Paris Is Not My City of Light (Yet)

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One day in March I decided to throw my stomach and vegetable loving digestive tract off balance (literally by day two in Paris I had stopped functioning) and head for foie gras land where vegetarian restaurants are rare. And why not? I haven’t been since 1983. Paris is still gray and rain-logged, but Parisians are certainly friendlier (due to the lagging economy?)





The Paris Shuttle from Charles DeGaulle Airport was efficient and pleasant enough but one and a quarter hours to go 13 miles (traffic is always at a standstill, so plan accordingly). I arrived at Hotel Pas de Calais in the heart of Saint Germain Des Pres, ground zero for the intellectual bohemian crowd and the post-war home of existentialism. The hotel dates back to the 17^th Century. Novelist Chateaubriand lived here from 1811. Writer-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre lived here with Simone de Beauvior and struggled with his novel, “Les Mains Sales” in Room 41 (of course I had to go to the 4^th floor to see it for myself). The hotel name translates as ‘Not Calais”, which seems like an existentialist/dadaist joke in keeping with the neighborhood.





A writer and sexual adventuress from Manhattan I know always chooses the 6^th Arrondissement and refuses to stay anywhere else when in Paris as she adores the stately parks and narrow streets crammed with restaurants, cafes, bookshops, art galleries and bistros. And walk we did as my guide armed with a GPS on an iPhone gives me a walking tour of Montparnasse (Picasso, Modigliani and Man Ray turned there backs on Montmartre and settled here.) Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Miro and even Trotsky spent time here. Then we returned to explore the Church of St. Germain Des Pres, the oldest church in Paris dating from the 6^th Century AD. I was stunned by the starkness of the interior.





Who could resist breaking for lunch across the street at Les Deux Magots, a favorite of the father of Existentialism, key figure in the Resistance and renowned café habitue Jean-Paul Sartre, who sat here and wrote “Les Chemins de la Liberte” in his signature leather jacket and beret. I was disappointed that Parisian restaurants, known for serving lunches as lavish as dinner in the past, now serve sandwiches and salads at lunch. Being old school, I ordered Gigot avec Dauphine Potatoes and an elaborate but miniscule espresso-chocolate creation for dessert. The waiters here seem totally oblivious to the customer’s needs, by the way.





We then crossed from the bohemian Left Bank (Rive Gauche) to the moneyed Right Bank (Rive Droite), where you will find world class museums (The Louvre, Orangerie, Musee D’Orsay) Jardin des Tuileries, Les Halles, Notre Dame (watch for gypsies and pickpockets, one and the same), Champs Elysee, Arc du Triomphe, and Rue Royale. (Hotel des Invalides-Napolean’s Tomb, The Catacombs, The Latin Quarter and the Eiffel Tower are actually on the Left Bank.) I did the frenetic tourist dash my first time in Paris. Now I just want to live like the Parisians so my Parisian pals will control my itinerary. The size and complexity of Paris intimidate me so I dare not leave their side. Admittedly I am notoriously indolent and unresourceful in a foreign country.



Notre Dame sits on an island in the stream of the Seine, Ile de La Cite, where Paris was born. Cross over to the second island, Ile St. Louis, and you set foot on the most expensive real estate in Paris. This is a world of townhouses with courtyards, restaurant, antique shops, and hotels priced higher than in other arrondissements. Primarily residential, all the mansions on this island were built from 1618 – 1660, which does wonders for architectural unity.





