Paris trip report from BH
Jan 1st, 2005, 01:08 PM
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Paris trip report from BH
Many Americans enjoy London from 25 December to 3 January. They find space to walk around with little traffic and pavements uncrowded, and London busses run from the morning of 26 December, St Stephen’s Day. As a Londoner I find the city dull then, with little music and no free public lectures. So on 26 December I cycled to Waterloo, put my bike into safe store at five pounds a night (from 27 December it is free, as there is safe parking on platforms of the main station), and walked round to the Eurostar departure lounge. That lounge annoys me. If they would please clean the train twenty minutes earlier they could let us walk onto it any time from forty minutes before departure to five minutes. The trouble is that most passengers nowadays are used to air travel, with its queues (lines) at every stage, and sales of expensive bad coffee. I am used to having supper, hearing a concert, picking up left luggage, and strolling straight on to the sleeper for shall we say Budapest. Had time allowed I should have taken the rail, boat, rail connection, at half the fare of Eurostar, from London Charing Cross at 2300 to Paris Gare du Nord at 0920, with bicycle free to Calais, and cheap thereafter. But I had to be back in town for noon on the Thursday.
In Waterloo a Eurostar staff member saw my walking stick, and helped me on the long walk to the front of the train: one actually walks beyond the London Eye. As usual, I asked him to take me right to the front car, as it is second class, and is the nearest to the way out at Paris. Arrived there I walked the five minutes or less to my hotel, called Grand Hotel Magenta, though in fact it is one-star and far from grand. I paid 80 euros a night for single use of a double room with shower en suite on the third floor. I like the look of the Hotel Cambrai next door, cheaper, but it had no lift. I booked breakfast in the Magenta, but gained the kind permission of the Cambrai staff to come each morning to collect a free copy of the Guardian newspaper (they had the Financial Times free too). The Magenta is at 129 Boulevard de Magenta, 75010, Paris, phone 01 48 78 03 65. I had phoned before Christmas to a cycle hire and repair firm called Allo Velo, at 70 Boulevard de Strasbourg just across from the Gare de l’Est, phone 01 40 35 36 36, paid 25 euros a day, and had the bike with such full extras as a helmet for my four days. The shop over the phone said that they would be closed on 26 December but undertook to leave the bike in the hotel, and there it was waiting for me. Off I went, for lunch with fish in istro 200 hundred yards out of town from my hotel. Feeling tired, I slept, cycled a little, and supped on steak opposite the station.
On Monday morning I went through the line of the walls to join at eleven a guided walking tour of the nineteenth century ornamental arcades of the Sentier, an area for ready made clothes, for other design work, and for shops and restaurants of the Algerian, Morroccan, and South Asian cultures. I walk badly these days, but used the bike as a scooter, and was always up front with our pleasant and well-informed guide. I lunched well on fish and chocolate cake, took a nap, and ate for tea a beautiful lemon tart that I had stocked up with that morning. Many shops were closed in Paris, but every baker was open, to sell baguettes, pies, and fine cakes, all basked on the spot. I supped on turkey in a Turkish bistro, and went to a recital of love songs of Baroque Italy in a community centre.
On Tuesday morning at ten I went to the Invalides, not to see the tomb of Napoleon (I do not like Great Men who impose their will), but to visit at ten the museum of the Order of the Liberation and the 1939 to 1945 part of the Army Museum. The Liberation museum showed personal mementoes of Charles de Gaulle, the various generals in Africa and Asia, and the leaders of the Resistance, many of whom died as heroes. I was surprised and pleased to learn that there were free French at el Alamein, the battle that turned the war in Africa when Stalingrad turned it in the Soviet Union. Our family has marked the month: my younger brother was born nine months later. There were even free French in Russia, well packed into functional furs, and fighting in the bitter cold to drive the Germans westward. A gallery looked at the fate of French Jews. The whole Liberation museum had a bit of an amateur or family feeling, and none the worse for that. They had kindly given us guidance notes for each case in English as well as French. I am embarrassed that nowhere in London have we a museum with notes in French. It is not too bad, as commonly the recorded guided tour you can borrow includes foireign language versions. I sometimes wonder how we should have done if we had fallen to Hitler. Certainly we had Nazi sympathisers, but I am glad to say that the Gestapo had long lists of liberals and patriots whom they would arrest on sight. The Army museum is recent, and multi-media, with displays of video, clean-lined, modern, and efficient, but short of tanks, boats, and so on that you find in London in the Imperial War Museum, I expect they were late to start collecting: our museum existed from 1920.
