At The Home Of A Love Child And Her Love Child

Look at this photo:

Can you guess where I've landed?

I'll give you another clue:

Once again, I'm in "the City of LIght."  I decided that the off-season fares made it worthwhile to come here for a week and visit my friends.

I thought about going to other places--say, Scotland or England or Finland--but it's cold here, and I can only imagine what the weather is like in those places.  Normally, I don't mind the cold, but I think this time it's a shock, given that I experienced summer-like weather last week in Florida.

Anyway, I got to my hotel--in the neighborhood where I took the photos--well before check-in time.  The clerk allowed me to leave my bag, and I went for a walk to my favorite building in this city.

Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre is only a 15 minute walk from the hotel but seems even closer.  I have long believed that it's the most Parisian of buildings because it's not typically Parisian.  At least, it seems to belong in this city because, well, it really couldn't be anyplace else.  I mean, in what other city could a Roman Catholic Cathedral have domes that look more like those of a mosque?

Back when it was constructed, it must have been even more out of character for the area, which was then semi-rural, and the city.  These days, however, it's hard to find anyone who can imagine Paris without it.  I know I can't.  And the artists who lived and worked in the area certainly couldn't.

One reason why artists flocked to the neighborhood is that it was, believe it or not, cheap.  Even more important, though, is the light in and around it: subtle, but not muted, and dreamy if not somnambulent.  Best of all, on that hill, you can see the light of the rest of the city unfolding like a video of the weather on a screen of linen haze.  Its movement is slower than that of the city, at least when one walks or cycles the streets, but is a kind of film (rather than a mirror) of the city's life force.

What I have tried to explain makes even more sense after a visit to the Musee de Montmartre, located in the oldest house in the neighborhood.  It's also where Maurice Utrillo and his mother, Suzanne Valadon, had their studio.

The man whose last name he inherited--a Catalan painter--acknowledged Maurice but really wasn't in his life.  Valadon--ironically, a love child herself--would later marry Andre Utter, who was Maurice's best friend and twenty years her junior.

All of this sounds like something you might expect from artists living the bohemian life in what was then the most bohemian part of the western world's artistic capital. So are many other aspects of their tumultuous lives, which included alcoholism and nervous breakdowns.  But what you might not expect is that Utrillo, who was born just steps from the Sacre Coeur and spent almost his entire life within a few minutes' walk from it, spent considerable time in the cathedral, and not only for aesthetic reasons:  He actually had a sincere faith and believed that the cathedral and its environs were suffused with spiritual powers. Some might say that it was part of his search for serenity, or at least comfort.  

Now, I'm not religious, but I can see why people like Utrillo and Valadon--along with other artists--were drawn to the Sacre Couer and its environs.  An artist is a kind of bastard child who doesn't quite fit into the conventions of their society--and, from the story presented at the museum (as well as what I've read over the years), the neighborhood was removed, physically as well as mentally, from bourgeois expectations.

All right, I'll stop theorizing.  All I'll say is that the walk to and from the Sacre-Coeur--and the walk up and down the hill--was a great way to spend the first hours of my latest visit to Paris.  Between the walking and climbing, and my jet lag, I was ready to sleep when I got back to the hotel!

As for cycling:  I haven't done any yet.  During my previous two visits to Paris, I rented a bike (from Paris Bike Tour) because I don't want to worry about finding docking stations and I figured (correctly) that a rental bike would be of better quality and better-maintained.  I'll probably go to PBT tomorrow.

I thought about using Velib, the city's bike-share program, but I saw only one docking station--and, worse, only one of their bikes-- today.  Turns out, there are far fewer of those bikes and stations than there were in the summers of 2015 and 2016.  A little more than a year ago, JC Decaux's contract to run the program expired, and a new company took over and instituted a new system.  Now users complain that it's not only more difficult to find a dock and bike, it's sometimes "impossible" to find a dock that works properly when you're trying to return the bike.  That often results in a half-hour ride (which is free) turning into a two-hour rental.  Worst of all, some users have said that the 300 Euro deposit the system charged their credit cards wasn't returned to them even after the bike was returned.

Anyway, I look forward to riding, meeting my friends and visiting a museum or two.

A Paris Bike Tour To The Grand Train

Sometimes I am a creature of habit.  Yesterday I went to Paris Bike Tour, from whom I rented a bike when I was here last year.  I did the same this time, except that I  got one of their "official" bikes (with the PBT logo and colors) this time.  Last year's bike was a silver Arcade, which was similar, if not the same, except for one thing:  the bike I got this year has a Shimano Dynohub powering the front and rear light, which I used last night.  Last year's bike had battery lights.

At first, I thought this year's bike was slower--or that I've aged more than a year or gained more weight than I thought I did since last year. (Don't ask!  Never ask a woman questions about her weight! ;-)) Then I thought that the seat was slowing me down--after all, it's the cushy sort found on bikes like this, and I'm used to my Brooks saddles.  But, finally, after steering out of the rond (or roundabout, as the Brits call them) of the Place de la Bastille, I realized why everything felt so sluggish:  The tires had about half as much air in them as they needed.  

I could have topped off the tires at any number of places, namely bike shops and gas stations.  As it happened, PBT is closer to Bastille to any other such place (that I know about, anyway), so I went to them.  Just for good measure, they did a quick check of the rest of the bike, and found nothing amiss.

All was well with the world, and off I went on the bike.  Mostly, I've rambled:  I've had no particular destinations in mind.  Actually, I headed for the hills, such as they exist.  Of course, I rode up the longest and steepest hill in Paris:  the one leading to the Sacre Coeur de Montmartre--and, of course, down to the teeming streets and open-air markets of Goutte d'Or, often called the "petite Afrique" (little Africa) of Paris.

