arched doors (though the one on the left has a curved, not pointed, top), the row of 27 life-size carved statues of (kings? saints? angels?) above the doors, the enormous, 200-foot-tall towers, dividing the daytime skies, the mocking gargoyles, tiny-heads way, way up there, the spires, the drainage pipes, the stained-glass windows. Off to the river-side of the cathedral, jutting up from the roof, is even a clock, keeping accurate time. The exterior of the Cathedral of Notre Dame was probably, Louvre-excepted, the most incredible sight I saw during our trip to Paris.

At the entrance, similar to the Basilique du Sacre Coeur, were signs asking us to refrain from picture-taking and talking and to wear modest attire. Food and beverage was banned, but I wasn’t going to give up my 64-ounce bottle of water just opened, so I stashed it under my shirt quite conspicuously. Inside, the temperature plummeted a comfortable ten degrees or so, and a gentle murmuring susserance effused the darkness. Quickly my eyes adjusted (it seemed candles – or soft incandescent light – and whatever rays came through the stained glass windows provided all the interior illumination) and we began an easy, clockwise tour of the inside similar to the Basilique. However, Notre Dame, to me at least, seemed a lot more commercially-driven, or if “commercial” is not the best word, then let’s try “tourist.”

Every twenty or thirty feet there was some sort of “exhibit”, whether it was a cordoned-off area to some saint or pictures of Jesus (the famous image from the Shrine jumped out at me) or a display highlighting the life of St. Therese of Lisieux. There were machines that gave you a medallion of the Cathedral in exchange for a euro, similar to the gumball machines you see outside supermarkets. (My wife said the Basilique had them, too, but I don’t recall seeing them there.) A gift shop, and offices off the middle left and right sections. Disappointingly, the altar was distant and inaccessible, and though the view above was majestic in its height, there were no mosaics or other artwork, only dirty tiles of different colors, no doubt the testimony of centuries.

The main art of the interior of Notre Dame is its architecture. That is the feast for the eyes. There is a whole second tier above where we stood and walked, columns and arches and more stained glass windows. I imagined Quasimodo running above those passageways en route to the bells in the two top towers. My description cannot do it justice, simply because I do not wield the architectural vocabulary and experience to do it so. But it was inspirational and awe-inspiring in a different way than Sacre Coeur. If I lived or worked in a nearby store or building, I’d spend every lunch hour in this amazing house of God.

Too quickly we found ourselves back at the exit. Nature was calling, and there were public restrooms just off to the right of the Cathedral. However, I spotted a sign which pointed out how to reach the top of the towers (and the deck below them). It cost something like ten or twelve euros and there was a warning that “410 steps will have to be climbed,” and I believe that warning was even in English. I really wanted to do it, really wanted to see Paris from a hundred or two hundred feet up, but, truth be told, those 410 steps were a real barrier to my aching feet, much more so than the 24 euros (or 12, my wife is willing to sacrifice a lot for me and my whims, but climbing to the top of Notre Dame may not have been one of them). So we walked over to the public restrooms, which were clean and well-maintained despite being underground, and I did not begrudge the woman who held out her hand for a euro tip as the men divided off from the women to use the facilities.

We meandered back over the bridge, back west on the Quai de Montebello, this time on the southern side, cruising the shops for some gifts for our girls. We found an Eiffel Tower music box for Patch (to go with the Paris snow globe we got Little One during our Crillon days), plus a bracelet for her and Eiffel Tower earrings for her older sister. My wife decided we should see the large and fairly well-known Jardines des Luxembourg, about a mile to the southwest. So, at the Boulevard Saint Michel we turned left and headed south, past the Rue de Ecole (where we ate at the Balzar Brasserie the night before), and walked a few more blocks. The sun was extremely hot and potent, and my wife made fun of me seeking out the shadier sections of the sidewalk. We passed a small park filled with lunching Parisiens. We passed some type of medieval archaeological dig, something I was curious about enough to inquire of its authenticity, but not enough to spend time on. Then we headed west on the Rue de Vaugirard, past several outdoor bistros, tempting our growling tummies. But they were all facing the glaring sun, and the Jardines were just before us.

Next to the Tuileries, the Jardines des Luxembourg were possibly the grandest parks in Paris. There were ten-foot high wrought-iron gates encircling the gardens at the point we entered. And I stepped into such plush coolness I thought I entered Narnia! Please excuse the hyperbole, but after all the sun on my fair self, I delighted in the forested passageway we entered. Trees planted regularly along the walkway reached up high and over the path to shade us as we sought a bench for a breather. At the entrance, behind us, was another Harryhausen-ish Titan, only of the god Pan (or perhaps just a happy faun) dancing with one leg up in the air. I thought for a moment to imitate the pose for a digital picture, but was feeling very self-conscious and touristy as we were in sight of lots of other folks. On the bench we called back home, 7,000 miles away, and my wife spoke with my mother. I did my second-favorite activity in France, people-watch. It was a very restive, relaxing fifteen minutes I spent on that bench.