On Wednesday at eleven I went to the Palais Royale to see the exhibitions at the museum of design. One was a show of lp record sleeves, posters and films and music on the hippies of San Francisco in the sixties. It was well laid out, though not really my cup of tea. I was young in the sixties, and liked the early Beatles, but not Timothy Leary and his disciples, which the later Beatles became. I was interested to see this big space in a major national monument building dedicated to an American phenomenon, but in fact Paris is greatly changed since thirty years ago, and officials seem to have ended to battle to defend their culture. I can see why, but I am a little sorry. When I travel I like to know I am in another culture. The other exhibition was of handbags, quite fun if you saw them as applied art, rather like pottery in being both beautiful and useful. But in my time I bought pots, and not bags. In three years they will open a permanent design museum, and I ll go again.
That evening after a good supper of rabbit (well served in a good sauce: I very seldom eat rabbit) I handed my bike to the hotel, against my deposit. Early on Thursday I breakfasted at the Cambrai (better coffee and service), walked over to the station, went through the palaver of controls (but no lounge this time), and was taken by a porter to my seat, again right forward in the long train.
I am glad I went: I like getting to know a strange city. I had bought in Waterloo station the listings magazine called Pariscope, similar to Time Out, but found it inaccurate, so missed some events I had wanted. Not entirely their fault. I planned to go the Jack and the Beanstalk in French, turned up at the time and place in the poster, and found the theatre locked, as did four families who came too. Again, I wanted to see the current exhibitions in the Institute of the Arab World, but there was a long queue for entry (to a display on the pharaohs) and no alternative queue for people interested in Arabs and Islam – a poor show, I thought. Generally, museums and exhibitions had long family queues, for the contemporary art at the Beaubourg, for example.
Now that I know that I can stand for a fairly long time I have studied Time Out for London, and plan to do a little sightseeing nearer home, while I wait for free lectures to re-start about 11 January. (I hope to post a new list at victorianresearch.org/lectures.html in about ten days.) I also have two seats lined up, Aladdin at the Old Vic on the 19th, and The History Boys at the Lyttelton Theatre soon, on the 5th. I always enjoy Alan Bennett (who wrote The History Boys) on the wireless, and I was in a history sixth form in London (only we called it an eighth) trying for Cambridge twenty years before his fictional boys were in class in Yorkshire.
[email protected]
In Waterloo a Eurostar staff member saw my walking stick, and helped me on the long walk to the front of the train: one actually walks beyond the London Eye. As usual, I asked him to take me right to the front car, as it is second class, and is the nearest to the way out at Paris. Arrived there I walked the five minutes or less to my hotel, called Grand Hotel Magenta, though in fact it is one-star and far from grand. I paid 80 euros a night for single use of a double room with shower en suite on the third floor. I like the look of the Hotel Cambrai next door, cheaper, but it had no lift. I booked breakfast in the Magenta, but gained the kind permission of the Cambrai staff to come each morning to collect a free copy of the Guardian newspaper (they had the Financial Times free too). The Magenta is at 129 Boulevard de Magenta, 75010, Paris, phone 01 48 78 03 65. I had phoned before Christmas to a cycle hire and repair firm called Allo Velo, at 70 Boulevard de Strasbourg just across from the Gare de l’Est, phone 01 40 35 36 36, paid 25 euros a day, and had the bike with such full extras as a helmet for my four days. The shop over the phone said that they would be closed on 26 December but undertook to leave the bike in the hotel, and there it was waiting for me. Off I went, for lunch with fish in istro 200 hundred yards out of town from my hotel. Feeling tired, I slept, cycled a little, and supped on steak opposite the station.
