Paris
April, 1996
I
have been to Paris
many times on business over the last twenty years, especially as I used to work
for a French headquartered multinational for about half of my professional
career. But I still remember my first leisure trip during the Easter weekend of
1996. I was a bachelor then, working in London,
and we were a small group of close friends visiting Paris, so it was perfect!
It
must have been half past five on Good Friday morning, when we jumped into the
cab at Harrow, under cloudy London
skies destined for clear Parisian skies. Few minutes later, I realised I had left
my winter jacket home in all the excitement. With two degrees below freezing
and a strong wind chill, I shuddered at the thought of having to do without it on
our trip. However, the combination of fine Parisian spring weather and our
renewed strength to withstand cold after a rather long London winter, meant it did not really matter.
A light sweater was adequate.
Our tour guide Eulyssa
spoke fluent English and French. Being English, she made sure we started
exactly on schedule at quarter to seven. The coach headed North East towards
the historic Kentish borders. At half past nine we were at Dover.
The cruise
We boarded the big Stena
Line ferry for France.
The lower deck was big enough to park forty other coaches and triple that
number of cars. We climbed up the winding stairs to the central deck leading to
a concourse that terminated in a reception kiosk. A large set of double doors
opened into a hallway that led to cafeteria, duty free shops, a bookshop and a
boutique.
Three quarters of an
hour later, after a bitter espresso coffee that finally woke me up and an apple
tart with cream, we floated over the French waters. We dragged our watches an
hour behind to the French time as we touced the shores at Calais. (The French pronounce it as Calay. I
will quote all French pronunciations in brackets.) By noon, we were on the
motorway, this time on the right side of the road. The French toll paypoints
are called ‘Peash’. If you sped beyond the limit, a satellite tracks you and a
penalty is added straight to your road tax.
“Wakie, wakie we are
home!”
This was Eulyssa’s melodic voice waking those of us who were asleep. We were at
the Sofitel reception, north of Paris.
An evening in Paris
Parisians are proud to
inhabit one of the world’s most beautiful and romantic cities. Like New Yorkers,
Parisians see themselves at the centre of the world. The previous year, the
prominent Mayor of Paris – Jacques Chirac had gone on to be elected as the
President of France and Parisians had beamed with pride. Jacques along with
Francois Mitterrand, was responsible for initiating the grand projets to glorify the French capital with ‘The Louvre
(Loov) Pyramid’, National Library and La Defense´. La Defense´ is an outcome of
a conscious decision to try and turn Paris into
a commercial and business centre to rival London.
River Seine´ cuts
across Paris
horizontally and then turns south at either end. Paris is more or less a circular city with districts
called arrondissements´. (arghondisimon) They are numbered from one to twenty
going spirally outward from the centre of city – ‘Ile´ de la cite´’. Paris is surrounded by a
ring road called the ‘Peripherique´’. Everything in Paris is relative to the arrondissements´,
the Peripherique´ and the proximity to the left and right banks of river
Seine´.
We reached central Paris around seven in the
evening to attend the Good Friday mass at the famous Notre´ Dame Cathedral. It
is said that all roads of Paris
lead to the 'Kilometre´ Ze´ro' at the Notre´ Dame which itself stands on an
island in the River Seine´. Roman Catholics and tourists from all over the
world pray at this Gothic masterpiece. Pope Alexander the 3rd laid
Notre´ Dame’s foundations in 1163. During the revolution, the cathedral was
turned into a wine warehouse and the statues of the Kings were removed and
destroyed. Those seen today are the 19th century replicas. During
the Nazi occupation, all window panes made out of the magnificent stained-glass
were removed and replaced with sandbags. The cathedral was restored and
refurbished by Louis Phillippe. The acoustics are unmatched and as the organ
played, I could feel my hair stand on end.
It was dark by the time
we came out of the church. We walked across a bridge to see the city Opera
House. The soupe au pistou followed by authentic ratatouille with a glass of kir
royale at a restaurant overlooking the seine was an ideal way to dine, Parisian
style. My French waitress wore a loud perfume (and not much else). I tipped her
generously as she bent and leaned forward. She picked up the money, flicked her
blonde hair with a merci boku monseuir and as her tall shapely legs walked totteringly
away in her high heels, (in hindsight) I realised my generosity wasn’t
entirely on account of the delicious food or the ambience.
