Day 9: Paris

Now, lords, for France: the enterprise thereof
Shall be to you as us, like glorious...
Cheerly to sea, the signs of war advance,
No king of England, if not king of France  ~  Henry V

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

While we did not take over France, I'm sure we set them back in their crepe supplies. We took an early train from Stratford to London after getting our suitcases up and down several flights of stairs, and took taxis from there to St. Pancras Station. We were now one suitcase less, because Mom had thrown one away back at Marylebone--the handle had completely ripped off one side. Don't worry, we disposed of it with a janitor's permission. We thought that the Londoners might be a bit apprehensive about a suitcase abandoned in the middle of the train station. Everyone wrote a post card to family members back home while we waited in the station. James wrote an especially funny one to our family in Virginia that ran something like "London is fun. Tell Jason that no one here has hair as long as him."


The Eurostar was comfortable and fast; I didn't even notice when we went under the ocean! They served us a delicious lunch of cheese and cauliflower, pasta and chicken, and orange cheesecake. Everyone also got their own small bottle of wine.

We arrived in Paris, France, at the Gare du Nord. We planned to walk to the nearby Gare d' l'Est, which would have a Metro stop close to our apartment, but Dad and Claire ended up leading us the wrong way several times, past a plethora of sex shops in one direction, and past the church of St. Vincent de Paul in the other. Meanwhile, Mom was pushing her suitcase along in front of her, this handle also having broken. Not looking where she was going because she was enjoying the shop windows along the way, she accidentally pushed her suitcase into a very wet pile of mud around a tree. Nick helped her pull it out, but by now we all felt pretty conspicuous as the Parisian loiterers stared at us. Finally we made it to the station and stood around awkwardly once again until Dad figured out the Metro system.

We lugged our suitcases up yet another stairs, and found ourselves next to the Seine. In Paris we stayed at an apartment on the Ile St-Louis, southeast of the Ile de la Cite. Dad had thought the landlady would meet us there to give us the keys, but there was no one around. He called and she said she had thought we were coming later but she would drive out now. Colin, Claire, Nick, James and I left the suitcases with our parents and headed across the bridge to see Notre Dame de Paris. We were coming up from behind, where you could see the flying buttresses, the spire and the green statues of the apostles. It was good to see Notre Dame again, especially without a cumbersome backpack. The towers, the rose window, and the angels and saints surrounding the great doorways were a blessing to us tired travelers.

We went in and walked slowly through. The arched ceilings and the statue of St. Joan were as wonderful as when I first saw them three years before.

It was nearly dusk when we walked back, and we were thinking of sending Nick to climb up the drainpipe Jason Bourne style and let us in, when the landlady arrived. The apartment was perfect, with little medieval accents here and there to make it seem like a country tavern, but with modern conveniences and Parisian art and furniture. The living room had a large glass table, paintings of the view from our window on a snowy day, a couch and TV, and a large wooden chest that had carvings of falcons on it. The ceiling had dark wooden timbers, and small marble columns framed the room. Two large windows with false balconies looked out over the River and to the Hotel de Ville on the other bank. The other rooms had beds with curtains caught up in decorative canopies, and shelves with breakables everywhere. The vases and statuettes were quickly moved to the fireplace mantle to escape any destructive family members (someone did end up breaking a champagne glass later in the week).

And then there were the bathrooms. Feel free to skip this paragraph if you're not interested in every detail of the apartment, but the bathrooms were, for us, the most unusual part of the place. First of all, there were four: two with just showers and sinks, and two with just toilets and sinks. One with a toilet was just inside the entryway. Egyptian paintings were framed on the walls, and the toilet was about a foot off the ground, so that one was literally on the throne. The other toilet room was tiled in black. Claire came out of it and warned us about its surprise--the lights changed colors. It was very disconcerting to come in at nighttime and have the light suddenly turn a hellish red. (Then, halfway through the week, the light became a regular, no color light. It was mystifying).

For dinner we went to the Lutetia, a restaurant behind our apartment. I had some rosé and a Croque Madame (delicious ham, cheese and egg sandwich). Nick failed to decipher the Italian on the menu correctly and ended up with a platter of sausages. After eating we left Mom at the apartment and set off for some sight-seeing.

View from the bridge between the two islands. On the right is the Hotel de Ville. The single tower in the distance is what remains of St-Jacques, where pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela would stop.

The Hotel de Ville, its roof sparkling with Christmas lights, had a carousel and an ice skating rink set up for Christmas.

 Continuing north, we came upon the Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum housed in a modern building with enough pipes to be a level in Super Mario Bros.

On our return trip we saw the Rue Perenelle, named for the wife of Nicolas Flamel. And as we crossed a bridge back to the Ile de la Cite, we saw the golden Tour Eiffel in the distance. the golden gates of the Palais de Justice also enclosed the tower of the Sainte Chappelle, and finally we returned to Notre Dame.

We strolled on the sandy ground in the lamplight under the statue of Charlemagne, then headed home to bed.