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Phil’s Travels – Paris, France (11.25)

Phil’s Travels – Paris, France (11.25)

Winter had come early. We left home at 06.00 and 2C (Paris was no warmer). St Pancras International was so busy the queue ran the whole length of the shopping arcade. Fortunately, it moved swiftly and we were munching on Pret croissants by 06.50 waiting for our train. Note to all UK-based train operators, the seats on Eurostar are comfortable, please get the name of their supplier.

Whizzing through northern France, the continent looked even colder, greyer, mistier and generally more wintery than Old Blighty. The miserable scene was briefly cheered somewhere south of Lille by a sprinkling of snow.

First job when we arrived at the Gare du Nord was to test the reputed best croissant in Paris, from a shop nearby the station called Carton. It was good but Pret is better (lighter, flakier, more buttery and much cheaper). My french cousin says there is better. If you are interested, somewhat belatedly, after our trip she recommended the following: Clamart or La Boulangerie Moderne in the 2eme.

Given our luggage and my dodgy back, we decided to Uber to the hotel. The traffic in Paris was worse than ever. Worse than Douala in rush hour? Maybe. It took us over an hour to get to our hotel in the 6eme. One of our many charming Uber drivers told us the traffic had become increasingly problematic in recent years because the current mayor had reduced road widths to accommodate more cycle and bus lanes, whereby an avenue with three lanes before now only has one lane. As a result, every Uber trip was a slow painful crawl, interspersed with moments of frenzied speed as our drivers sought to secure a rare gap in the vehicle melees.

We would have loved to use the Metro but the stations near our hotel did not sell tickets. They had a machine with a huge metal spinning device to navigate a screen with highly limited options and these were ok if one already had a travel card, but we didn’t and of course there was no one in the station to provide one with one. The only viable option I could determine was to buy the sole option available, a coupon. To be fair, the machine with the big wheel did warn me that such coupon was not valid for travel but I bought it anyway in hope. True to its advertising, it did not work. I tried pressing the Help button only to be told there was no one available to help. And of course there no one in sight of a Metro staff like nature to help in the station. Thus did Paris earn €4 from me for nothing. We gave up and Ubered thereafter. All hail Uber!

Our hotel gave a poor first impression. The bar/lounge area was filled with garden furniture and decorated in purple. However, the service was faultless, from pre-booking to check-out. Our room was a work of efficiency. No more than 20sqm, it packed in everything and more: separate wc and shower room (w shelves and heated towel rail), desk, chair, armchair, stool, TV, telephone, openable window, plenty of sockets, TCMF, mini-fridge, safe, luggage rack, 3x wardrobes, oh! and a double bed. Perfect efficiency for two. It had some stylish decor too.

Day 1 – we had lunch in a typical café near our hotel, on the pavement (with heaters), walked to the one and only Maille shop (Place de la Madeleine) and bought a dozen small jars of cornichons (don’t stock the big ones for some unfathomable reason), walked to Caves Auges (Bd Haussmann, oldest wine shop in Paris) and bought two bottles of expensive wine, had a hot beverage at a nearby café and caught an Uber back to the hotel with our weighty purchases. For dinner we walked to the Latin Quarter and ate a steak in a tiny hole-in-the-wall steak place (stone on the walls, sand on the floor, heavy wood tables and meat from a fire – fabulous). I had an ‘All Black’ from New Zealand (aka Black Angus), which hopefully puts me in Kiwi George’s good books. In Day 1 we covered nearly 20,000 steps.

Day 2 – coffee and a croissant at a nearby café. Or was it a bistro? Or maybe a brasserie? In the end I asked our lovely waiter what the difference was between the three. He said that in the old days a café served coffee, a bistro served light snacks, a brasserie light meals and a restaurant was full blown food. However, in modern Paris a café was a bistro was a brasserie and they all appeared to serve the same basic core menu: eggs mayonnaise, steak tartare, croque monsieur and bavette de beuf. Still, at least restaurants remain restaurants. According to the awning, his place was a café-bistro.

No matter the deterioration of definitions in modern Paris, our man deserved a medal. If a Nobel Prize ever comes to be for the making of coffee, he should win it. My wonderful wife’s coffee requirements are mighty particular. Even Einstein could not put her requirements into a succinct formula for mere mortals to digest and comprehend. I dread every time she orders coffee in anticipation of the inevitable fallout. This time, however, the coffee was perfect. Goldilocks had found her perfect porridge. It was so good, she ordered three in succession. It was all I could do to prise her out of there, before her nerves became too jangled from a caffeine overdose.

So started Day 2. The once in a lifetime perfect coffee was followed by an Uber to Marche aux puce de Saint Ouen (Porte de Clignacourt) and a hunt for something old. The market covers some 7ha and hosts a multitude of shops and dealers, inside. Around the fringes there thrives an altogether different type of retail. A very questionable type of retail. The perimeter streets were lined with half open kiosks (presumably ready to close at a moment’s notice should any form of authority pass by) selling €3 sneakers and €2 Real Madrid towels. We bought some old forks.

We Ubered to the Golden Triangle and walked past the uber luxury stores, up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc and back down to an Alsatian restaurant for a massive pile of cabbage and pork. The portion was huge and only €28. On the Champs-Elysees! Bargain. And our headwaiter turned out to be of Greek origin and was thoroughly into my game.

Day 3 – sadly the perfect coffee café-cum-bistro-cum-brasserie-but-not-a-restaurant was closed on Sunday morning. So, we tried another place nearby and my habitual dread was rewarded with a standard sub-optimal coffee experience. Thus, only one coffee was consumed and we moved swiftly on with our ‘explore’. As it was raining chats et chiens, the first order of business was to catch an Uber to Notre Dame. Blessed be Uber!

At Notre Dame, we did not fancy queuing around the block in the rain for hours to get inside. So, we made do with an external inspection. Still lots of work ongoing. We had lunch in Le Marais, walked past Samaritaine City, over the river, through the Left Bank and into Au Bon Marche. I had never heard of Au Bon Marche before. It is a department store with a food hall to rival KaDeWe in Berlin. They sold everything, including Matcha KitKats, large jars of Maille cornichons and 50 kinds of salt. But no choucroute garni in tins. We searched high and low in every supermarket for choucroute and in every wine shop for Le Titi, but ultimately these delectables avoided us and we came home empty handed of these little french treasures.

After an impeccable performance throughout our sejour, Uber failed us at the last and the hotel had to order a regular taxi for our ride to Gare du Nord. Despite this small hiccup, we were hugely grateful for Uber’s existence, especially as their presence had transformed the Paris taxi experience. In the past, finding a taxi in Paris was like finding a wonderful wife’s perfect coffee, virtually impossible. Today, thanks to Uber, they have catalysed taxis galore prowling the avenues and boulevards. Thanks be to Uber! And happy Thanksgiving to all.

This was my first time as a tourist in Paris for over 20 years. Our take homes were: Uber is fantastic (I must get the app), the Paris Metro is a wasted asset, Paris roads are horrendous (with a capital ‘H’) and the City of Lights did not seem anywhere near as busy as London (no one in the shops, few folk in the eateries and a pleasure to walk around without being jostled). In two days, we barely scratched the surface of my mother city and hopefully it won’t be another 20 years until our next visit as tourists. Vive Paris! (and Uber)