Parisians abhor breakfast (petit dejeuner). This means you will never get a decent hearty breakfast in Paris. “Less is more” (what an elegant idea) but I am still in the “more is more” school of food consumption. Breakfast will never be included with the price of your room and 15 Euro ($21.00 US) seems to be the going rate for breakfast at a hotel. But the horror is that this only includes: juice, coffee (or tea or hot chocolate), fruit cup, yogurt, a small wedge of brie, a bread basket containing half a baguette, a small Danish and small croissant). You’ll get a tiny jar of preserves and ramekin of butter (I am sure they think butter is a major food group). No eggs, bacon, smoked salmon or herring (a good reason for me to return to Scandinavia). And no refills on the coffee (served in a French press) or any other item placed in front of you. But I fell through the burgundy banquette at Café de Flore when I spied the same “petit dejeuner” on their menu for 25 Euro/$35.00US)! My egg salad with tuna and olives and a coffee was a neat $20.00 Euro/$28.00 US). But Café de Flore is the most famous café in the world with a laundry list of famous patrons. You are communing with history. The room is quite elegant for a café and service is better than at Les Deux Magots.





Dinner at my Parisian pal’s favorite restaurant, Montparnasse 1900 was the highlight of my stay. We began with the house aperatif, Kir (champagne and crème de cassis), (my mate is addicted to their Americanos, a martini dominated by Campari) followed with an entire bottle of wine for each person at the table, rillettes as an amuse bouche, onion soup (unlike anything I’ve had in America), saumon avec poireau (served with sauteed leeks) (one of the best pieces of salmon I’ve ever had and remember I’ve had it right out of the water in Scandinavia), a cheese course (brie, of course), mesclun greens, a trio of intense sorbets for dessert and espresso, all included in the prix fixe. The room is stunning in fin de siecle décor with a massive stained glass ceiling, mirrors and Deco fixtures. We were spoiled rotten by Roman, my pals’ exclusive waiter and manager Thierry was always stopping by to chat (in French, of course).



Bon vivants have always searched for Parisian restaurants by Michelin stars. I did the Michelin 3-stars on my last visit. This time in Paris I let my Parisian pals take me to the humbler haunts and dine on cuisine bourgeoise, cuisine ancienne, cuisine grande-mere, bistros and brasseries haunted by the famous habitues from the 20th Century.

On Saturday, my mate takes me to The Louvre for the obligatory visit to the Mona Lisa (La Jaconde). It’s a good thing my guide was with me because I never would have figured out how to get out of this place (it’s huge and makes the Metropolitan Museum in New York look like a dowdy cousin.) The rooms remind me of the Winter Palace in St.Petersberg Russia. It’s that elaborate. Besides viewing the paintings on the wall, look up at the frescoes on the ceiling; enjoy the moldings and even the views from the windows. Some rooms are clearly more congested than others. Photographers jockey for position to catch a photo op of the Mona Lisa as if it were Madonna. After The Louvre, walk to Angelina’s at 226 rue de Rivoli for coffee, tea, sandwiches, and pastries on marble-topped tables and enjoy plush carpeting and high ceilings. Their specialty that my Parisian pals swear by is the hot chocolate.



My brunch on Sunday was in The Marais (3^rd arrondissement) making a comeback after decades of decay (it began as a 17^th Century aristocratic district). In this part of town you will find aristocratic buildings with ornate terraces, some spouting a forest of trees and shrubbery. My Parisian pals were in ecstasy over this brunch spot in The Marais, L’Arganier, a French-Moroccan hybrid, now rumored to be closed. I was pessimistic about this out-of-the way spot that serves an all-you-can-eat brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. But all these authentic Parisians crowding into the place can’t be wrong. I have to admit the taboule and hummus were sensational, but there were also French crepes, smoked salmon, artichokes, sautéed chicken, meatballs (all superb) and as a nod to America (finally) scrambled eggs (a bit watery) and cumin-flavored hash brown potatoes. There’s plenty of fresh fruit for the health conscious: pineapple, papaya, strawberries and grapes; as well as quiche, tarts, pastries, chocolate mousse, and tortes for those who are not. It’s nice to live as the Parisians do. Not a tourist in sight.





