Yesterday, we meandered through the Left Bank (La Rive Gauche), the buildings at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, the narrow cobblestone-covered street of rue de la Huchette, past the bookstores selling second-hand books on the sidewalks.
At the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore on rue St. Michele, across from the Notre Dame Cathedral, we watched a newlywed couple traipse in front of the store for their photo shoot.
Poodles and their masters nonchalantly sauntered by the bookstore made famous by American novelist Ernest Hemingway way before everyone called him Papa Hemingway, and prior to his infamous tiff with Gertrude Stein. Shakespeare and Co. is now all of two stores: the smaller store selling first edition books, and other, the regular trade and hardbound books in English.
We crossed the double-decked wood-and-stone-carved bridge to get to the Notre Dame Cathedral. The scene in the square yard called place Parvis with its assortment of tourists and pilgrims appeared far more fascinating than the rose windows and flying buttresses of the famed church. Here, people congregated, bantered and chatted as if waiting for a procession or a spectacle to proceed. It seemed as if time stood still and people didn’t care to lose precious hours, as in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. The present as tangible as the minutes and the hours of years past, the now to be savoured and quaffed in an afternoon at the plaza.
Everywhere we went, whether at the open cafes and boulevards, or the numerous watering holes and fountains in the city, there was a joyful abundance of time to spare because after all, this is the city that gave birth to the promenade, the tryst and the dalliance, a city that gave Robert Doisneau’s “The Kiss” a home. In fact, we still hang a replica of the famous photo in our house in Toronto, taken in Le Baiser de L’Hotel de Ville in 1950, some sixty years ago. Who would think that we would visit this same town hall and square in our lifetime?
And yes, we did get lost, finally, as we were walking past Hotel de Ville, looking for the street closest to flat where were staying. We circled the Les Halles, former site of the oldest grocery in the world, now an underground mall, green space and Metro station, with its cavernous alleyways, deep tunnels that reached out to nowhere.
My daughter had warned us not to take this Metro station because of its numerous and dizzying stairwells and exits, but since we couldn’t find the street back to our flat, we went round and around, taking the Metro even if our street was just a block away from the plaza where we lost our way in the first place. It took us almost an hour and a half but we did get home, très fatigué, and ready to succumb to fitful sleep.
Three places we missed
There were three places we missed looking up because we didn’t have enough time to visit.
Northward, the Musee Picasso, on 5 rue de Thorigny, in the 3rd Arrondisement, is housed in Hotel Sale, and boasts a huge selection of Pablo Picasso’s works, including pieces of work by artists who influenced him.
Musee Nissim de Camondo at 63 rue Monceau, in the 8th Arrondisement, is famous for its collection of 18th century decorative arts (paintings, tapestries and porcelain) and the tragic story of the Comte Moise de Camondo family. Built in 1911-1914 along the model of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, it became a museum dedicated to the memory of the Comte’s son, Nissim, who died in aerial combat in 1917.
Also called the Beauborg, the Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou on 4th Arrondisement (M. Rambuteau), is a cultural centre embracing music, cinema, books, and graphic arts. Its main draw, the Musee National d’Art Moderne, houses a rich collection of 20th century art, from the Fauves to the Cubists to Pop and Conceptual Art. The building is turned inside-out, with piping and ventilation ducts in blue, red, green and yellow running up and down its walls: front, side and back.
We finally caught a view of the Centre Pompidou when we took a stroll after having lunch with Isobel and Steve at Au Pied du Cochon (6 rue Coquilliere), a French restaurant on the 1st Arrondisement, known for their onion soup and pig’s feet grilled and served with béarnaise sauce. Our waiter was polite and obliging, and even treated us for free coffee after he accidentally spilled some wine on Joe’s coat. The damage was discernible, but the waiter thought it was the least he could do. The crème brûlée has never tasted better with coffee on the house.
Off we went to Le Marais on the 4th Arrondisement, for a quick visit to the boutiques and boîtes, and rue des Rosiers, the main street of the Jewish Quarter, with its Middle Eastern and Eastern European specialty stores, falafel stands, crêperies, galleries and restaurants.
Isobel, who was meeting her friend and classmate Miguel at a café in the Place de Vosges, sent us gallery-hopping again in this architectural landmark built in 1612, two years after Henri II died there in a jousting tournament: 36 buildings with arcades on the street level, and facing a public square which used to be the site of a horse market.
We sat in one of the wooden benches shaded by a row of chestnut trees and watched the world go by. Across from us were the once-upon-a-time grand parlours where Moliere, Racine and Voltaire exchanged bon mots.
Will we ever go back and revisit Paris after this scintillating week tripping into the unknown?
In a heartbeat!
There was so much to savour: the sights and sounds, the tastes and smells, the hidden and the not-so-hidden parts and places closest to the human heart. To extend a second to the minutest so its atomic particles will fill an hour with whole lifetimes—this was what Parisians had accomplished in building and rebuilding their city through the various upheavals that had marked their history. We can only thank them for sharing their art and culture with the rest of the world: the tragic, the haunting, the comic, the ugly, the beautiful, the sad as well as the unique places and landmarks that make Paris both a dreamer’s and a wanderer’s paradise.
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