PARIS FOR DREAMERS
~ Whimsical Walks Through the City of Light’s Delights ~
~ complete with tales, trivia & to-dos ~
Katrina Lawrence
Published by: Paris for Dreamers
For further information: www.parisfordreamers.com
Copyright © Katrina Lawrence, 2019
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For permissions contact [email protected]
First edition
ISBN: 9780646800660
Cover illustration: Clémentine Campardou
Cover design: Sandy Dao
Images: iStock.com/anyaivanova (Real-Life Love Stories of the Louvre), iStock.com/Tupungato (Following in the Footsteps of Audrey Hepburn), iStock.com/Alobeti (The Stylish Stomping Ground of the Marquise de Pompadour), iStock.com/Sarah Gasper (Follies and Frivolities), iStock.com/ValeryEgorov (Museums of the Marais), iStock.com/encrier (Paris on a High: Looking Down in the City of Looking Up), iStock.com/davelogan (Gallic Gastronomic Chic), Shutterstock.com (The Perfect Parisian Picnic), iStock.com/mikka_sole (In Search of Paris’s Lost Pleasure Gardens)
To Mary Margaret, for giving her daughters and granddaughters the world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: À LA PARISIENNE
1. A Romantic Stroll with George Sand
2. On the Scent of the Camellia Ladies
3. Real-Life Love Stories of the Louvre
4. Following in the Footsteps of Audrey Hepburn
5. The Stylish Stomping Ground of the Marquise de Pompadour
PART TWO: ARCHITECTURAL DELIGHTS
6. Follies and Frivolities
7. Shopping in Paris’s Passages of Time
8. Span of Time: Paris’s Historical Bridges
9. Museums of the Marais
10. Paris on a High: Looking Down in the City of Looking Up
PART THREE: FOOD & FUN
11. Gallic Gastronomic Chic
12. A Whirl Around the Carousels of Paris
13. A Cruisy Day in Waterside Paris
14. Finding the Meaning of La Vie in the Luxembourg Gardens
15. The Perfect Parisian Picnic
PART FOUR: TIME TRAVELLING
16. In Search of Paris’s Lost Pleasure Gardens
17. A Trip Down Memory Lane in Montmartre
18. The Gothic Ghost Town of the Île de la Cité
19. From Museum to Markets: A History of Beautiful Objects
20. Romans, Romance & Roses
PART FIVE: ARTS & LITERATURE
21. A Philosophical Approach to the Rive Gauche
22. An Artistic Nature Trail of Paris
23. The Literary Left Bank
24. A Saint-Germain Makeover in the Spirit of Cinderella
25. Paris’s Storied Bouquinistes
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
As I was finalising the digital proof of Paris for Dreamers, Notre-Dame Cathedral succumbed to a devastating fire that claimed her exquisite spire, and much else. For a dreadfully long moment it seemed like all would be lost, that the city’s heart — physically, emotionally, spiritually — had been fatally injured. Thankfully, to the credit of Paris’s heroic firefighters as much as to the genius of the city’s medieval artisans — and perhaps a little divine intervention, too — most of the structure was saved, and a restoration is already underway. The unthinkable didn’t happen in this unsinkable river city, one that has survived so much throughout its history: attacks, wars, revolutions ... The story of Paris is one of resilience but also one of continual renovation. This is a city that knows how to live up to its former glory, a city that cherishes its history but also keeps on forging into the future. So I decided, in the spirit of visualisation, not to rewrite my chapter on the Île de la Cité, because Notre-Dame will rise once more. And because Paris will always be Paris.
INTRODUCTION
I’m going to hazard a guess that you dream about Paris, too. You probably get all misty-eyed at the mention of its name alone — and to be there sends you into a giddy spin. It’s a city that exerts an emotional gravitational force over you that is sometimes difficult to explain. Don’t worry, Paris does that to some people. Call us Paris dreamers. Our bodies might live in our homeland — but our heads always seem to be somewhere over on the Left or Right Bank. And perhaps our hearts are there, too.
