All Entries Tagged With: "Paris stroll"
Parisian treasures in all shapes and sizes
Her conversation is in quotes.
“First time in Paris?” She asked
No, I replied, but this trip I have time to really appreciate the city.
No place in the world like it.
Is this your first visit?
No answer
Have you passed before these streets, museums and rivers before? Do you grasp the grids, know the neighborhoods, recognize the shaded avenues? Do you know the city?
Still no response. She was already half way down Promenade Plantee, engaged in who knows, framing architectural treasures and pointing them out haphazardly just beyond earshot. The grand experience! But at least it appears I have an escort for the day. Is she actually acquainted with Paris? Familiar if not conversant?
“Hurry or we’ll miss the Bateau-Mouche on the Seine.”
Who is this woman?
She looks like a tourist too and clearly loves to wander the city.
“I love Paris in the Springtime. I love Paris in the fall…”
“Ah the land of Charlemagne, Napoleon , Bridget Bardot
Victor Hugo, Marie Currie.”
“Will you join me in a tour of Paris “The City Of Light”. I can show you the surprises and the backstreets.”
She called herself a Francophile or something close. She looked like a silly tourist in a flowered straw hat, too much lipstick and hightop sneakers, but harmless enough, so I said agreed to the free “guided” tour.
She smiled a satisfied smile.
“Here we are celebrating Bastille Day, or some such holiday of reverence and grand expectation,” she puffed up. “Wandering these ancient streets reminds me of the lost Americans like you strolling down Rue de L’Abreuvoir like Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises. The lovely city offers a multitude of charms and secrets accessible to those in the know. It can be overwhelming but with keen language skills and a fine-tuned nose for urban geography and common sense, we should make it home for supper.
“First I must stop for sustenance on this breezy summer morning. Ah the Rue Soufflot for coffee and brioche, or maybe the Terrace at the Neapolitan, although they mock early arrivals in that scornful, yet stiff, proper mode.
Oh yes Monsieur. Of course Mademoiselle. Our gourmet coffee beans come from Brazil and of course Vietnam.
” And now let’s be on our way. It could rain and a dry Paris is a better Paris, at least to walk around in. Where is your umbrella? You must carry an umbrella!”
I asked her her name and where she was from, what country, even what planet? Did she come here often? Was she related to King Louis the 14th? 16th? Maybe she was one of the Antoinette sisters or related to Charles DeGaul?
“She smiled and answered, “Around, I am from around. I lived around Rue Cremieux and quite possibly around Montmartre or Le Marais during the war.”
“Look it’s the Notre Dame Cathedral, burned badly in 2019 and back minus a few flying buttresses and the cosmetics of the ecumenical persuasion. One can see the Seine from the upper floors!”
It is becoming clear that she has walked this neighborhood before. She shares constant dialogue with all of the street dogs, calling them by name. She remembers the exact moment in the afternoon when the gourmet pastry shops drop their sweets and baguettes to day-old price. She takes dingy back alleys when it pleases her and sometimes comes out in neighborhoods she does not know. She talks of old days with her grandfather and uncle, veterans of the Great War.
I should have been listening closer but her back was turned and, in my defense, she ranted, emersed in the ridiculous then returning to a familiar Fracophile or tourist. Although she shouted and gestured menacingly toward some buildings and lovingly toward others I could not make out her observations. I no longer possess keen hearing abilities and we left a lot of information strewn about the dakening streets in the City of Light.
She looked exhausted. We walked another block and stopped right in front of LeFouquet and ordered .
“Wait! That doesn’t mesh with my guidebook, she said, or your GPS either. The Sorbonne should be right over there and the Hotel Crillon across the river. I wonder if someone moved it or forgot to list the correct location. Hasn’t the Avenue de lOpera always dissected the Rue des Pyramides? I must say, I am embarrassed at my recall. Perhaps a cognac or Pernod would rescue my memory.”
“Oh now I know where I am. There are the a hoards of flower women on the Pantheon just an alley from Place de la Contrescarpe, just a short walk from my favorite hotel, Le Meurice on Champs-Elysees or was it Rue de Rivoli?”
Don’t you think the Le Meurice was back there?
“No! Definitely No!”
Paris addresses weave into ridiculous and somewhat arrogant tapestry but it is all part of the charm. There is nowhere else in the world like Paris. Ah, yes, I have been looking for the Post Neuf and it’s right there all the time. It crosses over to the Rive Gauche and Louvre. I knew reading…
“WAIT. That was supposed to be Palais Garnier.”
“The river should be east of here but…”
“I could ask in any one of hundreds of cafes but then they’d think I was an American tourist.”
Frantically consulting her guidebook and flashing angry looks in the direction of her GPS she stops on a centime, staring at the patio of the Cafe de Flor. She enters through the wrought iron gate, orders an Absinthe and promptly falls sound asleep. Tiny snores fill the mid-afternoon tableau. Taxis honk. People make love to their wine.
The waiter walks over to her table, winks at me, and places a blanket around her shoulders. “She comes here every day, usually for her nap. Today she is drinking. It must be special. Maybe it’s you.”
Who is she then?
She is a special lady. She was born right upstairs (He gestures to a mezzanine window) in 1926. The place used to brandish a Juliet balcony before the Great War. Her name is Clare Dubois. She’s our Aunt Clare. She’s been stopping in to this cafe for 50 years for a glass of a glass of wine after her walk. Lately it’s been more napping than sipping. Living in the back of the cafe with her truffles and tom cats she loves to stroll about Paris, and good people like you are kind enough to kind of keep an eye on her. We don’t want her colliding with a bicyclist or falling into a river. Did she tell you… she follows the same route and goes to the same places every day, often becoming lost and requiring a rescue and subsequent arrival on our patio.
Reminds me of the time a young black bear got stuck in an apple tree in Ouray and I ran it off with a ball-peen hammer and some cherry bombs effectively saving hundreds of lives for the glory of France! But that is an entirely different story.
– Signelle de Bushe