It must’ve been around one, and since we were not quite hungry we felt like exploring a bit. So we upped and headed further into the Jardines. Fifty yards down the path opened up into a shady, sandy picnic area. Perhaps a third of the tables were full. There was a pavilion, and beyond that, it opened up into the Tuileries part Deux. We walked down some steps into the sunlight and stood in front of a large, circular pond, a hundred yards across. Around the circumference stood pedestaled statuary shading those in chairs. Sunbathers orbited the pond. A middle-aged woman with an easel was painting the whole thing. Off to the right sat a humongous castle or mansion, the Luxembourg Palace, as we later found out. We walked part of the arc around the pond, then forked off to the southernly path. More lines of trees, much more sunbathers. We walked slowly down its length, then paused at another bench to decide on a further plan of action.

Some colleagues of my wife’s suggested she check out some of the major shopping centers in Paris. This request was partially work-related, reconnaissance-work, and as my wife won our trip to Paris at her company’s sales conference, she felt obligated to do so. Of course we had no money for shopping, but she was looking forward to doing some stealth research, to see how the other side worked, how they played on the home field, so to speak. So consulting our maps, we decided, despite feet throbbing and bellies rumbling, to hoof it over to Le Bon Marché, about a mile or so in a north-westerly direction. I felt it doable, though that may have had a lot to do with a pleasantly uplifting state of mind from the visit to Notre Dame and our present location.

At a bench next to us appeared to be a vacationing couple about our age, also consulting a map. When I looked further, though, I saw that the woman was in a wheelchair, her legs withered. That touched me for some reason, I don’t know why, but I’ll probably remember that scene for a good long while.

Anyway, after another ten-minute interlude in the shade, we hauled ourselves up and headed back via a parallel pathway toward the large pond. After a while the Jardines became more wooden and woodsy, and paths forked out to the north and west. We passed a day care center, with all the cute little ones wearing caps to ward off sun damage from whatever rays made it through the foliage. We passed a cluster of tennis courts, and the wife paused to evaluate the players. Good, could be real good, if one had relocated to Florida and hired a serious tennis coach. I joked about Frenchman sipping red wine from little glasses between points. We passed a handful of children as the path widened playing some sort of organized game resembling tag or capture the flag. Then we were at the gates facing the Rue Guynemer. Bonsoir, Jardines des Luxembourg!

The trek over the next forty-five minutes brought us through quieter, more residential neighborhoods. Still the bright colored buildings, still the narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, but a very tangible sense of peace and quiet. Not much motorized traffic. Nor bicycles or pedestrians or such. Most of the buildings, I assumed, held apartments, going up six or seven stories. There were some doctor offices, a bookseller as ancient as Jules Verne must be, some delis and croissant shops, but these were widely spaced apart. The skies were still blue, the sun beaming, the humidity manageable. Then we came up to a major street, the Rue de Sévres, lots of traffic and buses and bustling Paris people. My wife pointed around the corner: “There it is!” Le Bon Marché, a large, very, very ritzy, upper-class shopping “mall” – though it was more, I suppose, a department store which melded modernity with classic French architecture in very agreeable proportions.

My wife went to work; I only went along for the ride. Jewelry, perfumery, skin care, hair care, Chanel and Dior and other brands I’ve heard her speak of but can’t quite call to mind now. And that was just on the first floor. Escalators criss-crossed in the distance bringing shoppers into the upper recesses of the store. We just circled that first floor, my wife chatting up counter managers and snapping digital pics from various angles. Me, I just sought out a padded bench somewhere, anywhere, to rest my feet, but wherever I wound up I always felt out of place. After forty-five minutes or so, my wife satisfied, we left.

Now, nearing three o’clock in the afternoon, we were really getting hungry. For the first time in Paris we passed a full-fledge grocery store, but a quick run through came up blank for what we were looking for – lunch. We left and walked a block north up the Rue de Sévres, and came to an open-air bistro whose name I forget. It did have lots of vowels in it, French-style, so, right or wrong, I’m going to call it L’Oisseau.

We got a booth to escape the exhaust fumes of traffic. There was a woman running the place, forty-ish with dirty blond hair. Apparently this was not a big tourist hot spot, as she spoke no English. And though she wasn’t unpleasant per se, I sensed a low tolerance level emanating from her, which factored in my ordering. My wife was debating between two choices and asked her to give her a few more minutes. I caught a slight eye roll from Madame L’Oisseau, still a far cry from the stereotypical tourist-hating Frenchman or woman I’d been warned by more than a few people back home. I mentioned none of this, because service was prompt and the food was delicious. I had my 50 cl Kronenbourg (Ah, beer! Is there anything better on a hot sunny day than a cold mug of beer?). I had a chicken sandwich with some type of sauce that was simply delicious. And, of course, the thorn bush of fries, sans ketchup (Yes – the French don’t eat ketchup!). The wife had a salad again, again with a glass of wine.

We ate leisurely over the next hour, commenting on the French news on the teevee hanging just above and behind me. Seems that there’s an epidemic of child kidnapping in France, something on the order of 50,000 a year. I found that an impossible figure. Perhaps something was lost in translation. Anyway, after paying we spotted a Metro station across the street, and soon we were subterranean, heading back to the Hotel du Lys …