Everyone has a soul city; for some it’s New York, others Rome, others still Tokyo. But for us, our other home in this world, our happy place, the city we could visit endlessly and tirelessly, can only be Paris.
You might have already been to Paris several times. And each time has likely left you wanting more. I know the feeling. My parents first took me there when I was five. It was Christmastime and I remember the twinkle of fairy lights, the gleam of golden cherubs and domes, and the shimmer of snowflakes. It’s as though my memories of that first trip are suspended in a glitter dome, and sometimes I’m not sure that I haven’t enhanced them with a filter of rose-tinted nostalgia. But I do know that, from the start, Paris was pure enchantment. The city of sparkling light had cast a magic spell over me.
It was my parents’ first trip overseas, and their reward to themselves for having worked hard to establish their careers. In the following years, we travelled around a lot, as families of three can so easily do, but we managed to always find our way back to Paris, as though spooled there by our heartstrings.
France is in my mum’s blood. Her French grandpère had to leave the mother country when it was discovered that his father was involved in a royalist plot (quel scandale!). So the family set sail in disgrace, only to dock on the other side of the globe, in Sydney. In the years to come, the family grew and dispersed, moving here and there, as though trying to find its place in this new world. When Mum was a teenager, she was living on the southern coast of New South Wales, about as far away from France as you could get, both geographically and culturally. Still, the yearning for France had been passed down the generations, an emotional heirloom. She had grown up to believe that all good things in life came from Paris, or nearby, and she was determined to get there one day, to the city that had invented ballet and fine dining, department stores and the little black dress.
Paris became, for my mum, a kind of reward for working hard. So it was no surprise that I took myself there, for my first solo trip, after completing my final year of school. At last I had Paris all to myself. I drank velvety hot chocolate and walked trance-like through the Louvre. I had my nails painted pale pink and lolled about in parks reading romantic novels while nibbling scrumptious little cakes … I couldn’t get over how well in my skin the city made me feel. I was hooked on that happiness.
Hélas, I knew I could never be a Parisienne — my Gallic ancestors had left France too many generations before for me to claim a French passport. But I knew that I had to have Paris in my life, all of my life. If I wasn’t there, I was working to save up enough money to get back there. And I managed to find a job — as a beauty editor for women’s magazines — that also took me to Paris, which is the city of lipstick as much as light, of course.
Paris is the capital of the beauty industry; it’s also, of course, a beautiful place. Shamelessly so. It seduces with its sheer abundant loveliness. From the sweetly cobble-stoned streets to the charmingly slanted rooftops, from the ravishing statues to the voluptuous fountains, from the balconies that look like lace to the lampposts like jewellery, beauty is everywhere you look. You can’t blame women
, hard-wired as we are to love beautiful things, for falling head over heels.
But what you soon realise is that Paris is much more than a pretty face. It has a fine soul, too. Paris teaches you about the happiness of living. And not just living it up, although evenings in ritzy restaurants and hotels are part of the fun. Paris might take pride in its luxury industry, but it’s also a city that celebrates the small pleasures in life: people-watching from a café terrace, eating a fresh baguette smothered in cheese while the riverboats go by, reading in a fragrant park, wandering and pondering all day long, buying fresh peonies and roses at the markets … You easily appreciate how this is the culture that created the concept of joie de vivre: joy in the simple act of living. Forget health retreats. To best regenerate your spirits, all you need to do is get yourself to Paris.
Paris is a city for walkers. It’s relatively flat and compact, so it’s easy to traverse. And here, walking is a pleasure, not a chore, as there are so many picturesque ways to get from A to B. There’s always a tantalising new detail luring you on — an ornate spire, a flower-laden balcony or a marble plaque telling you about a building’s famous former resident.