We needed to walk after such wanton decadence but we took the Metro anyway to the Eiffel Tower. My knowing pal booked advance tickets on line (approx. 31 Euro for 2/ $42.00), so we skipped the really long line inhabited by those out of the loop. Of course we had to go all the way to the top by changing elevators, and when you arrive, you have two levels (indoor and outdoor-be prepared for strong winds, dress accordingly) to enjoy the magnificent views of “tout le Paris” at your feet. What a sprawling “Oz on the Seine” it is. From here you can see Sacre Coeur in Montmartre to the north, the Arc du Triomphe, the Seine and the Bateaux Mouche taking tourists on a boat ride through Paris, Le Defense, the mini-Manhattan clot of skyscrapers that is now the premier government/business district, and the Eiffel Tower’s rival, Montparnasse Tower, a black box of a skyscraper despised by Parisians bringing a little bit of Manhattan to Paris. After many photo ops, we get in line to descend (allow a lot of time to get back down).

Beware of pickpockets while on line, though once inside the Tower, I doubt the pickpockets can afford the price of admission.

Why I would want dinner is up for debate after the permissive gluttony of brunch, but for research I had to check out Brasserie Lipp, mere steps away from my boutique hotel. Because we only wanted appetizers we were relegated to a tiny table on the first floor. The icy but efficient waiter ripped away the tablecloth and replaced it with paper napkins fastidiously spread out on the table. I couldn’t resist ordering celeri remoulade (celery root shredded like slaw and topped with a mayo/mustard coating ) that I remember ordering at French restaurants in New York over 30 years ago. I actually make my own at home (my greengrocer carries the knobby brown root that must be shaved and chopped before its cholesterol bath.) I think I should stop before serious gall bladder arrest. Prices add up quickly, but again you are eating with history. Writer/philosopher Albert Camus hung out here. So did Jean Genet, Simone Signoret (with Yves Montand), former French President Francois Mitterand. More recently Brasserie Lipp welcomed Gregory Peck, Harrison Ford, Gerard Depardieu, even Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone.







Alas La Grande Cuisine is wounded by tough economic times. I was saddened to see Tour D’Argent, the glorious restaurant with romantic window views of the Seine and Notre Dame Cathedral has downsized to one floor (the top one) and the Hotel Tour D’Argent closed a while ago. Also the new young Parisians have no patience for haute cuisine eating rituals. Fast food. Quick snacks. Parisians, famous food chauvinists, have discovered how the rest of the world eats. No one here eats anymore. Everyone is obsessed with becoming runway model thin. Thin, thin, thin, at any cost. Prices are high but the restaurants, cafes, and bars are perpetually packed. Of course everyone is just drinking or nibbling. Trenchermen have all died off I assume. Being a gourmand (different from a gourmet) is outré. On the other hand, perhaps we pay more for mediocre super sized portions in America than for the culinary highs in France. And I would have to sell both my homes in the USA to buy a one-room apartment in Paris, and I still may not have enough to pull it off.





But I love the intellectual bohemia of Saint Germain des Pres, and the ornate balconies of The Marais still haunt me. I love the coziness of Ile St. Louis, the island in the Seine, and would certainly book one of the boutique hotels on the Ile next time. The French will always dress better and cook better than we neophytes in the U.S. My French pals say that everything is better in Paris. The French don’t bow to anyone. And they proudly state that the French are the best lovers. I admit that I have always been enthralled with French cuisine (I never went to any other type of restaurant until I was 27 years old), French art, and French philosophy, and the French language. Perhaps that is why I am loved so much in Paris. I love the lyrical, singsong intonations of the Parisian women speaking French.





Now I hear there’s a place called “Breakfast in America” in the 5^th arrondissement (the Latin Quarter, named for the students from the Universities in the district speaking Latin in the streets, not because it was colonized by Latin immigrants, silly). Built by Craig Carlson, a Hollywood screenwriter with funds from the California film industry, the restaurant has a mission of dispensing rib-sticking American breakfasts to Parisians who assumed, prior to a visit here, that quantities per meal are rigidly limited. Paris may prove me wrong yet!





