Out and About in Paris

Hotel de Ville, an Olympic venue

Monday 26 August 2024

After one and a half days in Eurodisney, I needed to escape the queues, fast food and saccharine-fuelled atmosphere. Never had I queued so long, whether for short rides or for overcharged franchised food, drink and commodities. Nevertheless, I had to admit Disneyland created a vibrant and happy clientele and Minnie had said she liked me. After a morning with the family reprising favourite rides from yesterday and gently baking in the late August sunshine, I caught a train to Paris. It is only 35 minutes away by the double-decker RER train that serves the eastern suburbs. I alighted at Les Halles, now the location of the massive underground three-story Westfield des Halles Shopping Centre.

I had no real plan other than to spend some time in the Musee d'Orsay and meander around the glorious streets, and buildings and walk along the Seine. I pitched out on the west side of the Westfield des Halles centre and sauntered along to the nearby Bourse de Commerce, but was captivated by the gothic splendour of Eglise Saint-Eustache providing some architectural elegance. I followed my nose through the narrow streets, alive with lunchtime cafes, towards the Louvre. I found a passage into the courtyard and then drifted towards the Pyramid. There were gobsmacked visitors from around the world but it was far from crowded. I lingered while absorbing the magnificent public space inside the Louvre Palace with the epoch-defying Pyramid taking the limelight. 

Crossing the Seine to the Left Bank reminded me that I should sample a Parisian cafe and I found a corner cafe not far from the Musee d'Orsay. The service was instant, the food was good and relatively cheap compared to the UK and Disneyland.  A beer conveyed me into the mid-afternoon as I watched the street scene from a pavement table. It was dominated by bikes and pedestrians with the occasional vehicles that were mainly electric adding to the peaceful ambience of summer in the city. The Musee d'Orsay was closed, it was Monday so I would have to find other impressions.  

It was easily done, I recrossed the Seine by the impressive Passerell Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, a footbridge to view the river traffic and watch Parisians doing exercises. The massive river boats were conveying hundreds of tourists in perfect conditions that the Olympic athletes were denied on the wet Friday when the Games started. I was excited to see Catherine Deneuve pass under me while on the bridge. I walked westwards along the quayside past the Orangerie to the Place de la Concorde which was sealed off for the start of the Paralympics the following day. 

This gave me the chance to saunter back along the Seine Quais to the Pont des Arts where the Institute of France houses the various artistic and scientific bodies that have been the drivers of French cultural and scientific advance. I drifted deeper into the left bank towards the Sorbonne with the density of cafes and art galleries increasing as the age of the crowds decreased. Returning to the Seine, I crossed over the Pont Neuf to examine progress on the Notre Dame. Even here the crowds were light but a viewing gallery, presumably for the Olympics, gave a splendid place to sit and observe the near completion of the restoration.

There was time to visit the Hotel de Ville which had hosted the start of the marathon at the Olympics, just one of the many significant buildings that had infused the Games with historical references. I drifted back towards the Centre Pompidou that was being refurbished. Still, the quirky fountains in the nearby Place Ivor Stravinsky provided the artistic humour that Richard Rogers had bestowed on Paris when he designed the Centre Pompidou in the 1970s. It was time to return and the hardest part of the day was finding the Platform for the Cessny train back to the alternative world of Disneyland. I was in no doubt which I preferred but I was still looking forward to another session in Walt's World.

Eglise Saint-Eustache

Louvre Palace and Pyramid

Pyramid as Prism

Left Bank cafe view

Belle de Jour

Quai Francois Mitterand

No silos just a synergy of knowledge

Notre Dame- almost repaired

French Humour in Place Igor Stravinsky 

Place Igor Starvinsky

Eurodisney

Whoopie

It was 26 years since we had visited Eurodisney with teenage children during a visit to Paris. At the time, the 3 or 4 days exploring the magic of Paris had seemed the better theme park. This time I had been invited to go with my grandkids on a late summer trip to Eurodisney. It would be an opportunity to rediscover my free spirit by rekindling some childish behaviours. And maybe I did as I engaged Minnie in a highland fling and queued for 40 minutes for a second go on the Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain Ride, "going where no man has gone before". Nowadays about 500 kids an hour do it every day at Disneyland Paris. Their screams were real, I just closed my eyes when my brain was tricked into believing that the capsule had escaped the pull of gravity. My neurons may need some rejuvenation.

The feelgood of Disneyland was infectious in the August sunshine, the background music was tailored to seduce happy families into the queues for rides and the numerous eateries, gift shops and ice cream vendors or to simply gape at the colourful assembly of schmaltzy film set architecture. The entire site was kept immaculately clean and the grounds were well manicured, contrasting with the deteriorating public realm in most of our towns and cities. The children and teenagers were captivated and parents were locked into responding to all the demands for drinks, snacks, souvenirs and fast passes to jump the queues. Disney's operations and marketing strategy is matchless, it costs about £400 a day for a family of 4 without food, drink and extras. Compare that with an average Council Tax charge of £5-£10 a day per household (family) and you realise why the public domain is so wrecked and public services so run down.

We had entered the park just after 9am having rented an Airbnb just 20 minutes walk away. The day just melted away as we were caught in the whirligig of attractions and exercised our British stoicism of queuing. It was after 10pm before we left after watching the Castle transformed into an Electrical Sky Parade with added fireworks. And finally, along with several thousand other visitors, we endured the ultimate Disneyland experience, queueing to leave along the Main Street, which was heaving with exhausted children and tired parents as rapacious vendors of tat sought to top up their coffers.

