Landed at JFK on one side of midnight. Got back to my place on the other. A day change, on top of a time change. My body is in a kind of temporal spasmosis, drifting off and waking up between Eastern Daylight Time and Greenwich +1, which is six hours later. So, even though there's been nary a cloud in the sky, I haven't ridden today.
In the past, it's taken a day for my body to acclimate to time shifts. I'm hoping the same holds true this time. The trip that just ended was the first I took across multiple time zones in four years. Does age diminish one's ability to acclimate to time changes?
I'm sipping an iced tea and thinking about some of the food I ate in Paris. As I was there for only ten days, I decided to stick to more or less traditional French food and not to try, for example, the Korean barbecue near the hotel or any of the other "exotic" restaurants one can find in the City of Light.
On previous trips, when I spent more time in Paris and in France, I tried and enjoyed local versions of Chinese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and other cuisines. I also have eaten French regional specialties on their home turf: bouillabaisse on the Cote d'Azur, cassoulet in the Toulouse region and quenelles in Lyon, for example.
I have eaten enough meals in France (I once lived there and have returned several times before the trip I just took) that I can say that not every single one of them was wonderful. However, some were and I can say that, on average, one has as good a chance of enjoying a savory meal in France as in any other country.
Of course, good food is always a result of good ingredients and preparation. But part of the sensual pleasure of eating has to do with its presentation: something the French seem to understand better than just about anyone else. Nearly all foods have at least some inherent appeal; it seems that the only people in this world who rival the French in their ability to enhance that appeal are the Italians.
One sees such skills on display equally in four-star restaurants as in local cafes, in the homes of French people (the ones into which I've been invited, anyway) and in hotel kitchens. It can even be seen in a local fruit shop, like this one just up the block from the hotel in which I stayed:
There are definitely worse things to see on one's way out of a country.
Today I am flying back to New York, so this post will be short.
This, of course, is not the first time I've been to Paris. But it's the first time since I started this blog, and the first time since my operation. It was also the first time I visited in more than a decade.
Much has remained the same. However, as on any trip, I made a couple of minor discoveries you might find useful should you find yourself in Paris.
One is, of course, Paris Bike Tour. I can't recommend them highly enough. For one thing, they're located just steps from Les Halles/Centre Pompidou, nestled between the lively and charming neighborhoods of Beaubourg and Le Marais. PBT's rental rates are very reasonable (25 Euros for a 24-hour day and 10 Euros for each additional day after that) and their bikes, while basic, are well-maintained. They require a 300 Euro deposit (cash or cheque),refundable upon return of the bike, or a credit card number. I gave my card number and they didn't put a "hold" on it. And, when I returned the bike, they returned the contract, which had the only record of my card number.
The best parts of Paris Bike Tour all are their staff members Kevin, a native Parisian, and Stephen, who hails from Montreal and is thoroughly bilingual in English and French. (Kevin speaks some English, too, though I conversed mainly in French with him.) PBT also employs guides who lead tours in English and French as well as other languages. I didn't take any of them, but from what I've seen, I'd expect the guides and tours to be engaging and interesting, and probably a good choice for a first-time visitor to the city.
Another recommendation is the place where I stayed: the Hotel Lenox-Montparnasse. I don't know what the rates are because the room was included in a package with my air fare. I had a small room--typical for a Paris hotel--but it was immaculately kept. Even better is their service: Every day, after I went out, the hotel's workers return the room to the pristine condition in which I found it when I first checked in. Plus, it's in a convenient yet safe location, with a station of a major Metro line (Number 4) right at the corner.
The Lenox is in a building that, as well-kept as it is, has character and charm. It''s not a faceless chain hotel in a glass or steel box; its a smallish hotel in a real Left Bank Building, albeit one with modern amenities.
The concierge recommended a restaurant which will be the final recommendation of this post: La Brasserie Gaite. If you want to eat an authentic French meal at a reasonable price, you must go to LBG. Named for the street--la rue Gaite--on which it's located-- just across the Edgar Quinet Plaza from the Lenox Hotel--it's lively, if sometimes a bit hectic. Most of their meals are meat-based (entrecote de beouf, confit de canard and such) but salads are also available. They also make, from what I'm told, excellent crepes and pastas, though I didn't try those. For 35 Euros, I had a nice-sized bowl of onion soup au gratin, beouf tartare with Auvergne-style potatoes (similar to au gratin), a salad, dessert (an apple tart with crème brulee) and coffee.
An old Sicilian woman once told me there are two things that make absolutely everyone in the world happy. One of them is good food. She never told me what the other is. Whatever it may be, I'm sure she'd appreciate La Brasserie Gaite.
Update: After writing this post, I decided to go back to La Gaite for lunch: my last meal before departing for New York. I had a crepe and salad, which were every bit as good as the dinner I'd had a couple of nights earlier.
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.
