Our Paris Adventure: Day One (13 February)

The Eurostar is such an easy and comfortable way to travel: you go from city centre to city centre, don’t have to worry about luggage restrictions on liquids, gels, and whatever else, your luggage is always within your sight, and the seats are bigger and more comfortable than airplane seats. This morning we left our London flat at 4:15 A.M. and arrived at our Paris hotel at 10:00 A.M., even after lining up at Gare du Nord’s tourist office to get some maps and at the Metro ticket booth to get our transportation passes. Considering the one-hour time difference between cities, our journey took less than five hours door-to-door—not bad at all!

We started our week with our favourite Paris activity: walking. The central arrondissements are so small, so atmospheric, so full of little treasures that walking is the best way to immerse yourself in Paris. We wandered from the left bank’s Latin Quarter (where we were staying) to the right bank’s Marais, which meant that we crossed the Seine along the way, right at Notre Dame:

We headed to Rue des Rosiers, the centre of the Jewish area of the Marais, to have one of our favourite quick Paris lunches: falafel from L’As du Falafel:

The same man who made our falafels a year and a half ago made them again this time, with the same lightning flicks of his wrists as he assembled the contents of our pitas. I still don’t understand how they make the falafel so yummy, but it’s still the best I’ve ever had. As usual, practically everyone walking on Rue des Rosiers was eating falafel. We headed around the corner to a small park on

to eat ours in the company of some very cute birds (who clearly knew what they were doing, hanging out in the vicinity of so much soft pita bread):

After quite a lot of walking around in the Marais, remembering why we love its fairytale streets so much, it was time for “a little something,” as Winnie-the-Pooh and my dad like to say—the perfect opportunity for Bob’s favourite Paris treat: Berthillon ice cream.
As with L’As du Falafel, Berthillon is the best ice cream we’ve ever had. Their dark chocolate is unbelievably chocolaty and dense. We both had one scoop of dark chocolate and one scoop of another flavour (blackcurrant for Bob; coffee for me). Here's mine: From Île Saint-Louis, we crossed the Seine again,
this time heading back to Montparnasse on the Left Bank. Since we decided we were going to buy four-day Paris Museum Passes for 15-18 February, we used the first two days of our trip to do a few things that weren’t included with our passes. The first place we went was one that was closed the last time we were in Paris. While the Paris Catacombs may seem incredibly morbid, they are an unbelievable sight that is worth experiencing.

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, remains from Paris graveyards began to be moved into the maze of unused Roman mining tunnels beneath the city as a way to deal with overcrowding in cemeteries and disease being spread by improperly buried remains. The resulting subterranean mass grave is shocking, both in terms of the arrangement of the remains and the fact that more people (six million) “reside” under Paris than in the city proper today (two million). After descending a very long spiral staircase and walking through a very long tunnel,
we reached the entrance to the ossuary.

The leg bones and skulls have been used to create patterned walls behind which the rest of the remains have been piled. Along the way, plaques name the dates and graveyards from which the remains were taken, corresponding streets above, and also provide solemn thoughts for and dedications to the dead. The more we walked, the less we could believe that the place we were in even existed.








Once we resurfaced, we began walking north toward the centre of the city, and came across Montparnasse Cemetery,


which we wandered through, in the hopes of coming across Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Serge Gainsbourg, or Charles Baudelaire, all of whom are buried here. But we weren’t in the cemetery for very long before we spotted and heard a man marching the length of the grounds, repeatedly blowing a whistle. Apparently the cemetery was closing and his job was to round everyone up. We could just make out his rapid-fire instruction to wait at the gate for him to let us out. While we waited there with a dozen other people, we heard him whistle his way through the rest of the cemetery before returning to see us out. On our way back toward the Seine, I noticed a tiled Pac-Man ghost above a street sign
and remembered seeing similar tiles before in Paris and London. It turns out that it’s the work of an artist who goes by the pseudonym Space Invader, and he’s placed his mosaics in different cities around the world.

