Paris In the Spring

Donna and I just returned from a week in Paris – and it was spectacular.

France hadn’t been on my bucket list. First off, there’s the whole foreign language thing. Not my forte, in the same range that brain surgery isn’t my forte. Then there's the reputation of French inhospitableness, particularly toward Americans. If I’m not wanted, don’t worry, I’ll stay away. Finally, I imagined it as a snooty, glitzy, high-end-fashion kind of place – you know, movie stars, swimming pools – out of my comfort zone.

We ended up going to fulfill a dream of Donna’s: Not so much of seeing Paris (she had done so years ago on a high-school trip), but of seeing Yundi Li, a 40-year-old Chinese pianist, give a performance there.

The language barrier turned out to be manageable. Donna took eight years of French in school and was using Pimsleur to bone up. I started using the online app too – though at the introductory level. In real life, I could have gotten by without Donna’s near fluency because most of the servers, shopkeepers, and workers we encountered spoke more English well, or certainly better than I spoke French. For the few who didn’t, gesticulating and shouting usually worked (I kid). Bilingual menus and phone translation apps take care of any other language issues.

The attitude thing didn’t confront us at all. Donna’s French-first approach certainly helped, I’m sure. But the local people we met were friendly, welcoming, and warm.

As to the glitz, yes, Paris is, after all, the fashion capital of the world. We were staying in a very posh neighborhood, the 8^th Arrondissement. Every storefront was Dior, Chanel, Tiffany, Hublot, Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy. And not just one location – On Rue George V, Les Champs Élysées, the Trocadero, all over town. And they all have burly-yet-beautiful guards at the door to keep out the riff-raff. Also, please, don’t roll up in something other than a Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Maserati, or a Mercedes AMG. This ain’t Hooterville.

As we researched the things and places we wanted to see and do, I became more excited. In fact, we decided that a full week, rather than the four days we had initially scheduled, would be needed to properly see the sites while adhering to Anthony Bourdain’s sage advice: “The vacation gone wrong in Paris is almost always because people try to do too many things.”

We took a boat tour to get our bearings, walked many miles, learned a bit about the history and culture, ate extremely well at incredible restaurants, and, the best part for me, spent many hours sitting at cafes and bistros, where we enjoyed the food and the wine and soaked in the whole experience. We had the perfect week.

Here are fun facts, followed by more photos....

Fun facts

St. Denis took a licking and kept on ticking. The Catholic bishop in Paris during the third century A.D. was beheaded under orders of the Roman Emperor Decius for defying his edict to make sacrifices to Roman gods. According to myth, St. Denis walked for several miles to what is now Montmartre (which means mountain of the martyr) carrying his severed head, continuing to proclaim the Catholic faith. He is now the patron saint of Paris and France.

Speaking of Montmartre, it was home to aspiring (meaning poor) artists before they hit the big time. We saw the very modest homes of Picasso, Van Gogh, Renoir, and other greats.

Hot chocolate with whipped cream and a croissant is the perfect breakfast. Okay, maybe it’s a little rich, especially the thick, super-chocolatey hot chocolate and thick, super-creamy whipped cream where we indulged, Carette on the Trocadero. Okay, maybe if you have multiple croissants it’s a bit excessive, but trust me on this. Breakfast of Champions.

All those beautiful buildings in Paris are made from plaster of Paris (really!). Gypsum was mined at Montmartre and turned into the material used for the exteriors of buildings. It’s why they all are of the same, cream color. Side note: The Sacre Coeur cathedral atop Montmartre took forever to build, partly because the foundation had to be extremely deep on account of the extensive mine tunnels, which rendered the land on the hilltop unstable.

The winding, medieval streets of Paris were razed between 1853 and 1870 by order of Napoleon III (over fierce opposition) to address overcrowding and sanitation issues. The massive project, overseen by George-Eugene Haussmann resulted in today’s grand avenues; new parks and squares; and sewers and aqueducts. The broad streets also made it more difficult for rebels to set up blockades (think Les Misérables) and facilitated the French army’s movements. The ancient roads of Montmartre, outside of the city center, were not affected and the neighborhood retains its medieval beauty.

Over-pimping your crib can be hazardous to your health – The over-the-top splendor, magnitude, and ostentatiousness of Versailles makes it easy to see why the impoverished and disenfranchised masses took to the streets and revolted in the late 1700s. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were decapitated, but there’s no record of either of them doing a headless walkabout.

By the way, our visit to Versailles wasn’t a great experience. It’s like Disneyworld on steroids: We waited in line over an hour despite having timed-entry passes, and were herded like cattle from one ornate room to another in the main mansion. We bailed before getting to the upstairs Hall of Mirrors, waited in line for 20 minutes for the restrooms, then spent the rest of our time in the magnificent gardens.

The Latin Quarter is awesome. Like Montmartre, it retained the winding streets and alleys that make it so charming. It has been a magnet for writers the way Montmartre drew (and continues to draw) artists. There are ancient churches, such as La Severin, quaint, charming (that word again) cafes and bistros, and the Hogwarts-like Shakespeare Bookstore. It’s also adjacent to the Ile de Cite, where sits the scaffolding-sheathed yet majestic Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Metro (Metropolitan) subway system is wonderfully easy to use. It’s similar to Washington, D.C.’s Metro, which I used to commute to work for many years. I was nervous about using it after being stymied by New York’s Byzantine, dank, and scary system a few years ago, but Paris’s system is a breeze.

Yundi Li is a generational talent – and he has a large flock of groupies. His all-Mozart concert – the reason we traveled across the ocean to Paris – was phenomenal. It’s one thing to be a great technician, which he is certainly is, but he infuses the music with emotion and nuance like nobody I’ve ever heard before. As Donna said, it’s like he can make the piano sing.

Young, Asian women who idolize Li like a rock star follow him all over the world to his performances. They wore traditional embroidered garb, long gowns, or tiny, skin-tight outfits, and most brought large bouquets of roses to present to the pianist. One, sitting next to us, said she had seen him in Vienna before the Paris concert but was unsure if she would be able to attend upcoming concerts in Germany.

Sundays are not the day to go to the museums. We thought we'd visit a museum but didn't want to lock ourselves into it so we didn't buy tickets in advance. So after a splendid brunch (tip: don't try welkes; they are disgusting), we walked to the Musee D'Orsay but couldn't get in. Then we walked through the Jardin les Tuileries to the Louvre but couldn't get in. Finally we went to the Orangerie Museum and surprisingly couldn't get in. Definitely a case of it's the journey, not the destination -- the breathtaking architecture, the beautiful gardens, and just Paris, was well worth our trek. We went back to the bistro across from our hotel to drink wine and watch the world go by, a la Anthony Bourdain.