France 2003 Travelogue

Friday October 3
Arrival in Paris

As we flew toward Paris, our thoughts remained in Colorado. We were concerned about our dogs.

Our friend and ballroom dance coach, Beate Murray, had agreed to house sit during our absence. In itself this was great news. Not only do we trust her judgment implicitly, but she is a fluent speaker of French, which would be useful if it were necessary to contact us. There was one significant caveat, however. About the time that we were leaving the house for the airport, Beate was in Las Vegas preparing for an eleven-hour solo drive back to Denver.

The list of minor catastrophes that can occur during an eleven-hour drive through the Utah desert (car problems) and the Colorado Rockies (snowstorms) rattled through our heads as we negotiated our way toward Paris. The situtation was alleviated slightly thanks to our friends Kevin and Pat Whiteley from Let's Dance Denver. They have a large securely fenced yard and offered to keep Buddy, our Shiba Inu-Border Collie mix, who weighs more than all three of the Bostons combined. Also, Pat made a trip to Broomfield to let the Bostons spend some time in the yard in the early afternoon, thereby avoiding an almost certain mess by the time Beate was scheduled to arrive 16 hours after we left the house.

As we boarded our connecting flight in Detroit, we knew that all was well. During the five-hour layover, we had contacted Beate, somewhere in Utah, by cell phone and Pat reached us on our cell phone. So far, so good. As we settled in for our "over the water" flight, we knew that we would learn nothing more until we arrived at our hotel in Paris nearly ten hours later. Even though we would be flying toward the sun, and it would only be dark for about four hours, it was going to be a long night.

Charles de Gaulle Airport
I rarely sleep on planes, but this flight would prove to be an exception. I slept lightly for about two hours of the 7 ½ hour crossing. Judging by appearance, some of the other passengers slept much more soundly.

When daylight arrived, only clouds were visible below the plane. We didn't know if we were over land or water, but my main concern was the weather on the ground. A rainy afternoon in Paris would be a disappointing start to our trip. It might even be a bad omen. I could already picture myself telling everyone "It was raining when we got off the plane, and it was still raining when we got back on two and a half weeks later." Every fifteen minutes or so, I raised the plastic window shade and anxiously scanned the clouds for a break that might offer a clue as to the weather on the ground. Only once was the uniform whiteness disrupted— punctured by a solitary church steeple. A few more minutes and we were on the ground. No rain, just an overcast sky. We would gladly settle for that.

Charles de Gaulle airport is an ugly gateway to a beautiful country. The dirty and crowded concourse wears the shabbiness of neglect. The architecture is a combination of Soviet-style concrete exterior and a colorless bunker-like interior. The decor seems to be from one of the more tasteless third world countries, and missing tiles are the closest substitute for airport art. One has a sense that they have arrived in Cuba or Uganda, rather than a pre-eminent nation of western Europe. Moreover, confusion reigns supreme at Charles de Gaulle. No one inquired about items in our possession. No one even stamped our passports.

The 25 minute ride into Paris, is only a marginal improvement on the grubbiness of the airport. The train passes through a succession of dingy graffiti-encrusted suburbs. To make matters worse, according to the US State Department, the RER-B rail link between the airport and downtown Paris is also notorious for pickpockets and luggage thieves that prey on jetlagged tourists.

Despite the graffiti and the petty crime, we were happy to be on the train. After traveling for hours, we finally made it to France. Plus, we love trains. They stir fond memories of traveling through Europe and across Japan. Walk into any train station in Europe, even if it is only to buy a sandwich, and a passing glance at the huge electronic board indicating departures and arrivals will make you feel that the entire continent is at your feet. Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Copenhagen, Prague, etc. So many places. So little time and money.

I peered down every break in the buildings hoping for a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, but instead was unexpectedly rewarded with a spectacular view of Sacre-Cœur, the great Montmartre landmark.

Eiffel Tower Paris
We exited the train at Châtelet-Les Halles, the busiest commuter station in one of the largest public transportation systems in the world. The Paris Métro accommodates approximately six million commuters per day. The huge hub at Châtelet-Les Halles is one of 368 subway stations, and one-third of the Métro lines, plus three train lines, intersect at this stop.

After lugging our baggage for twenty minutes through the maze of crowded shop-lined tunnels, we discovered that the exit nearest to our hotel was inaccessible due to a malfunctioning elevator. This was to be our first of many minor frustrations on this trip. At times it seemed that France was full of broken things that could be easily fixed except for the fact that no one seems to bother. Three weeks later, when we returned to Paris near the end of our visit, we would notice that this elevator was still unavailable. The French have a remarkable capacity to tolerate the frustrating inconveniences of life. The degree of this tolerance is simultaneously admirable and incomprehensible.

Rather than navigating several extra blocks of crowded Parisian streets, we remained underground and took a connecting Métro line to the Hôtel de Ville station, a small stop even closer to our hotel than Châtelet-Les Halles. We arrived at the Hotel Sansonnet just before 2 pm, approximately 22 hours after leaving our house in Colorado. We were exhausted, but the hard part was over.

Unfortunately, the "hard part" was not over. Not quite anyway. We were informed that a room would not be available for at least an hour, so we would have to leave our luggage and wander around Paris for awhile. Contrary to the mythology of rude and indifferent French waiters and hotel receptionists, the man at the desk was very apologetic and promised that a room would be ready within an hour. There was one bit of good news, however. An e-mail from our housesitter Beate was waiting for us. She arrived back in Denver without any problems or delays. We knew the Bostons were in good hands.

