Paris: Day 2

It was a bright, clear but chilly morning. Today we were heading out in search of the Christmas Markets. Frankly I don’t really care about them. Paris has so much to see, it seems a waste to visit a market. However I do have an ulterior motive. Our first stop of the day is a market that happens to be at La Defence. I had always wanted to visit this futuristic district, in particular the Grande Arc. There’s a glass lift that runs up a tube from the ground to the top of the arch. It looks terrifying, but I really want to give it a go.

We started off with a tour around the main sights of the city. My favourite was driving around the Arc de Triumphe. I hadn’t noticed the red line painted around the outside edge of the roundabout before. According to our driver, once you cross it all insurance is null and void. You enter at your own risk and no one can be blamed for a crash. Thank heavens we were sitting in a large coach and not a tiny little 2CV.

We found the right place, but simply couldn’t find any trace of Christmas let alone a Christmas market.

At the Place de la Concorde we were able to watch a film crew preparing to shoot a scene. The director was sitting on his scooter, talking to the actors as they sat in their car. Behind them was a camera mounted on a flatbed trailer. No doubt an art house film in the making.

Eventually we drove down the Champs-Elysées, admiring the beautiful glass icicles in the avenue of trees whilst trying to spot a MacDonald’s. Okay that sounds worse that it was! There is a unique MacDonald’s Restaurant on this, the most exclusive street in the world. It’s the only one that isn’t surmounted by those famous golden arches, plus it is owned and run by the City council.

At the very end of the grand axis (that starts at the Louvre and slices across Paris to Le Grande Arche) we finally reached La Defence. It was amazing, there were suspended roads that twisted and wove their way around the modern glass sky scrapers. The early morning light was reflected in the impressive glass walls, producing spectacular patterns. I couldn’t wait to get out and start exploring, photographic these wonderful images.

However, driving a coach around La Defence is no easy matter. There are height restrictions everywhere that prevented us from getting to where we needed to be. In fact there seemed to be quite a lack of any market. After touring the vast underground car parks for sometime, it became clear that our driver had given up. Before we knew it we were heading back along the Champs-Elysées. Understandable, but why on earth didn’t he tell us what was going on. I was gutted; I had had a glimpse of something special, but will have to leave it for another day.

Our next Market, sorry our only Market, was back in the centre of Paris. We retraced our route, until we found ourselves driving along the banks of the Seine, near the Ile de la Cite. We saw signs for our target Forum des Halles, but the driver seemed to be having trouble finding it. In fact before we knew it we seemed to be driving down the very same stretch of the Seine again … and again! Finally our driver pulled the coach up on the Ile de la Cite and told us that this was the nearest he could get us. “You just need to walk up that street and take the first left”. Those were his final words to us. Those without maps or guidebooks looked a little startled by this, but I was just glad to be back under my own steam.

Y and I decide not to head for the market straight away. As we were in the very centre of Paris it seemed daft not to visit Notre-Dame. So off we went, getting all of 100m before stopping for a coffee at a nearby café. Afterwards we went to the Cathedral. It looks so much better these days, fully restored and cleaned. The first time I came here in 2002, the façade had been covered in scaffolding, so it was good to see it in all its glory.

It’s not the most spectacular cathedral I’ve ever visited, but it does have a wonderful pair of rose windows. It is also incredibly busy and for a while we tried to fight the tide of bodies moving against us. Eventually though we had to step in line and go with the flow. There was a full size nativity set up to one side of the building, with strange images of a beach being shown on widescreen televisions behind the figures.

What I couldn’t spot was the entrance to the bell tower. It didn’t seem to be in the same place as last time, but Y didn’t fancy it anyway. Instead we walked around the outside of the cathedral to the gardens at the back. Unfortunately a lot of work seems to be underway here, but we did get a wonderful view of the flying buttresses that support the building.