Already 6:00 P.M., it was definitely time for our first noisettes!
Now, I know by now you’re probably getting a bit sceptical of all my superlatives when it comes to eating and drinking in Paris, and I promise that I’m being (relatively) objective, but I won’t be offended if you still have your doubts. Still, Paris is pretty much a foodie’s paradise and there’s something about the coffee that’s pretty special. No matter where we have coffee in Paris, it’s always very strong, very chocolaty (none of that terrible Starbucks burnt bitterness), and requires very little sugar. Throw in a nice brasserie table on the pavement so that you can watch passers-by and it’s pretty heavenly (oops, that doesn’t sound too objective).

We made a brief stop at our hotel to freshen up before heading out again for dinner. While our hotel wasn’t my first choice (we booked our trip only a few weeks beforehand and many places in our price range were sold out), it ended up being a good choice in terms of its convenient location, no-frills cleanliness, and quiet street. On the other hand, it had the narrowest hallway, smallest room, and tiniest shower stall we’ve ever called home, and people in the next room sounded like they were sitting in our laps (thank goodness they were quiet), but for the price, small inclusive breakfast, and friendly staff, we can’t really complain. Here’s the room and the street directly below:


We headed out for a yummy dinner of moules frites (mussels and fries). The English translation doesn’t do the dish justice. Bob had the classic version, done with white wine and garlic, and I had mine with Roquefort cheese mixed in. All I can say is: mmmmmmmmm. (By the way, for those of you in Vancouver, you can get a pretty great meal of moules frites at Salade de Fruits, a place that is a nice dose of Paris right in Vancouver—at a price that Bob and I can only dream about over here.)

It was about 9:00 P.M. by the time we finished dinner and we were both amazed that we were still awake after getting up at 3:30 this morning. We decided to head over to one of our favourite places from our last trip to Paris, conveniently open until midnight: the contemporary art centre, Palais de Tokyo. Their exhibitions are consistently fascinating and the combination of large-scale gallery space, popular restaurant, and wonderful bookshop makes it an all-around good place to be. On our way there, we got our first good peek at the Eiffel Tower.
While we didn’t take on the lines at the Eiffel Tower this time around, I highly highly recommend it as a put-your-dislike-of-cliché-behind-you must-do in Paris. The tower itself is strikingly beautiful close-up (which surprised me) and the views from the top level cannot be outdone. While not as lofty, the view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe is another spectacular sight that we took in last time—seeing all those wide boulevards converging on the Arc like spokes on a wheel is awe-inspiring. Ah, but I digress . . . I’m supposed to be talking about *this* trip, not our last trip!

As usual, the Palais de Tokyo didn’t disappoint. The first exhibit, Michel Blazy’s Post Patman, was comprised of mostly food- and cotton-based pieces, lending the large hall an oddly sweet aroma. Here we have cotton,

soya noodles and food dye,
dog biscuits, potato flakes, and water in the foreground, and on the wall, mashed potatoes, beetroot purée, salt and water,
and bubble bath, with new bubbles being produced, very very slowly, as well as carrot purée and potato flakes on the wall, a sofa covered in cotton and chocolate cream hanging from the ceiling, and cotton and caramel cream in the shape of an animal rug on the floor.
The next room was where Bob had the most fun. Music for Plants invites experimental musicians to play shows in the greenhouse and also provides instruments for the public to play their own music for the plants. The artist’s statement notes that the installation seeks to “establish a potential for creative dialogue between different forms of organic life,” which seems a wee bit pretentious to me, but the exhibit was fun regardless.



Some people even took pictures of Bob playing in the greenhouse, so I took a meta-photo of Bob getting his photo taken:

We looked through the rest of the exhibits, but the first two were the most fun. By the time we left the gallery, it was close to midnight and we wandered back to our hotel, tired, but happy to be in Paris with six more days to go!