French dinners are a fairly
elaborate affair. By the time we had finished desert and coffee, it was half
past nine. We walked along the Seine for a
while and then joined the “illumination tour” of Paris, one of the great night attractions.
First on the list was the Monteparnasse
Tower (pronounced
probably moo parnasay), a 59 storied building with an express elevator that
gets you to the top in forty seconds. The views of Paris are grand from the observation tower. Later,
we went to the exquisite semi circular ‘Chaillot Palais’ (pronounced Shallo
Palay) right across the ‘Eiffel Tour’. (Eiffel Tower)
Eulyssa made us close our eyes. When we were positioned exactly at the centre
of the semicircle, she granted us the most romantic view! There stood the
radiant golden mesh of a gigantic structure right across Seine´ beyond those
Chaillot garden fountains. We couldn’t take our eyes off it.
Eiffel Tour
Built in 1889 by Gustav
Eiffel, the tower is a massive 1,023 feet structure, then the world’s tallest
building. Ironically, Parisians found it absolutely awful and hated it. They
believed it offended Parisian skyline and was out of place in relation to the Gothic and renaissance architecture of the city. It was not meant to be a
permanent structure at all and was to be demolished after the occasion for
which it was built – the Universal Exhibition on the centenary of the French revolution.
The tower weighs 7,000 tons and has 2.5 million rivets fitted into it. It is now
used as a radio and television transmitter and as a meteorological and aircraft
navigation station. Today, nobody questions its aesthetic appeal or utility.
The tower has three stages. The first elevator goes in a slanted direction up to
the second stage. The second goes vertically upto the top stage. On a clear
day, you can see up to 67 kilometers.
With the lingering image
of the golden jewel of Eiffel, we now stood in front of the ‘Des Invalides’, a
splendid structure built originally as a barrack for four thousand retired
soldiers and which now houses tomb of King Napoleon, numerous art galleries and
a guilded dome church. During the rest of the night, we saw the ‘Opera House’,
‘Galleries Lafayette’, and ‘Arc de Triomphe’ before we reached our hotel around
1 a.m., totally ‘illuminated’!
Day two – The historic axis
We decided to explore Paris on our own, rather
than with the guided tour. This gave us flexibility and turned out to be a good
idea. On the historic axis, is the widest and perhaps the most important Avenue
of Paris called Champs Elysee´s. At one of its ends, is ‘Place de la Concorde’,
a place where eight roads meet and at the other is Charle´ de Gaulle Etoile´
(Shall the gall etwal) where twelve roads come together. Etoile´ in French
means a Star. At the centre of the Etoile´, is ‘Arc de Triomphe’. Extrapolating
Champs Elysee´s beyond Place de la Concorde, are ‘tuilleries gardens’ and the
‘Louvre musee´’ (Loov museum). If you went beyond beyond Arc de Triomphe, in
the other direction you would arrive at the ‘Grande Arche’ – the 1st
building of the commercial district of Paris ‘La Defense´’.
We got off the coach at
‘Place de la Concorde’ while the rest of our tourist group went to visit
‘Fragonard’, a perfume factory. Everything about the place, its size, its feel
and the views is elegant. It used to be called the Louis XV square, after the
King who commissioned it. His best architect Gabriel built it in 1775. The
square has witnessed many revolutions and a lot of bloodshed as 1,500 victims were
beheaded between 1793 and 1795. At the centre of the square is an Obe´lisque, a
3,300 years old monument. Egyptian viceroy Mohammed Ali presented it to King
CharlesX in 1823. It was Charles’ wish that there be a non political monument
at the centre of the square, rather than a statue of a King which could be
subject to contention after change in political regimes.
Along the Champs
Elysee´
It was very sunny for
our leisurely walk along the Champs Elysee´ (Shawnz Elisey). In French a small
road is called ‘Rue’. A bigger road is a ‘Boulevard’ and very wide multi lane
road is an ‘Avenue’. Champs Elysee´s is six lanes wide plus two lanes for the
pedestrians. Across the road, are the famous exclusive fashion boutiques, nightclubs,
restaurants and cafés. Along the pedestrian lanes, are beautiful modern art
monuments. Parisian students often select these as a subject of study for their
doctorate of art. Along the way, we saw the Grande Palais and Petit Palais. Both
often host art exhibitions.