Several years ago I realised that, in my many times criss-crossing the city (I rarely take the train or bus — come rain, snow or shine — to the occasional annoyance of a travel partner), I had subconsciously mapped out routes that I seemed to return to, because they told me stories not only about this city, but about its people. And, what’s more, these rambles had to a certain degree guided my own life trajectory.
This inspired my first book. For Paris Dreaming: What the City of Light Taught Me About Life, Love & Lipstick, I time-travelled back to ten holidays in Paris, looking at how they helped me see where I’d come in life, as well as how I should best proceed. Paris, I’ve come to see, has a way of making you recalibrate life, and put everything in perspective. I think it’s partly all the walking; you work through issues, towards a greater clarity of vision.
You can stroll anywhere in this world, of course. But what Paris adds to the experience is the inspiration to go deeper. It’s a city with a grand philosophical tradition, for one. You think, therefore you are, and all that. But it’s also a city full of portals into the past, a city infused with the spirits of some of history’s most fascinating men and women. And once you connect with these past Parisians, their life stories can’t help but influence your own.
In Paris for Dreamers, I’ve compiled walking tours that tell stories about this mesmerising city to help you better understand its history, culture and people. These trails take you not only around the must-see monuments and lesser-known nooks, but they also cross the paths of some of those beguiling Parisians. These walks will see you collecting titbits of trivia along the way, as I have done on my own travels through Paris (amassing them along with numerous snow globes and miniature Eiffel Towers). Paris has been a treasure hunt of sorts for me, and I hope Paris for Dreamers will help you discover the same whimsical delight on your future trips.
There are numerous ways to write city guides. Some are collections of essays, lovely meandering travelogues that take you on an author’s cultural and emotional journey. Others serve as a virtual chaperone, leading you around specific districts. I wanted to combine the two, in a way, fusing the moseying and the musing, taking you not only around Paris, but into parallel Parisian universes, too. A city is more than the sum of its stones, it’s the past lives and loves in which those stones are steeped.
Above all, I wanted to write Paris for Dreamers to help you truly savour this deliciously rich and layered millefeuille of a city. You can pore over it when you’re in Paris, sipping chocolat chaud at Angelina or kir royal at Café de Flore while making notes for the next day’s itinerary; or you can study it en route, in breathless anticipation of the journey ahead. But you can also read Paris for Dreamers even if you don’t yet have your next ticket booked, because this book is for armchair travellers as much as for actual ones. Yes, for the dreamers.
We all need Paris in our lives in some way, shape or form. This is a city that has been so pivotal in so many periods of history, and formative in so many realms, that to know Paris is to have a better understanding of the world around us. Paris can teach you about life, even if you live by a beach on the other side of the world.
Still, I do hope you can get to our beloved city soon. And before you do, here are some pointers to help you get the most from this book, and your holiday:
• Most of these walks last approximately a day, give or take an hour of shopping or sipping wine here and there. To ensure your day runs smoothly, pre-book museum tickets where possible — and make sure everything is open on the day you plan to go. I’ve endeavoured to list relevant opening times, but you should check online for the most current information.
• Make sure you have a few comfortable pairs of shoes — there are many steps in this book! Just remember: the more you walk, the more macarons you can consume.
• The best way to plot out all of the walks, I believe (being an old-fashioned girl at heart), is to unfold a large map of Paris, one that’s complete with street names, and literally draw colour-coded lines all over it. If you’re more technologically inclined, however, whip out your phone and open Google Maps, where you can create a ‘List’ for each walk, pinpointing all of the addresses noted in the ‘Itinerary’ at the start of each chapter (you’ll need a Google account to do this). Having said that … Don’t feel this book has to be prescriptive. If you want to check off an itinerary to the letter, that’s great, but if not, that’s totally fine, too. I’ve scattered links throughout the book to cross-reference walks (where a subject is further covered in another chapter, but also when a place is revisited elsewhere), so that you can veer from one to another if you so please, picking and mixing your destinations as you might macaron flavours at the Ladurée counter. You can also feel free to stop at any time for a change of direction, and just see where your fancy leads you. Dreamers like to float, after all.