Across the road, hidden behind a hedge, is a very moving monument to the victims of the Holocaust. I’d been there before and wanted to take Y there. Unfortunately the gates were locked so we couldn’t go down the steps into the bunker below and we couldn’t see the thousands of tiny twinkling lights that represent each of the lives cut so cruelly short.

Instead we had to make do with looking at the information board at the top. This described in full how the Nazi’s applied typical German efficiency to the matter of mass murder. Most people are probably familiar with the yellow stars that Jewish prisoners were made to wear. Some may also know that homosexuals were identified by pink stars. But every category of prisoner had their own label, often stars but also triangles, in a range of different colours. Gypsies, political prisoners, French political prisoners and Jehovah’s Witnesses to name just a few. The latter was a real surprise to me I had never heard of Witnesses being persecuted before.

We decided to walk back around the edge of the Ile de la Cite, passing a rather good jazz band on the bridge between the two islands. We passed through the flower market, which had been converted to sell Christmas trees and decorations. At last, a Market! Obviously a tree would be out of the question but we did take a look at the decorations. Sadly nothing really took our fancy so I guided Y towards a real gem of building. It’s also really well hidden, unless you know where to look for it.

We found the impressive gates of the Palais of Justice and then I dragged Y away to a tiny doorway about 100 yards away. Our bags were x-rayed and so, in fact, were we. This is a government building and they take security very, very seriously! Finally we entered a small cramped courtyard with a church to one side. This was Sainte Chapelle, if you visit any church in Paris; make sure this is the one. Of course some people do know it’s here and we did find ourselves at the end of a bit of a queue.

Finally we stepped into a beautifully decorated, vaulted chamber. Unlike almost every church I’ve ever seen, every inch of the stonework has been painted with rich bold colour. It is simply stunning and Y was amazed, as I knew she would be. We spent a while here, but I wanted to move on. I had a surprise in store. I knew that this was simply the local parish church. It’s beautiful, but it is just the appetiser! At last I persuaded Y to take the small spiral staircase to the main course.

Now my friend had recently completed two years of a part time art course. I know she’s studied architecture and I’m expecting great things from her as we enter the heavenly royal church above. “Gordon Bennett” … “Blooming Heck” …“Wow”. Not the in depth art criticism I had been expecting!

Unlike the dark under croft with little if any natural light, the church above is a riot of stained glass. In fact the walls are almost entirely glazed with unfeasibly narrow stone frames between them. How can it have the necessary strength to stay upright? It just shouldn’t work but thank goodness it does. We spent a good half an hour staring up at the glass, mesmerised by it, lost for words. It takes a lot of effort to finally leave. When we did we found ourselves walking out through the main gates we had seen before, past the heavily armed guards.

We had pretty much exhausted all the possibilities on the Ile de la Cite and decided it was time to go and find that market. We followed the instructions we were given earlier and walked up through the city. We found the right place, but simply couldn’t find any trace of Christmas let alone a Christmas market. The best we could manage was a vast modern shopping centre. Y was genuinely disappointed, I’m not too bothered just amused that a trip to visit Christmas markets had been such an unmitigated failure.

A quick check of our map and we revised our plans. First off we needed to find something to eat. It was getting late and we both realised that we were hungry. We followed some handy signs and found a café in the square opposite the Pompidou Centre.

It was the first time I’d seen this building and I was exceptionally disappointed by it. I remember the fuss when it was first built. It was an amazing futuristic building way ahead of its time. Now it just looks average. Most disappointing for me was the lack of colour. I was expecting to see brightly painted service pipes on the outside of the building. What I hadn’t realised was that we were looking at the wrong side of it!

After a much needed pit stop we decided to avoid the queues for the Pompidou Centre and make our way to the Picasso Museum. It was quite a long walk, but gave us a chance to see Paris properly, rather than disappearing underground and missing all the bits in between. Along the way we passed interesting boutique style shops and occasional historic buildings and museums. One shop we passed was attracting a huge crowd, both inside and out. It turned out to be a patisserie. The cakes in the window were absolutely stunning to look at but frankly it would have been criminal to eat them. However I didn’t rush in to buy one, partly because of the queue and partly because of the price.

