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Phil’s Travels – Halloween in Paris, France (10.24)

Phil’s Travels – Halloween in Paris, France (10.24)

I had not been to my mother’s city in over 10 years, so this was very exciting for me. My trip was a confluence of Halloween and Diwali (the Festival of Light) in the City of Light.

St Pancras International was packed and loaded with military types selling poppies and the queue for Eurostar check-in was out into the main concourse. The line moved quickly though, and I sped through security and UK passport control. France passport control was somewhat slower. Their e-gates work in two steps (as opposed to UK e-gates with only one simultaneous step). First step, scan passport and allow through head-high doors. Second step, have photo taken and allow through second set of head-high doors. Being French, of course there was a third step – give passport to a French lady to stamp. Finally, entry to packed waiting area granted.

The waiting area for Eurostar at St Pancras was never big enough and after all these years it still has not been extended. It was standing room only. The train journey was smooth and quick. Gare du Nord was as busy as St Pancras and there was an enormous anaconda of a queue for the Metro ticket machines – too few machines for the volume of needy travellers, not a helper in sight and all the counters were closed.

No wonder the queue was so long. The ticket machines were not user friendly and travellers were slow in their selections and purchases. I had to help folk on either side of me before I could escape. The options on the machine were very confusing and I was not sure myself, so I selected a 2-day pass to cover all the bases. The machine then advised that for such a ticket I had to select a minimum of 2x zones, but when I tried to select 2x zones the machine remained inert. Only when I slid across to 3x zones did it respond positively.

The Metro saga continued when I walked off in pursuit of Line 2 signage, which was useful initially but dissipated after a while. I could see Line 2 signs a floor below, but I had no clue how to drop a level, without jumping and shattering both kneecaps. So, I caught a Line 4 train and changed a stop later to the desired Line 2. Ninety minutes or so after pulling into Gare du Nord I was at my hotel.

The hotel was fine. Very clean and well appointed, but somewhat anonymous. No sense of place. I had been before some 15 years ago when it was a Hilton. The courtyard garden, in which we had a questionable lunch all those years ago with my friends from Libya, was now covered in a bright blue Padel Court. At least it was being used, much to the annoyance of my fellow traveller who was kept awake all afternoon by their slapping.

The critical purpose of the trip was held at a lovely rooftop restaurant on Avenue Montaigne, from which we had a nearly-view of the Eiffel Tower. Even if we had had a direct line of sight to the Tower, we would not have seen much. The cloud cover was so low, the top of the Tour was invisible. Paris was gorgeous, beautifully lit, moody and spooky. Very fitting of the Halloween, Diwali, City of Light convergence.

Dinner was delicious, although I am still not convinced by mozzarella mousse on pizza. I prefer solid pieces, please. My wife had a similar sentiment in Corfu recently when she was a served a Greek Salad with feta mousse rather than feta itself.

My fellow traveller and I had walked from our hotel to the meeting venue, and we loved it so much we walked back again. Although Halloween is not big in France, the nearby Plaza Athénée was clearly in the mood and we saw a few folk walking around in costume.

Next day, after a quickie brekkie, I went for an explore. Since my last visit, many new hotels have opened and a few Grand Dames given serious face lifts. It was a Bank Holiday in France and at 08.30 the streets were devoid of people, cars and the ubiquitous dogs. The Parisiens had no doubt decamped to their country houses in Provence for the long weekend and final days of sunshine. Even the Champs-Elysées was deserted. It was wonderful.

I walked to the sumptuous Peninsula Paris and had a walk about its public areas, much more magnificent than its London sibling (why is the London property so, so?). I had visited and walked throughout the (originally, 1908) Hotel Majestic then Ministry of Foreign of Affairs building in 2007. What a transformation. Much better suited to a luxury hotel than government cubby holes.

From the Peninsula, I burnt some serious sugar and I walked to the Cheval Blanc at the new Samaritaine retail emporium (never to be undersupplied in luxury, a second Cheval Blanc was underway on the Champs-Elysées). By this stage, more tourists were coming out of the woodwork and the retail was picking up. How come department stores are a dying breed in the UK and yet seem to fly in Manhattan and Paris? Answers on a postcard, please.

From the Samaritaine complex, I walked to Place de la Concorde and wandered around the renovated Hotel de Crillon. One of the original Palace hotels of Paris and my favourite, the de Crillon looks good in its new guise, although it has lost that Grand Dame patina I loved so much. At least the main dining room was still magnificent, where I remember eating caviar from the Loire Valley and lamenting the price of First Growths with the sommelier some 12 years ago. Even a Palace hotel in Paris was struggling to buy top Bordeaux back then.

From the de Crillon, I passed by Place de la Madeleine for some provisions and walked back to my hotel. 13km in three hours and all before lunch. Lunch was a swift affair and more discussion at a venue on a much busier and bustling Champs-Elysées. Our host had, you guessed it, Fish & Chips. He is a staunch Francophile and yet he ordered the most quintessential dish from England possible in the heart of Paris. Very entertaining for us Anglo-Saxons at the table. My Cesar Salad on the other hand was no laughing matter. Very poor – iceberg lettuce, processed chicken slices and bottled mayonnaise. Not good.

Paris is all about grand avenues, grand buildings, grand marques, grand ‘Places’ and grand Magasins. For such a gorgeous city, there remains very little grass or greenery. Even the ‘green’, parkland areas are still mostly dirt (a lasting memory from my childhood that always contrasted with my take on London, which is much greener and park friendly).

Some things had changed since my distant memories. The Metro was much cleaner and there were definitely more taxis this time around. In the Noughties, when I spent a lot of time in the city, finding a taxi was harder than solving nuclear fission.

After lunch, I took the Metro to Chappelle and walked the east side of Gard du Nord, a street lined with Indian shops and clearly popular with this dynamic community. The station frontage was resplendent in a late autumn afternoon sun and brought back memories of nights sleeping on the pavement awaiting opening time on my way from the beaches of Med to my grandparents just north of Charles de Gaulle.

With fewer trains than St Pancras, the waiting area in Gare du Nord offered tired legs some welcome seating, dining and retail options (Gare du Nord goes to London only, whilst St Pancras goes to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Disneyland).

The return train was painfully slow on the English side of the Chunnel. It even stopped on occasion. It felt like a grey hound hobbled. It took over three hours. It was packed, again, and I had a seat next to a tattooed, music-loving, constantly coughing ‘brat’ (this year’s Collins Dictionary Word of the Year, meaning someone who is ‘confident, independent and hedonistic’). Sounds like Paris on Halloween. Au revoir ma belle et à bientôt!