On Monday morning I went through the line of the walls to join at eleven a guided walking tour of the nineteenth century ornamental arcades of the Sentier, an area for ready made clothes, for other design work, and for shops and restaurants of the Algerian, Morroccan, and South Asian cultures. I walk badly these days, but used the bike as a scooter, and was always up front with our pleasant and well-informed guide. I lunched well on fish and chocolate cake, took a nap, and ate for tea a beautiful lemon tart that I had stocked up with that morning. Many shops were closed in Paris, but every baker was open, to sell baguettes, pies, and fine cakes, all basked on the spot. I supped on turkey in a Turkish bistro, and went to a recital of love songs of Baroque Italy in a community centre.
On Tuesday morning at ten I went to the Invalides, not to see the tomb of Napoleon (I do not like Great Men who impose their will), but to visit at ten the museum of the Order of the Liberation and the 1939 to 1945 part of the Army Museum. The Liberation museum showed personal mementoes of Charles de Gaulle, the various generals in Africa and Asia, and the leaders of the Resistance, many of whom died as heroes. I was surprised and pleased to learn that there were free French at el Alamein, the battle that turned the war in Africa when Stalingrad turned it in the Soviet Union. Our family has marked the month: my younger brother was born nine months later. There were even free French in Russia, well packed into functional furs, and fighting in the bitter cold to drive the Germans westward. A gallery looked at the fate of French Jews. The whole Liberation museum had a bit of an amateur or family feeling, and none the worse for that. They had kindly given us guidance notes for each case in English as well as French. I am embarrassed that nowhere in London have we a museum with notes in French. It is not too bad, as commonly the recorded guided tour you can borrow includes foireign language versions. I sometimes wonder how we should have done if we had fallen to Hitler. Certainly we had Nazi sympathisers, but I am glad to say that the Gestapo had long lists of liberals and patriots whom they would arrest on sight. The Army museum is recent, and multi-media, with displays of video, clean-lined, modern, and efficient, but short of tanks, boats, and so on that you find in London in the Imperial War Museum, I expect they were late to start collecting: our museum existed from 1920.
On Wednesday at eleven I went to the Palais Royale to see the exhibitions at the museum of design. One was a show of lp record sleeves, posters and films and music on the hippies of San Francisco in the sixties. It was well laid out, though not really my cup of tea. I was young in the sixties, and liked the early Beatles, but not Timothy Leary and his disciples, which the later Beatles became. I was interested to see this big space in a major national monument building dedicated to an American phenomenon, but in fact Paris is greatly changed since thirty years ago, and officials seem to have ended to battle to defend their culture. I can see why, but I am a little sorry. When I travel I like to know I am in another culture. The other exhibition was of handbags, quite fun if you saw them as applied art, rather like pottery in being both beautiful and useful. But in my time I bought pots, and not bags. In three years they will open a permanent design museum, and I ll go again.
That evening after a good supper of rabbit (well served in a good sauce: I very seldom eat rabbit) I handed my bike to the hotel, against my deposit. Early on Thursday I breakfasted at the Cambrai (better coffee and service), walked over to the station, went through the palaver of controls (but no lounge this time), and was taken by a porter to my seat, again right forward in the long train.
I am glad I went: I like getting to know a strange city. I had bought in Waterloo station the listings magazine called Pariscope, similar to Time Out, but found it inaccurate, so missed some events I had wanted. Not entirely their fault. I planned to go the Jack and the Beanstalk in French, turned up at the time and place in the poster, and found the theatre locked, as did four families who came too. Again, I wanted to see the current exhibitions in the Institute of the Arab World, but there was a long queue for entry (to a display on the pharaohs) and no alternative queue for people interested in Arabs and Islam – a poor show, I thought. Generally, museums and exhibitions had long family queues, for the contemporary art at the Beaubourg, for example.
Now that I know that I can stand for a fairly long time I have studied Time Out for London, and plan to do a little sightseeing nearer home, while I wait for free lectures to re-start about 11 January. (I hope to post a new list at victorianresearch.org/lectures.html in about ten days.) I also have two seats lined up, Aladdin at the Old Vic on the 19th, and The History Boys at the Lyttelton Theatre soon, on the 5th. I always enjoy Alan Bennett (who wrote The History Boys) on the wireless, and I was in a history sixth form in London (only we called it an eighth) trying for Cambridge twenty years before his fictional boys were in class in Yorkshire.