After walking a good two
hours, we reached the ‘Etoile´’ square near ‘Arc De Triomphe’. The arc was
designed by King Napoleon in the honour of the French battle soldiers. A flame
of remembrance for the anonymous soldier, kindles eternally at the base of the
Arc. The arc is a massive 168 feet in height and you can go to the top and see
the entire historic axis.
The architectural
wonder of La defense´
Being at la defense´
would be a dream for every student of modern architecture. All the ‘Howard
Roarks’ of the world (for the less initiated, that’s the central character of
the famous book ‘Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand) seemed to have toiled the soil
there. A metro from Etoile´ for la defense´ takes you to the Grande Arche.
Grande Arche is one of the 420 buildings designed at la defense´ district, as
part of an open competition announced by Francois Mitterrand beginning 1986.
It was built by Danish
architect Otto van Spreckelsen. The arch has the shape of a hollow cube and
weighs 300,000 tons. The entire Notre´ Dame Cathedral with its spire can fit in
its frame. A transparent glass elevator takes you to the top. No acrophobiacs
should venture this open eyed! There’s a museum of impressionist paintings and
sculptures set up by International commission of human rights at the top floor.
The Arche is 6 degrees inclined to the historic axis to indicate a modern
perspective.
Most of the buildings
at la defense are most unorthodox, weird, bold, yet modern and functional.
Among other impressive buildings are the Hoechst
Tower, Elf
Tower, Manhattan Tower
and the CNIT (Centre of Industry and Technology) tower. Its concrete vault is
in the form of an inverted shell and has only three points of support, each
poised on the apex of a triangle. The Fiat Tower
rises 584 feet above the podium. It’s polished granite and black tinted façade
looks like a giant chessboard. It has wider windows near the top to avoid a
tapering effect. Similar in height to its neighbour, the impressive Elf
buildings are a set of three blue glass curtained towers that change colour as
the light intensity changes.
The French comma
We were exhausted! And
that would be a British understatement. It was half past eleven at night by the
time we got down at ‘Gare du Nord’ the last metro station. Our metro tickets
were valid only upto this point. We had to buy an extension for RER (French equivalent
of British Railway that goes beyond Paris
city) upto ‘Challe de Gaulle Airport.’ To our dismay, the station counters were
closed. We managed to operate a touch-tone multimedia French interface machine
but the price for second class single ticket appeared as 13,50 Francs. We tried
to converse with a rather tall and gaunt security officer who warned us that if
we don’t buy the tickets, he would fine us with double that amount. After about
10 minutes of heated discussions in broken English, French and lots of signalling,
we understood that a comma in French was a decimal point and that 13,50
actually meant 13.5 Francs. At 1 a.m. we were finally at the hotel all sorted.
Day three – Disneyland Paris
We had overslept and our
travel coach had proceeded without us. We had to reach ‘Disneyland Paris’ on
our own. Disneyland has four parks: Fantasy
Land, Frontier
Land, Adventure Land
and the Theme Park. Being an Easter Sunday, it was very crowded and every ride
had long queues. We managed to get into the Space Mountain,
perhaps the most famous and the scariest of rides. It has a train that takes a
360 degrees round, then shoots you at an incredible speed while taking a
cock-screw turn.
As we were
queuing up for our next ride, I saw an elderly French man get down from the Space Mountain
with a teenager, probably his grandson. He was dazed! He swayed uncontrollably at
first, then sat down burying his head in his lap. Eventually, he got up and then
slapped his grandson hard. While we did not follow the French conversation that
ensued, we understood the sentiment. “You stupid brat, are you completely
out of your mind to have put your old grandpa through so much misery?”
On the Easter Monday, we
visited the Sacre´ Coeur (The church of the Sacred Heart) in the morning and the
Louvre museum by mid-afternoon. At six in the evening we boarded the Eurostar (Channel
tunnel train) to London Waterloo from Gare du Nord. After the hectic trip, we
badly needed a smooth journey. And smooth it was! In 1996, Eurostar was one of
the fastest trains in the world at 300 Km per hour. We were at London Waterloo in less than 3
hours.
Sachin
Kulkarni, Easter 1996, London,
UK.
