The City of Lights – A Travelogue Most of the clichés about France are true –French women are fiercely elegant, French men are flirts, and Paris is magical. However, the common wisdom that the French are fanatics about their language, and can be rude and arrogant – why, that is laughable. The only French I knew when I visited Paris was ‘Merci’, ‘Pardon’ and ‘Oo est le metro?’ yet I found the Parisians polite, kind and amazingly helpful. The enchantment of Paris starts at the airport, when I, with my customary elegance plough my luggage trolley into an old gentleman attempting to get a taxi. He waves away my apologies, catches a taxi for us, and helps us with our luggage, all with a gentle smile. Our hotel is just off the Boulevard Batignolles - minutes from the metro and bus stop. Our multilingual receptionist Cyril goes out of his way to help us with tickets, directions and insider tips. Our tiny minimalist hotel room looks upon an enchanting walled garden. We fall asleep early, jet lagged and exhausted. Our first full day in Paris, and we are determined to make the most of it. We take the metro to St. Paul and walk along the lovely streets of the Marais to the Musee Picasso, admiring the elegant Parisians. Everything about them is so classy - their thinness, their understated make up, their rapid strides in long boots. The streets are lined by buildings with huge wooden doors that are opened by digicode to reveal inner courtyards, window boxes full of bright flowers, brasseries with the day’s menu chalked up on blackboards. The Musee Picasso is interesting – a 17th century town house with cherubs on the ceiling – and Picasso’s powerful paintings on the walls. What I like is that the flow of the museum follows the evolution of Picasso’s work - from his initial strong primitives, through more and more abstract cubism, to finally, representational art . On Sunday, we do the Hick Tourist in Paris routine and find it surprisingly satisfying. We reach the Eiffel tower very early and stand in the cold wind, waiting for the ticket seller to open shop. He finally does, and we enter a mammoth yellow elevator which grinds its way up to the second level. From here, we change elevators to reach the top. Perhaps it is a very predictable thing to do, but it is impossibly romantic, cuddling your significant other on the top of the windy tower, gazing at Paris landmarks – the Bateaux plying on the Seine, the Arc de Triomphe shimmering in the mist, the Sacre Coeur shining white in the distance. We determinedly stride past the souvenir shop selling tiny ‘Made in China’ Eiffel towers, and get back to the elevators – marveling at the huge wheels which convey hundreds of tourists to the top of the tower each day. We stroll along the Seine – the breeze ruffles the golden leaves of the chestnut trees that line the banks. We board a barge to cruise along the Seine and it is interesting indeed. The boat glides past the Musee D Orsay, the Arabic museum, the Tour Argent. We gaze upon the Obelisk and Eiffel Tower from a distance, and observe the detail on the many bridges. It is fascinating, especially since each bridge has its own story. One has gold leaf statues and lanterns and was built to signify friendship with the Russians; another has amusing caricatures of the courtiers in Napoleon’s court. There is a statue of a man beneath one, which acts as a watermark of sorts. When the water level reaches the man’s beard it is considered dangerously high! We walk to the Place de La Concorde – what opulence! A huge fountain decorated with golden statues, an incongruous obelisk – supposedly a gift from Egypt, and most impressive - the gracious old buildings surrounding the square. We buy tickets for a giant wheel ride and are rewarded by amazing views of Paris. There is a carnival feel in the air - tourists queue for photographs, vendors hawk cheap take home gifts, and a stall selling crepes and waffles is doing brisk business. We then make our way to the Arc de Triomphe, the huge, testosterone inspired memorial to wars won. However, what moves us is not the bombastic architecture, or the soaring arches, it is the tomb of the unknown soldier that lies beneath the arc, an eternal flame burning in memory of the countless dead - buried unidentified in the two world wars. From pathos to in your face consumerism. We stride along the Champs Elysees, along with an extremely well heeled crowd, gawping at the window displays full of designer wear, jewellery, cars – gasping at the 5 and 6 digit prices. In the evening we dress in formals and stand in line to enter the Moulin Rouge. It is an eye popping spectacle. The men in our group watch the absurdly gorgeous topless ladies with open mouthed awe, while we guffaw at the ventriloquist’s wit, snap our fingers at the rocking music and wonder abstractedly how many calories we would have to cut to fit into a dress like the one the lead singer is wearing. The show includes a woman wrestling with a python, another riding a pony, acrobatics - you get the idea. We take the TGV to spend an afternoon in Reims. The journey is beautiful. We get brief intriguing glimpses of vineyards heavy with grapes, amateur pilots on micro light aircraft, small neat towns crowned by churches with stone steeples. The Train Grand Vitesse is one of the fastest trains in the world, and we cover