Eventually we found the Picasso museum in a rather attractive chateau. However inside the building had been extensively modernised – not in keeping with the rather elegant exterior. It was also very difficult to find your way round and we kept getting lost or finding that we had somehow arrived back in the same room. We also had a large group of French visitors that seemed to arrive in exactly the same place we did, obscuring any painting in the vicinity.

I had actually visited a similar Picasso museum in Barcelona, so wasn’t too surprised or disappointed by the collections. However Y was. She had hoped to see some masterpieces, but all there seemed to be were preparatory works and practice pieces. The low point of the visit for me was the exhibition at the top of the building. Inspired by Guernica, it featured photographs on the subject of Genocide and it really didn’t pull its punches. I could barely bring myself to look at the images of dead bodies or maimed people. I know that might sound shallow, but I don’t really need to see images like this to accept that humans can behave in some decidedly inhuman ways.

When we left the museum the light was just beginning to go, but I wanted to push on and visit a nearby square. It had featured in a three part television series on Paris and the presenter had inspired me to visit it. A short walk brought us to Place des Vosges. This beautiful square is reputed (presumably by the Parisians) to be the most perfectly symmetrical one in the world. I don’t know about that, but it did look lovely – just a shame that by the time we arrived we could barely see anything. Ah well, perhaps next time?

At this point we decided it was time to head back. Unfortunately had I just walked out the other side of the square I would have found myself at the site of the Bastille. But I didn’t realise that at the time. Y’s feet were aching but she was still determined to walk so off we went. It was probably just as well I didn’t realise quite how far we had to go, but we did make it. Luckily Y found one of her beloved cheapie shops and I had the chance to read the map in a better light, otherwise we may well have missed the hotel – we were on slightly the wrong street!

After a bit of a break we met up with J and A in the lobby and headed off to the restaurant we had spotted last night. Thankfully it wasn’t raining this time so it was quite a pleasant walk. The waiter was very friendly and not in the slightest phased by the fact we didn’t have a reservation. It was 7pm now and as long as we were finished by 9pm, there wouldn’t be a problem. That sounded just fine to us.

We started off with the obligatory Kir (this time I managed to drink mine rather than throw it across the room) and spent quite a bit of time trying to decipher the menu. The item that was causing most confusion was the beef heart. We, correctly, reasoned that this was probably a good quality type of steak although there was always the possibility it was literal!

Whilst we chatted and waited for our meal to appear, I was intrigued by one of the waiters. He seemed to be mixing something in the bowl, but I couldn’t quite work out what. It was when he broke the eggs into the mix that I finally began to realise he was preparing steak tartare. He plated up the mixture of raw beef mince and eggs in a round and proceeded to deliver it to his customer. I said a mental prayer of thanks that I had gone for the definitely cooked lamb. I may like my steak rare but I prefer the bits that have been touched to be cooked.

Most of us had played it quite safe with our puddings, but J had been brave – ordering something described as egg snow. It turned out to be topped with a barely cooked soft meringue. Still I preferred the look of my pear tarte.

If we had been feeling a little more extravagant we could have ordered the special seafood medley. It was only €60 per person or €100 to share. We watched a couple do exactly that from across the room. They had the most extraordinary rack of plates stacked between them and covered with every conceivable sea creature. It couldn’t have been a very romantic evening as for most of it there was a barrier of fish between them, but I suppose they made up for it later (particularly after the oysters).

We left just a little after nine, so presumably the waiters successfully stalled the group who had been booked in. Despite having completely the wrong shoes on, I’m game to go out and about. Unfortunately no one else is, so my hopes of seeing the Eiffel Tower illuminated were dashed. In the end we wandered back to the hotel. As we did so it began to rain.