[email protected]
Jan 1st, 2005, 01:49 PM
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Dear Mr Haines,
I am happy to hear that you are in such good shape as being able to venture as far as Paris! What good news!
I enjoyed your report, it is timely, as I am gathering information for our trip in March.
Happy New Year!
I am happy to hear that you are in such good shape as being able to venture as far as Paris! What good news!
I enjoyed your report, it is timely, as I am gathering information for our trip in March.
Happy New Year!
Jan 1st, 2005, 02:20 PM
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Thank you Mr. Haines. Your report on your recent holiday made for excellent reading. I very much liked all the little details that you included.
May you continue to enjoy good health in 2005 and enjoy the lectures you so like to attend.
Sandy
May you continue to enjoy good health in 2005 and enjoy the lectures you so like to attend.
Sandy
Jan 1st, 2005, 03:15 PM
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My dear Mr. Haines,
It is a pleasure to find a new trip report by you and especially to see one about Paris!
How nice of Allo Velo to leave your bike for you at the hotel. Now I know which bike company to use in Paris!
"I do not like Great Men who impose their will"
LOL, neither do I.
BTW, every time I watch Casablanca now I am reminded of your comment about "When the people in Rick's cafe break into the Marseillaise, they song with huge fervour. The reason is that Hollywood gathered the extras for the film from real central Europeans who were real refugees from Hitler."
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...=2&tid=1279883
Bonne Année, monsieur Haines!
It is a pleasure to find a new trip report by you and especially to see one about Paris!
How nice of Allo Velo to leave your bike for you at the hotel. Now I know which bike company to use in Paris!
"I do not like Great Men who impose their will"
LOL, neither do I.
BTW, every time I watch Casablanca now I am reminded of your comment about "When the people in Rick's cafe break into the Marseillaise, they song with huge fervour. The reason is that Hollywood gathered the extras for the film from real central Europeans who were real refugees from Hitler."
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...=2&tid=1279883
Bonne Année, monsieur Haines!
Jan 1st, 2005, 05:59 PM
#9
It is a real treat to read this report in conjunction with the ongoing journal from FamousUncleArt in Paris at the same time. What a great selection of activities! Sorry you missed Jack and the Beanstalk in French; I would have liked to hear the translation of, "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum".
Jan 1st, 2005, 07:39 PM
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So glad to know that you are able to enjoy travel again, and many thanks for sharing the reflection.
"...hangbags,...,rahter like pottery in being both beautiful and useful.", how refreshing.
Could you please post the name of the guided walking tour?
What's your opinion of London Design Museum?
Would you care to post notes about "Fix Up" and "The History Boys"? Both seem most interesting.
Thanks again
Judy
"...hangbags,...,rahter like pottery in being both beautiful and useful.", how refreshing.
Could you please post the name of the guided walking tour?
What's your opinion of London Design Museum?
Would you care to post notes about "Fix Up" and "The History Boys"? Both seem most interesting.
Thanks again
Judy
Jan 2nd, 2005, 01:04 AM
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For Elaine,
A pleasure. The rabbit was in the only bar in the rue des Recoltiers, just south of the Square Villemin, less than five minute from the Gare de l’Est. It was there for the day: young man there changes his best offers daily. May I also plug the bar north of my hotel, on the corner of the Rue Ambroise Pare and the Boulevard de Magenta ? They, too, served good food, especially their fish. As in London and Berlin, a less elegant place away from the city centre offers good food at better prices than central cafes. To avoid long travelling when you want time sight seeing in the centre you can lunch anywhere, but sup at a bar near your hotel, outwards by bus away from the centre. As in London, busses are covered by day travel cards and easily used if you pick up the free bus map from any kiosk of the company RATP, for example that on the roof of the Gare du Nord.
For Beatchick,
All that, and they speak English.
For Judy,
Do hangdogs carry hangbags ?