the 145 kilometers in 45 minutes. Reims is a charming sunny town in the champagne making region of France. It was in Reims that at the end of World War II, General Eisenhower received the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht. We let the history of the place bypass us; however, we are here to taste champagne! The houses that make champagne - referred to as grand marquees - offer tours which give a glimpse into how champagne is made. Our tour is in the Taittinger cave. It used to be a monastery and the monks used to make champagne here many centuries ago. We descend a winding staircase to reach cool damp caves lined with racks of wine bottles. These bottles range from ordinary half bottle to the huge Jeroboam to the monstrous Nebuchadnezzar. We learn how extra sugar and yeast are added to the wine, how the bottles are turned gently from side to side to move the sediment after the second fermentation, and how the plug of sediment is frozen and removed. It’s fascinating how some chemistry and biology in a cave deep in the earth results in something so clear and sparkling and intoxicating. The tour ends, of course, with a tasting. Cool champagne served in crystal tulips. I sip liberally of France’s finest, and on the way back to the railway station the lovely town of Rheims looks even more beautiful to my slightly cross eyed gaze. We catch the metro to the Bastille where a statue of winged liberty presides, untouched by the manic traffic snarls beneath. From here, we walked up to the Promenade Plantee. It is an overhead garden – a long path built on the roofs of the shops below, replete with flowering trees and benches where couples cuddle. Joggers occupy the centre of the path, and we walk along the sides peeping at the roadside cafes, the curtained windows, the busy streets. We snack on yummy tarte tatin at a café, watching kids roller blade on the street. Thence to The Shakespeare and Co bookstore. It is a warm, welcoming place. in addition to shelves full of old and new books, there is a wishing well, soft, soft, sofas where one can sit and browse, and a sign on the wall saying “Don’t turn a stranger away, it might be an angel in disguise”. I buy a Dr. Seuss book for my son and a Granta book on travel for myself. I wake up very, very early to reach the rose strewed garden of the Musee Rodin. Of all the places in Paris I have visited, I like this one the best. The ‘Pensiever’ - The Thinker - sits in a circle of sunlight, pondering the mysteries of the universe. But this is just one of the many treasures in the Hotel Biron, where Rodin stayed. The famous ‘The Kiss’ of course is very stylized, very romantic, but my favourite is ‘The Cathedral’ – a sculpture of two right hands intertwined to mimic the vault of a renaissance cathedral. I leave, highly impressed and make my way to the Musee D’Orsay, stopping to ask a cop for directions in my halting French. I must have looked bewildered at his rapid fire instructions for he says “Would you like me to give you directions in English?” I nod gratefully, and follow his directions to reach the very large, very crowded Musee D’ Orsay. It is full of many beautiful paintings but you need a quiet moment to appreciate gems like Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ or Renoir’s dreamy portraits; a quiet moment is difficult to find in the midst of chattering school groups, clicking cameras and bus tour crowds. The Musee D’ Orsay used to be a railway station, and a huge clock makes up much of the front wall. The view past the clock hands at the Sacre Coeur in the distance makes up for the lack of silence and solitude. Later in the trip we take the suburban rail to Versailles. It is interesting to travel back in time, imagine King Louis and Marie Antoinette living below those ceilings with frescoes of Mercury and Diana and Venus – to picture the richly dressed members of the court in the Galerie des Glaces where huge mirrors reflect the formal gardens seen through long elegant windows. We see the bedroom where the queen gave birth to 19 children (!) and the guard room. Everything is colorful, luxurious, well made and it is sobering to reflect that it was from this palace that the king and queen were dragged to Paris where they were guillotined. Early the next morning we reach the Cathedral Notre Dame, and are rewarded by finding it practically empty. High walls curving above us, and the sunlight filtering in through stained glass windows. We are touched by a plaque which says “In memory of the soldiers from Britain and India who fought in world war I, many of whom lie buried in France. A choir sings softly, and there in that beautiful renaissance cathedral, in the quiet of the early morning, I sense the presence of God, across the borders of language and religion. Late one evening, we climb too many steps to reach the top of the Butte Montmartre on which is the Sacre Coeur. This dove white church was built in expiation for the Franco Prussian war. We sit at the edge of the steps, surrounded by young people from many countries, everyone gazing upon the lit up city below .A young man sets up an amplifier and speakers and begins to sing a slow, sad, ballad of love and longing. It is a true Paris moment, the Sacre Coeur behind us, the melody and smoke in the cold air, and shimmering before us, the city of light.