A grand day out.
I was puttering along happily enough at the beginning of the week, noticing all the cobwebs that seem to have appeared in the flat over the winter, and vaguely thinking of doing something about them, when the niece rang up. She is now on a proper contract with Chatham House, rather than being an intern, and her boss had suggested she take a week off. So did I fancy a day out in Paris? I got fairly twitchy about going to Cambridge for the day last month, but this although reduced me to a twitching mess of anxiety, it was a twitching mess that managed to locate its passport, get washed and dressed and appear at St Pancras on time.
The niece is much better-travelled than I am, but for some reason hadn’t been to Paris before, so I was able to pretend I knew my way around. Within a mere half-hour or our arrival, we had managed to buy tickets and get on the right bus (in the wrong direction admittedly, but that did allow me to show her the area of Paris that corresponds almost exactly to Wood Green). She didn’t want to do anything too touristy, so we stuck to the Right Bank, pottered around Bastille, which is the only part of Paris I know at all well, had a look at my favourite park on the old elevated train line behind the new opera house, drank in the genuinely warm sunshine, marveled at the ability of the Parisiens to remain decorous while sunbathing in parks*, visited one small museum, spent ages trying to find a particular tea shop and book shop in the Marais and ate industrial quantities of delicious cheese. The weather was beautiful (nineteen degrees and sunny too), and we didn’t get lost or miss any trains or buy any heavy items we didn’t need (wine doesn’t count). I’m still a bit knackered today, and all that cheese gave me nightmares, but otherwise I had a really, really good time.
There is something wonderfully science-fictional about being able to pop over to Paris for the day. Not so much 1950s jet-pack type science fiction, but more Jules Verne/Belleville, cast-iron bridge across the Channel sort of way. Wonderful anyway, especially with the terminus being practically on my doorstep.
*Seriously, the British just go mad when a few rays appear. The parks have been full of pallid wobbly white people in their underwear all this week.
The niece is much better-travelled than I am, but for some reason hadn’t been to Paris before, so I was able to pretend I knew my way around. Within a mere half-hour or our arrival, we had managed to buy tickets and get on the right bus (in the wrong direction admittedly, but that did allow me to show her the area of Paris that corresponds almost exactly to Wood Green). She didn’t want to do anything too touristy, so we stuck to the Right Bank, pottered around Bastille, which is the only part of Paris I know at all well, had a look at my favourite park on the old elevated train line behind the new opera house, drank in the genuinely warm sunshine, marveled at the ability of the Parisiens to remain decorous while sunbathing in parks*, visited one small museum, spent ages trying to find a particular tea shop and book shop in the Marais and ate industrial quantities of delicious cheese. The weather was beautiful (nineteen degrees and sunny too), and we didn’t get lost or miss any trains or buy any heavy items we didn’t need (wine doesn’t count). I’m still a bit knackered today, and all that cheese gave me nightmares, but otherwise I had a really, really good time.
There is something wonderfully science-fictional about being able to pop over to Paris for the day. Not so much 1950s jet-pack type science fiction, but more Jules Verne/Belleville, cast-iron bridge across the Channel sort of way. Wonderful anyway, especially with the terminus being practically on my doorstep.
*Seriously, the British just go mad when a few rays appear. The parks have been full of pallid wobbly white people in their underwear all this week.