When I pedaled in that neighborhood--and neighboring Barbes-Rochechouart-- this year and last, I noticed that however well-intentioned the bike lanes are, it is all but impossible to stay on them unless you want to stop-and-start, or do a lot of dodging and weaving.  It seems that, even by Paris standards, the streets and sidewalks of that neighborhood are narrow, and people are always out shopping or otherwise out and about, always in large groups. So, they almost can't help but to spill into the bike lanes.  They almost invariably get out of your way, at least to the degree they can, and say "pardon".  I saw only one cyclist argue with the pedestrians.  That cyclist himself is African, from Senegal.  "Vous n'etes pas francaise"--"You are not French" he said with a knowing grin.  I nodded, sheepishly.  "Pas problem.  Vous etes sympathique."  I almost expected him to say I am "tel" or "trop" sympathique--so or too nice--buy he just left it at "nice".  

Anyway, from there, I rode to Saint Denis--home of the Stade de France, site of the Euro soccer championship and one of the terror attacks in November--only to find the Basilica closed.  Still, it's impressive from the outside:

If it looks unbalanced, that's because the North Tower (the one that would have been on the left) was removed in 1840 after it was damaged by lightning three years earlier and subsequent storms.  Work on reassembling and installing is now in progress.  

But the ride to St. Denis was not for naught, as I found a path along the canal to La Villette, a few kilometers away in the northern part of Paris, where it connects with Canal de l'Ourcq, which in turn connects  with the Canal St. Martin-- an extremely popular spot for cycling, walking and picnics.

Then, after some more wandering I decided to hop a train:

No, I didn't go back to New York.  Rather, I chanced upon something I'd heard about before coming to Paris.

The Grand Train is held, as you might expect, in an old rail terminal and storage yard.  It was nice to look at tains that had, not only power, but also style.

You really had the sense that people rode those trains.

  

In those days, all Frenchmen wore moustaches.  At least, in the movies--and on trains--they did:

The engine in the photo below was designed for use in rugged Pyrenees terrain no other vehicles could reach.  It was used as a "relay" to and from ambulances and other cars and trucks, as well as to get pilgrims to Lourdes. 

It made its first run more than two decades after the first Tour de France cyclists climbed those peaks in the Pyrennes, and its last about two decades before I pedaled up them.

The organizers of Grand Train seem to have "discovered" some interesting uses for old track beds--like a "beach"

a "garden" 

and even a chicken coop.

(It looks like someone thought formal wear was required for this event!)

Hey, they even figured out that a gravelled track bed makes great petanque  court.

I was not surprised:  My Italian grandfather used to play bocce on a disused rail bed underneath an almost-equally disused viaduct of the New York transit system.

What would he think of that young lady?

Rue Rennes In The Rain: A Ride For A Romantic?

Rain pattered against asphalt and cobblestones when I woke.  Later in the morning, the stream of water turned to a scrim of drizzle.  I started to ride.  The drizzle turned back into rain.

There are certainly worse things than riding the Rue de Rennes in the rain.  For one thing, as you can see, it looks like everybody's idea of a major Left Bank street--almost a boulevard, really.  For another, it's about two blocks from my hotel room and can take me to just about anyplace I want to go.

I must admit, too that riding Rue de Rennes in the rain triggers more than a few sense memories, as well as emotional ones, from the first time I came to this city and the time I lived here.

I followed it to the Boulevard Raspail, and from there to Saint Germain des Pres, the 'hood of more than a few writers you've read and others you've heard of.  One of them, an American, used to climb this street to get to his place on 74, rue Cardinal Lemoine.

The writer is, of course, Ernest Hemingway, and the street is la rue Mouffetard, which seems to have as many twists and turns as the road on l'Alpe d'Huez or Lombard Street.  Mouffetard, and some other streets in the Latin Quarter, escaped Baron Hassmann's city planning which, although it didn't impose a grid pattern, actually made most of the streets run in more or less straight lines before converging with others in plazas and parks. 

It's still confusing if you're accustomed to a grid pattern of the kind found in many American cities.  At least it means that you can follow any given street only so far. However, the real reason why Napoleon III chose him to re-shape Paris as he did--at least, according to some historians--was to make it more difficult for rabble-rousers to run away from cops and soldiers after starting or participating in insurrections, which seemed to happen at least once in every generation in Paris.

Most of the streets that were spared from Haussmann's plan are in the part of town I was riding.  Some of them date from Roman times or even earlier; others were built during the Middle Ages.  One such street lies at the end of Mouffetard:

"Bievre" is "beaver".  Apparently, that street was a stream that fed into the Seine and, in ancient times, people trapped the beavers that lived there.  (By the way, that is how the Astors first made their fortune in New York.)  Other streets twist and wind because they, like Mouffetard and Bievre, were constructed around or over features of the landscape that existed at the time.

From Bievre, I rode across the Pont de l'Archeveche --also known as "le Pont d'Amour":

Hmm...Does the kind of lock you leave say anything about your relationship? 

Anyeay, from there, I pedaled along Right Bank roads past the Places de la Bastille and de la Republique to the Pere Lachaise, where famous people like Moliere and, of course, Jim Morrison are buried.  So are some less famous, like my friend Janine.

I didn't leave flowers for her.  I did, however, leave a short letter I wrote, thanking her for her warmth and kindness, and, of course, wishing I could see her on this trip.

After that, I was glad to zig and zag along the crowded lanes of the Goutte d'Or and up the hill to Belleville and, of course, Montmartre.  The ride kept me from wallowing in sadness and I think Janine would have been happy that I was riding to the stairs we had climbed together to the Basilica. 

From there, the rest of my ride was literally downhill to Paris Bike Tour, where I returned my rental bike.  It served me well, but I'll certainly be happy to ride my Mercians again.