Hotel Pas de Calais, 50 Rue des Saintes-Peres, 75006 Paris Tel: [phone];



Café de Flore, 172 Boulevard St. Germain, 75006 Paris. Tel: [phone]-00



Les Deux Magots, 6 Place Saint-Germain des Pres., 75006 Paris. Tel: [phone]



Brasserie Lipp, 151 Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris



Breakfast in America, 17 rue des Ecoles, Paris 75005 Tel.: [phone]



Montparnasse 1900, 1900 Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris 75006



Angelina, 226 rue de Rivoli, Paris 75001 Tel: [phone]



L’Arganier, 19 rue Ste. Croix de la Bretonnerie, 75004 Paris Tel: [phone] (Closed)



Musee du Louvre, 34-36 quai du Louvre, 1^st Arrondissement; Tel: [phone]



Tour Eiffel, Champ de Mars, 7^th Arrondissement



The Paris Shuttle: www.paris-shuttle.com



And for your comparison, here is my take on Paris decades earlier (c. 1983) reprinted from my journal. You might be amused by the prices back then so I have included all of them for your entertainment. Also be aware the hotel has long since been renovated and descriptions are no longer valid:

Paris, France

Jeudi, Juin 30

The British Airways flight across the English Channel is short and comfortable. The clouds, thick ones causing zero visibility, are an omen. In Paris, it is raining hard. Some of the rainfall has decided to join us in our motor coach from the airport, seeping in the skylights. The hotel, Mecure Vanves, could not be further away from the airport – or Paris. Our guide, Eileen, or nanny as she wants to be called, gives us tips along the way: drive on the correct side of the road, headlights on French cars are yellow, “vacanes” start July 1 for most Frenchmen and they will take their vacations in France since they cannot take their money out of France, thanks to their socialist government. The time from the airport (De Gaulle) to the hotel (Mecures Vanves) was two hours and five minutes. Not seeing much of Paris on the Boulevard Peripherie which skirts around the city, we sign up without a murmur for the “Illuminations” tour of Paris at night after 10pm (94 francs, about $13.00US).



But first, not having eaten since breakfast and left to ourselves to fend for dinner, we fall into the Brasserie at the hotel. The wait for a table is over an hour-the result of a staff that has not found themselves at this very modern hotel. The brasserie itself is not without charm for a hotel restaurant. Set amidst the hotel’s atrium, ivy reaching down to us from the upper balconies. Part of the Brasserie is covered in very large white umbrellas with white tablecloths, a fresh rose on each table, greenery cordoning off the area as well as linen covered tables with huge bouquets of fresh flowers commanding attention. It takes one and a half hours before the waiter can spare the time to serve us. We order a saute de Saint Jacques, lovely fish presented in a modified nouvelle manner on the plate; boeuf bourginion over pomme vapeur; and what amounted to steak and scalloped potatoes but had a ridiculously long name by someone with a sadistic inclination towards tourists. With half a carafe of Bordeaux wine and a 49 cl bottle of Evian water, the bill soared to 224 francs (about $30.00)



“L’addition, s’il vous plait” I bid the waiter who refused to speak English and only responds to French commands. There is even a delay in the bill as he refuses American Express, travelers checks in French francs. Cash only please. We barely have time to grab the movie camera and a roll of low light film for the Illuminations tour. The tour commences with working our way out of the Ville de Vanves (now incorporated into the city of Paris) and we sample typical Parisian streets-an eclectic melange of neon, buildings with balconies, flower boxes, wrought iron grillwork, spiky roofs. I waste too much time on filming typical streets unaware of the extraordinary delights that await. There seems to be a brasserie on every corner and running along every street, a ferocity of these restaurants competing with each other.