• Paris is for losing yourself, and finding yourself, too. With that in mind, always leave yourself a day to do nothing — which is a big something here. Because the days of wandering without a particular purpose tend to be the days when you start to discover your own Paris. And the best Paris is your Paris. I’m honoured to be your current tour guide, but you’ll eventually find your own ways around, with enough time in this city.
We all have a Paris. This is mine. I hope it leads you to a Paris all of your own.
PART ONE: À LA PARISIENNE
Itinerary
• Jardin du Luxembourg 75006: opens between 07.30-08.15 and closes between 16.30-21.30 depending on time of year
• Odéon Théatre de l’Europe: Place de l’Odéon 75006
• Île de la Cité 75004
• Les Halles 75001
• Rue Montorgueil 75002
• Au Rocher de Cancale: 78 Rue Montorgueil 75002; 08.00-02.00
• À la Mère de Famille: 35 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre 75009; 09.30-20.00 (Monday-Saturday), 10.00-19.30 (Sunday)
• Place Saint-Georges 75009
• Square Alex Biscarre 75009
• Square d’Orléans: 80 Rue Taitbout 75009; closed weekends
• Musée de la Vie Romantique: 16 Rue Chaptal 75009; 10.00-18.00 (Tuesday-Sunday); closed Monday & some public holidays
• Rose Bakery: Musée de la Vie Romantique; 10.00-17.30 (Tuesday-Sunday); closed Monday
Let’s just get today’s priorities in order. First up, fashion. This is the day to wear some comfy shoes — perhaps a pair of baskets (tennis-style sneakers) or ballerines (slip-on flats) — as we’ll be covering some serious ground. Now, match them with pants, whether sleek jeans or crisp capris or something a little more slouchy. Pourquoi? It’s a quintessential Parisian look, for one, but also a nice sartorial nod (or should that be, kick?) to the Parisienne we’ll soon meet; the woman who wore pants a good century before Coco Chanel made them mainstream, back when it wa
s illegal to do so (so much for all that égalité, non?); the trailblazer who questioned frills and furbelows as much as the feminine condition — and whose trail we’ll follow today.
Find your way to the Luxembourg Gardens, entering via the Boulevard Saint-Michel gates. Take the second pebbly path on your left, and just beyond the flowerbed there, you can’t help but smile at the sight of a woman in white marble, reclining dreamily on her plinth, her eyes soulful and hands delicate, her hair and gown cascading silkily, looking every bit the queen of Romanticism. Voilà, meet today’s icon: George Sand.
Hang on, I hear you think; this is the proto feminist rebel I just heard about? Oui, the very one. Because the lauded French author George Sand was paradox personified, a whirl of contradictions layered in complication, and sometimes petticoats, too. Born in 1804, as Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, she very much suited that poetically feminine name, yet she not only invented a masculine nom de plume, but also wholeheartedly embodied her alter ego. She could switch from womanly gowns to gentlemanly getups with ease, adept at playing a heroine and hero.
George once quipped that novelists had to be novelesque. She didn’t just look like a Romantic heroine, with the pale skin and dainty limbs and lyrical eyes — her life seemed to belong to one, too. Her father was descended from a King of Poland, her mother from a bird-seller. After this somewhat confused, yet passionate start to life, Aurore’s aristocratic grandmother took her in hand, and had her moulded to fit the pattern of a good Parisian girl. At her coming of age, she inherited a mini-château and married a provincial baron. But here’s where the story gets really interesting, reverting to Romantic plot.
Romanticism was a creative reaction to Classicism. After the French Revolution, novelists and artists, disillusioned by the failure of Enlightenment and its now-tarnished talk of rationality, began to pen and paint sweeping, sentiment-charged sagas and scenes. Guided by feeling over logic, they expressed their emotions and explored their imagination, taking Parisians into exotic new territories, from the spiritual to the Gothic, to one of the most mysterious of lands of all: one’s inner world.
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