I am afraid I did not notice the name of the guided walking tour firm. I simply picked their tour from the handful daily in the events magazine Pariscope. I think the Officiel des Spectacles has them too.
I find the London Design Museum a little pretentious, with a trend to the showy. I am not sure that they have more to show me than has a good department store. But I am no judge, as I am not an active or interested shopper, except when I stumble on a bargain such as a thck and cosy zip-front woollen jacket that I bought for ten pounds in a temporary Christmas shop a month ago for ten pounds. Excellent, so I have stocked up with two more, to avoid darning later. I am not a neat darner. I am wearing it now, and shall add a sports jacket a la Prince Charles to cycle at lunch to the Imperial War Museum for a film show on the interrogation of prisoners (I expect Hitler s war rather than Guantamo Bay). The Design Museum takes as read that anything designed ten years ago is out of date, and that trendy people will buy something else. Magazines have sections called Lifestyle, by which they mean shopping. Odd: people I know have such lifestyles as good work, kindness, travel, languages, or whatever. My sports jacket does befit me, but I hope is not my life style. Cycling on the continent is, and I join with others in this correspondence in joy that I can do it again, though with less ease than once. If the delightful nurses and I keep up, and with your prayers, I hope this year to mark a family gathering in north Norfolk in June, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, and the Science Festival in Dublin (which I look forward to learning about) in September. This leaves London, and early thoughts on visiting pressing friends near Weisbaden and in Transylvania, and seeing more of Serbia, the last two at a third of Paris prices. No Paris fancy cakes, alas.
I was sleepy during Fix Up, but think in any case it was, like most plays, more interested in the people and their relationships than in ideas. I have a critic s support here: the one in Time Out says the people were drawn too sketchily.
The sun is shining and my cycle awaits. I am excused ten o clock church, as the vicar asked us old-timers to come at eight to support a worshipper today on her hundredth birthday.
I wish you all a happy new year
Ben Haines
A pleasure. The rabbit was in the only bar in the rue des Recoltiers, just south of the Square Villemin, less than five minute from the Gare de l’Est. It was there for the day: young man there changes his best offers daily. May I also plug the bar north of my hotel, on the corner of the Rue Ambroise Pare and the Boulevard de Magenta ? They, too, served good food, especially their fish. As in London and Berlin, a less elegant place away from the city centre offers good food at better prices than central cafes. To avoid long travelling when you want time sight seeing in the centre you can lunch anywhere, but sup at a bar near your hotel, outwards by bus away from the centre. As in London, busses are covered by day travel cards and easily used if you pick up the free bus map from any kiosk of the company RATP, for example that on the roof of the Gare du Nord.
For Beatchick,
All that, and they speak English.
For Judy,
Do hangdogs carry hangbags ?
I am afraid I did not notice the name of the guided walking tour firm. I simply picked their tour from the handful daily in the events magazine Pariscope. I think the Officiel des Spectacles has them too.
I find the London Design Museum a little pretentious, with a trend to the showy. I am not sure that they have more to show me than has a good department store. But I am no judge, as I am not an active or interested shopper, except when I stumble on a bargain such as a thck and cosy zip-front woollen jacket that I bought for ten pounds in a temporary Christmas shop a month ago for ten pounds. Excellent, so I have stocked up with two more, to avoid darning later. I am not a neat darner. I am wearing it now, and shall add a sports jacket a la Prince Charles to cycle at lunch to the Imperial War Museum for a film show on the interrogation of prisoners (I expect Hitler s war rather than Guantamo Bay). The Design Museum takes as read that anything designed ten years ago is out of date, and that trendy people will buy something else. Magazines have sections called Lifestyle, by which they mean shopping. Odd: people I know have such lifestyles as good work, kindness, travel, languages, or whatever. My sports jacket does befit me, but I hope is not my life style. Cycling on the continent is, and I join with others in this correspondence in joy that I can do it again, though with less ease than once. If the delightful nurses and I keep up, and with your prayers, I hope this year to mark a family gathering in north Norfolk in June, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, and the Science Festival in Dublin (which I look forward to learning about) in September. This leaves London, and early thoughts on visiting pressing friends near Weisbaden and in Transylvania, and seeing more of Serbia, the last two at a third of Paris prices. No Paris fancy cakes, alas.