Then it starts. The elegant Paris, looking like the one on postcards or in movies. The Champs Elysees, with its schizophrenic division of one side (animated, neoned, filled with people, restaurants, clubs and shops) and the other personality (tree-lined, countrified with elegant shops and exclusive restaurants. Surprise. The Eiffel Tower. The real thing. We disembark from the bus to capture the tower, its environs on film, as the tower lights are turned on. Breathtaking. On to the Arc du Triomphe (which does look like its pictures), the Egyptian Needle, The Pantheon, the Opera House, the monumentality of the Louvre (currently crippled by wildcat strikes of the staff). Weaving across the Seine over bridges, we spy glass topped boats with strings of high powered lights in a row, people dining on the lower deck, strobe floodlights weaving in the air to announce its passage to everyone, past castles on the Seine. Not far is Notre Dame Cathedral, impressive in the front view, stunning from the side and back with its flying buttresses and stonework that looks like fine lace. Not to be irreverent, but it looks like a lace spaceship that could take off any minute. Across the way is Tour D-Argent, the horrendously expensive restaurant situated atop an old building but refurbished with large modern windows for a striking view of Notre Dame cathedral. At night, when the lights of Notre Dame are turned on, the restaurant turns its lights off. Maxims (gentlemen must wear tuxedos, women evening gowns) and Fouquet pale by comparison.



Back to the hotel, no more Paris than we can handle. The Mecures Vanves is spankingly new, done in the modern American style-7 story atrium lobby, café/brasserie spilling into the lobby. The rooms, ultra-contemporary, a clean mix of whites and burgundy. There’s a desk about 12 feet long, full size bed, a thick drape over a more delicate sheer, dramatic floor-to-ceiling window. I peer out the window and surprise: the Eiffel Tower off in the distance. It’s enough to make you forget the burgundy wall-to-wall carpeting and the burgundy corduroy wallpaper, and the amorphic sitting chair that looks more like a Claus Oldenburg sculpture than a mere plebeian sitting fixture.

While I wait in my hotel room, my mother decides she wants a new hairstyle and some color added, so she heads to a local salon a few blocks away. I should tell you that American tourists at the time were unheard of in this far flung outskirt of Paris. I do love the authentic Parisians in this arrondissement. I love the way they stroll down the street with a baguette under their arm, love the geraniums in the window boxes and the fact that everyone sets the table with linen and china. But they do not speak English. I do not know what my mother told the staff at the salon, but by the time I got the call at the hotel to come down to the salon to translate, she had already been turned into a platinum blonde. Then when she decided she wanted to iron clothes before leaving for Switzerland, she went to the supermarche in search of spray starch. She asked in English and was politely presented with a whisk broom. I asked in French ( for "amidon") and received the spray can of laundry starch. "You have to know the right words", my mother adds.



Vendredi, Juillet 1, 1983



We were warned breakfast at the hotel would be wild. It was. They assigned four tour groups to the same room at the same time. Confusion reigned. As service was virtually non-existent and food ran out early. Some tourists went from table to table asking for pots of coffee. I, personally, am tiring of continental breakfasts.



There was another tour of Paris early in the morning. Our bus basically hits the same spots that the nighttime Illuminations Tour highlighted, but admittedly, things do look differently in the daytime. The stone lacework looks less lacy in the daytime at Notre Dame. Notre Dame has become a crime district inside. A gypsy woman comes up to us with a newspaper to offer (actually this was a distraction while an accomplice proceeds to unzip my mother's handbag, hidden by the aforementioned newspaper.) Fortunately a fellow tourist shouted at the girl, hit her and chased her off. It was the only way to get rid of them. It’s sad to see the atmosphere polluted at this venerable landmark.





The rest of the tour featured the usual Paris adorables: Le Tour d’Eiffel, Arc du Triomphe, Egyptian Needle, Champs Elysees, the Seine, the Louvre, the Left Bank (the students were not revolting at the time of our visit so it was safe to enter this district.) Only two weeks before the students rioted and the Illuminations Tour had to be canceled. There’s the fashionable Right Bank, Napolean’s Tomb at the Hotel Des Invalides and the Opera House as well for you to check out.

Early in the evening before we leave, in preparation for our train journey through the interior of France into Switzerland, we shop at the local merchants for "le pique nique " on the long journey. Just like the locals, we stop at the local boulangerie, patisserie and charcuterie for enough food to sustain the three of us. I order totally in French, which was de rigueur.

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Photos

Montparnasse 1900
Interior of dining salon

La Defense
Business district of Paris