So, it turned out that Greece wasn’t the word. But then neither was Malaga, Sicily, Nice or the West Coast of Ireland. Yet finally, finally I get to leave the UK, my quest for spontaneity, variety and gratuitous eating only a Eurostar away. Of course, it has to be Paris, the ultimate flâneuse city, where I will endeavour to get my groove back. As someone murders an Adele cover on Elton John’s piano, I look up at Tracey Emin’s neon I Want My Time With You and wonder what has taken me so long.
On the subject of Paris, I reside firmly in the camp of the late and much missed Anthony Bourdain. Eat loads of cheese and don’t make any f***ing plans. The last time I visited was during the bright, optimistic summer of 2006. I’d just ended an ill-advised and torrid affair with a theatrical agent and had decided to resume the recovery position in Paris and get down to the essential business of eating cheese without plans. (Well, this was not strictly true. My only other aim was to visit Versailles, arriving to find a sign draped across the Hall of Mirrors that said: ‘Closed for Refurbishment’).
Nearly two decades on and what is most noticeable is how warm and welcoming everyone is. This is not the Paris I recall. I’m expecting to be here under sufferance with my little backpack and my horrible French. So when did everyone become so charming and hospitable?
During my last visit I stayed at the precarious Hotel Esmeralda opposite Notre Dame, run by a gruff, chain-smoking septuagenarian who was not imbued with charm. She had a black eye patch and exuded the air of a woman who’d spent the Occupation surreptitiously poisoning members of the Gestapo whilst also supplying them with girls. By contrast, the lovely man at the twinkling and highly recommended Hotel Henriette tells me how much he’s missed our accents, shuddering over having spent the past two years with no-one to entertain but French tourists. I sympathise wholeheartedly and secretly wonder how he’d fancy back-to-back seasons with ‘Jeanette and Dougie from Manchester’.
It seems we’ve all felt claustrophobic.
Saturday Evening
I have no inner compass, but I do have google maps and a vague recollection of the Ille St Louis. I want red checked tablecloths, proper grown-up waiters and beaucoup de produits animaux and I find it all in the Café St Regis. I realise that since 2020, whilst I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time alone, I’ve done it largely in the same two or three places. The stimulation of new sounds, smells, sights and tastes all happening at once is quite the thrill. I order another glass of Bordeaux and the last éclair and stare out the window at a chic woman promenading with a small dog.
Talking of things the size of small dogs, it is worth mentioning here that whilst Paris is the City of Light, it is also the City of Rats. I spot one hurtling towards me in the dark as I walk past Shakespeare and Company and get ready to boot it across the boulevard. Happily, it darts back into the park and this is my only encounter because I am not a fan. Oddly, they are less visible in the ritzier arrondissements.
Sunday
Paris early on a Sunday seems to me like London used to be in the 80s – quiet and taking a moment to reflect. I’m walking towards the Jardin du Luxembourg in the sunshine and there’s hardly anyone around, just a man hanging over a wrought iron balcony on the 6th floor of a Haussmann block. He stretches and greets the day with a deep intake of (probably) Gauloise and is one of the few defiant smokers I see because Parisians now have better plans for their lungs and the Jardin du Luxembourg is a mecca for well-heeled joggers circling its fountains and manicured avenues. The daffodils are yellow and blousy, and the blossom is just on the cusp of bursting out of bud. I find myself humming April in Paris one month premature. It’s been a while since I’ve seen anything this beautiful.
I’m in the neighbourhood for the Pioneers exhibition at the Musee du Luxembourg which runs until July 2022, so if you like the idea of Paris in the 1920s and you’re interested in female artists, don’t queue up at The Louvre, just come straight here. The starry – but certainly not the only – highlight are three paintings by Tamara de Lempicka; notoriously difficult to acquire as they so often adorn the walls of Hollywood stars.
One giant plateau mixte and quick detour to the hotel later (because NOTHING says ‘glamourous mini break’ like having to return early when you’ve forgotten to take your HRT #middleagedparis) and I’m back flâneuring along the Seine. The department stores here are not to be missed. Forget the shopping, just go and gape in wonder at the Art Nouveau glory of the Galeries Lafayette or at La Samaritaine in the 1st arrondissement where there is a bar on the top floor that is ideal for cocktails and people watching in a spectacular peacock themed setting.
Dinner in the evening at the literary Les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It’s a bit of a cliché but I feel the need to channel my inner Simone de Beauvoir and the food is delicious, if a little pricey. I’m feeling slightly sniffly and start to wonder whether I’m catching Covid before remembering the sheer quantity of red meat, wine and dairy I’ve been consuming in the past 24 hours. Oh, that’ll be it then.
Monday
I walk right across Paris to Montmatre, a place I haven’t seen since I was fourteen. There are lots of Americans in ill-fitting berets and one walks past my café table in the Place du Tertre clutching an obscenely large punnet of frites and talking loudly about Van Go. It’s the most touristy experience I’ve had since I’ve been here, but it is still a charming place and the thought of being lucky enough to sit in a café – in the sun – on a spring day – in Paris – with a glass of rose – well, you can’t complain. The artists, who look like salty old dogs, congregate in the square and try to sell you a portrait or a caricature, but they do take no for an answer and they will leave you to daydream. The air is noticeably fresher here, the backstreets are genteel and the view from the Sacre Coeur is worth knocking yourself out for on the climb.
Au Petite Montmatre opposite the famous Abbesses Metro specialises in Croque Monsieur done right, so I take a pit stop here before meandering down through sordid Pigalle and then onto the drama of the Paris Opera. The self-guided tour doesn’t allow you into the auditorium, but the main reception room more than makes up for it with its jaw-dropping beauty and gives the Hall of Mirrors I never got to see a run for its euros.
There are so many things to see and do in Paris but focus on a few arrondissements and follow the food and you won’t go wrong. By Tuesday I am nine parts dairy and feeling infinitely more relaxed than I have for a long time. The Eurostar gets me home in under three and a half hours and for the first time in two years I feel I’ve finally had that thing that’s been the holy grail of the pandemic – a new experience.
La Flâneuse is back.