I was sleepy during Fix Up, but think in any case it was, like most plays, more interested in the people and their relationships than in ideas. I have a critic s support here: the one in Time Out says the people were drawn too sketchily.
The sun is shining and my cycle awaits. I am excused ten o clock church, as the vicar asked us old-timers to come at eight to support a worshipper today on her hundredth birthday.
I wish you all a happy new year
Ben Haines
Jan 2nd, 2005, 09:53 AM
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Excellent, Mr. Haines, that is good to know - thank you!
"when you want time sight seeing in the centre you can lunch anywhere, but sup at a bar near your hotel, outwards by bus away from the centre"
Excellent tip, Ben. It's a little different than how I normally approach Paris and I will certainly take you advice for future trips!
Bonne Année!
"when you want time sight seeing in the centre you can lunch anywhere, but sup at a bar near your hotel, outwards by bus away from the centre"
Excellent tip, Ben. It's a little different than how I normally approach Paris and I will certainly take you advice for future trips!
Bonne Année!
Jan 2nd, 2005, 10:59 AM
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Again, many thanks for sharing.
How many shapes of pots there are in museums?
Quite agree with you regarding London Design Museum. How about Berlin Bauhas Archiv Design Museum?
Looking forward to your note on "The History Boys" and up-dated lecture list. Still looking for place to let for the spring.
Judy
How many shapes of pots there are in museums?
Quite agree with you regarding London Design Museum. How about Berlin Bauhas Archiv Design Museum?
Looking forward to your note on "The History Boys" and up-dated lecture list. Still looking for place to let for the spring.
Judy
Jan 3rd, 2005, 01:27 PM
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After quite a hiatus from this board, I returned to read your wonderful report on your holiday in Paris. My husband and I are so pleased to hear that you accomplished such an adventuresome trek. Your pluck is an inspiration! Hope you are enjoying the tasty items put up from your garden in the autumn. Winter is the perfect time to enjoy the bounty of the harvest. We are unable to make a visit to London this year, but wish you good health and clear bike paths for 2005! Our best greetings to you, Carolyn and Bill
Jan 4th, 2005, 12:50 PM
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For JudyC. Of basic wheel-turned pots there are rather few shapes: the cylindrical, the inbowed, the outbowed, that which tapers as the porter s hand goes up and that which widens as you go up, and that that follows the lines of the jam jar. Pots in daily use in Dhakka thirty years ago were just the shape of Roman British pots in the Museum of London. I think the material, clay, dictates shape, and that form follows function. You can have more variance if you add a handle or two, but that detracts from the fundamental shape. Pots thrown with no wheel are desperately variegated, but to my mind are just desparate anyway: a turned pot has a natural look, and begs you to pick it up and hold it. It seems to me cruelty to children to have them make their first pots with no wheel.
The Berlin Bauhas Archiv Design Museum seems to me a bit wordy, with more labels than things, and did not strike me as forcefully as their old central house in Dessau did, but that was twenty years ago.
Please remind me about a place to let in the spring. It has slipped my mind, I am afraid – old age, I expect. What do you seek ?
For Carolyn and Bill. Thank you. Yes, the grapes are holding out in their jamjar pots, and I have the damson and blackberry jams at breakfast on toast and for lucky guests in a sponge pudding, with custard. May I disagree: I find nothing adventuresome in visiting Paris. You just phone for a room, bike, and train seat, and take a passport and credit card.
Ben Haines
The Berlin Bauhas Archiv Design Museum seems to me a bit wordy, with more labels than things, and did not strike me as forcefully as their old central house in Dessau did, but that was twenty years ago.
Please remind me about a place to let in the spring. It has slipped my mind, I am afraid – old age, I expect. What do you seek ?
For Carolyn and Bill. Thank you. Yes, the grapes are holding out in their jamjar pots, and I have the damson and blackberry jams at breakfast on toast and for lucky guests in a sponge pudding, with custard. May I disagree: I find nothing adventuresome in visiting Paris. You just phone for a room, bike, and train seat, and take a passport and credit card.
Ben Haines