Normally, spending an hour or two wandering about in a city with as much history as Paris would be a privilege. At this point, however, we would have gladly sacrificed the experience for a shower and a few hours of sleep. The Hôtel de Ville, the town hall of Paris, was only a short block from our hotel, so we began there. In Paris, as in many French cities, the town hall is called the Hôtel de Ville. Occasionally, city employees must deal with tourists, unfamiliar with French culture, that insist on making a reservation at what appears to them to be the most spectacular looking "hotel" in town.

From the Hôtel de Ville we crossed the Pont d'Arcole onto Île de la Cité, the Seine island upon which Paris was born in the 3rd century B.C. This island is home to two great Parisian landmarks— the great Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the medieval palace-turned-prison known as the Conciergerie. The former is the home of mythical hunchbacks and gargoyles, whereas the latter was the home of the very real Marie-Antoinette in the period immediately prior to her execution.

The streets near the Notre-Dame Cathedral are laden with tourist-oriented establishments, especially souvenir shops and restaurants. The Place Parvis, the great square directly in front of the cathedral, is traditionally the point from which distances to Paris are measured from anywhere in France. Although the square offers unimpeded views of the western portal of the cathedral, it was not always so uncluttered. Descriptions of this portion of the Île de la Cité provided by Victor Hugo in the Hunchback of Notre-Dame do not coincide with modern appearances. Hugo described the the western approach to the cathedral as a collection of narrow winding alleys and dilapidated centuries-old houses. These structures, along with the medieval character of the neighborhood, were demolished in the mid-19th century. In places, the previous street plan can be discerned by discontinuities in the style and color of pavement bricks.

Cathédrale de Notre-Dame Sharing a pattern with most European cathedrals, the western portal of Notre-Dame is intentionally asymmetrical, albeit subtly, to symbolize the absence of perfect order on earth. One of our goals on this visit to France was to climb the 387 steps to the top of the south tower of the cathedral, retracing our steps on a dreary and rainy day nearly five years earlier. A picture of one of the stone gargoyles, which represent souls in transition between earth and heaven, gazing at the Eiffel Tower or Sacre-Cœur from the heights of the cathedral is a "mandatory" shot for any photographer in Paris. The ascent, however, would have to wait until the end of the trip when we returned to Paris for our final days in France. For now, it was time to return to our hotel and, hopefully, check into our room.

When we approached the reception desk the manager was speaking on the phone in French, which normally would not be an odd thing in France, except that he then handed me the phone and said "it's for you." It was Beate, our house sitter, who wanted to be sure that we got her message and knew that everything was all right with the house and dogs.

The room was tiny, but we did not expect anything spacious. In Europe, we have learned, the general rule is - the bigger the city, the smaller the room. The tiny room had a shower and bed, and that was all that mattered. After sleeping for about 1 ½ hours, we forced ourselves to get up to avoid a seriously disrupted sleep cycle that might last as long as a week. We had a simple goal to get us out and about - the top of the Eiffel Tower. We had been there before, but it had been a few years and it was a straightforward objective that would get us out before dark.

I bought a carnet of subway tickets at the Hôtel de Ville Métro station and, after one line change, we arrived at the Trocadéro station near the Eiffel Tower. We walked through the grounds of the Palais de Chaillot, which offers one of the classic views of the world's most famous tower. The Eiffel Tower with the palace terrace and fountains in the foreground has been the subject of many a postcard. We bought two tickets, at € 10.20 apiece, for the Ascenseur, the elevator to the top.

Eiffel Tower A visit to the top of the Eiffel Tower requires the use of two separate elevator system, each with its own waiting line. Access to the first and second stages, at 190 ft and 380 ft, respectively, is via one of the elevators located in each of the legs or piliers. The highest viewing platform, at 900 ft, is accessible only by the single pair of elevators that ascend directly up the center of the tower. These elevators are not a pleasant experience for anyone with a fear of heights.

On the ascent, we skipped the lower platforms with plans to explore those stages on the descent. As we joined the rear of the long line to the "summit" elevator, a young couple from Texas introduced themselves. The man was spending a year in France studying the language before attending law school. As we were talking, a teenager jumped the line and cut in front of us. Without even glancing at him, and without interrupting our conversation with the Texans, I grabbed the kid by the coat and nonchalantly extracted him from the line. He didn't say a word. I then noticed something that I have rarely witnessed in France— people were smiling at me. The Texans complimented my punk-handling technique. Ten minutes later, we spotted the kid a safe distance ahead of us in the line. The thought of approaching him and repeating the extraction procedure crossed my mind, but I didn't want to begin our trip with an "incident" on the Eiffel Tower.

We reached the "summit" just as the last bit of daylight was fading. We spent nearly an hour at the top spotting recognizable Parisian landmarks and studying historic neighborhoods. We also browsed the extremely small souvenir shop and talked to our fellow travelers.

One the return to the ground, we briefly investigated Altitude 95, a restaurant at which we had reservations during our return to Paris at the end of the trip. Just as we were about to get in line for the final elevator to the bottom, the entire tower began to flicker. This was our first experience of the hourly light show that the Eiffel Tower has been presenting to Paris since January 1, 2000.

Back on the ground, we retraced our path through the grounds of the Palais de Chaillot and I got some great night shots of the tower with the fountains in the foreground.

Exhausted and in a jetlag-induced stupor, we somehow found our way back to the hotel. A lot had been accomplished this day. We were in France. We made it to Paris and the Eiffel Tower. Everything was fine in Colorado. The trip was off to a great start.

Previous Day Next Day

More Images of Paris