We spent all of the first day in Disneyland. On the second day, we visited the adjacent attractions of Walt Disney Studios which included Toon Studio, Worlds of Pixar and Marvel Campus, all boasting a collection of rides as well as studios. I went back to Disneyland later in the morning to repeat the Star Wars ride with my granddaughter before deciding to take a train to Paris for the afternoon and sample the real world. and rediscover my free spirit.  A final evening back in Disneyland sated my appetite for the candy coloured Eurofriendly version of the American Dream.

Entrance to Main Street

Thunder Mountain

Indiana Jones et le Temple du Peril

Adventureland

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Castle becomes Electronic Light Parade

Ardèche Encore

Our place in the sun

We had a day to kill before our rooms at Malataverne by the Ardeche Gorge became available so we travelled across to Les Vans, a town that is the gateway to the Ardeche Regional Park. It was a late booking made whilst in France. It was worth a visit to this busy town that sits aside some wonderful limestone country in the Ardennes dissected by deep gorges. It was also the weekend after the Bastille Day celebrations and as such part of a long weekend for the French. The hotel was more of a motel with a small pool spilling over with children, bikers and hikers. Fine for a night and providing a stark contrast to the stone edifices of hospitality that became even more attractive in comparison.

I decided to travel by the D roads, across the country via Lussan, one of the 'Beautiful villages of France'. It is a fortified village situated on a limestone outcrop overlooking the vineyards of the area and a centre for the silk industry in the past. In the morning heat, its closely built houses and trees provided some protection from the sun but we were too early for lunch so travelled on to Barjac. Barjac is a favourite haunt and we had a large salad lunch before the short journey through oak forests and winding roads to Les Vans. It had been a market day and the streets were being cleaned. We explored the centre before arriving at the hotel that was close to the centre and had a pool. We had not figured on 32 rooms and most of the occupants already cooling themselves in the pool so it was slightly disappointing as was the pre-packaged breakfast. 

Sunday was exciting as we were returning to our much-loved chambres d' hotes, close to Le Garn on the edge of the Ardeche Gorge. It was only an hour and a half away so we took a minor road into the forests enclosing the Chaussez gorge and spent an hour or so on one of the many trails that included part of the GR4 that runs east to west across southern France. We crossed the Ardeche river at Ruoms and took a back road over a ridge to Barjac where we had a tapas lunch in a favourite square. We phoned to see what time we could arrive at our accommodation at La Bastide de Muriers. We were told to come now and we arrived at 2:30pm. Evelyne and Jean-Pierre, the owners had become good friends since we first stayed in 2008 and almost every year since although Covid had prevented visits in the last couple of years. They were there to greet us and provide a welcoming drink and a slice of one of Evelyne's cakes. The next few days were predicted to have record temperatures and it was already 41°C. Unpacking could wait, it was time to head for the gorgeous pool that is never crowded.

The rooms are in an old stone Mas that has been painstakingly converted with a French flair for detail. With air conditioning, it is perfect for escaping the sun and spending some time watching the Tour de France. We had no desire to travel far and in the next five days, we stayed close to the base with just a couple of meals out. Breakfasts are superb with seasonal fruits, bread, local cheese, and homemade cake. There is a small kitchen in an outside stone hut that allows simple meals to be prepared. And that was it. I read a couple of books, watched the swifts that were nesting in stonework outside our room fledge their chicks, swam before breakfast and then another two or three times a day, and watched the last hour of the Tour de France every afternoon. I got through quite a few bottles of Pelforth blonde. My regular 5-mile morning run to Le Garn and around the forests and vineyards was only attempted once in the searing heat and only the prospect of a swim at the end kept me going. It was simple unadulterated bliss. No need to watch the Tory leadership handicap stakes or concern ourselves with the shit show that is the UK sliding into recession and depression.

Five days and nights passed quickly as we mingled with other guests from France and Switzerland and I practised my topiary skills on an Olive Tree for the second time. We visited the nearby village of Organs d'Avens that had been transformed during the lockdown, a new boulangerie, the primary school modernised, a new business hub, and a dozen or so new houses all built in the local vernacular with white limestone walls and spacious gardens and an upgraded hotel that had been run by the same family for four generations. We also visited Le Mouton Noir a restaurant deep in the country near Issirac where a young couple has combined local produce with a modern flavour in a simple but elegant new building.

Jean Pierre had retired from running the family estate that surrounds the Mas that has been converted into five suites of rooms for the chambres d' hotes. His land includes vineyards, apricot, peach, cherry, fig and almond orchards, oak forests for truffles, lavender fields and olive groves. He now helps Evelyne run the chambres d' hotes, although happily not the cuisine that she provides with an amazing skill at utilising the local produce. 

We left shortly after midday for the trip to Nimes and arrived in good time for the flight home. More than could be said for the plane that had been held up on the outward flight from Edinburgh airport for 3 hours owing to delays caused by staff shortages. Ryanair made no announcement but did provide a free snack. Every time we land in Edinburgh the trek from the plane to the terminal gets longer and more confusing and the walk from the terminal to the bus stops for the parking gets longer. It would seem that Edinburgh airport is determined to make itself as confusing as Heathrow, the other logistical nightmare operated by Global Infrastructure Partners.

Chassezac Gorge near Les Vans

Courtyard of the Mas

Malataverne after the Lavendar was cropped

My handiwork at Topiary

Dining room for those cool, wet days. None this year.

Young Swallow 3 days after fledging

Barjac, our regular haunt for coffee or lunch

Barjac 

Barjac, the fairground is in town

Le Mouton Noir, Issirac

 

Nimes

Maison Carree

After 3 years largely confined at home, we managed to pluck up the courage to escape the UK for a visit to France. We were inspired by the availability of flights introduced from Edinburgh to Nimes. Nimes is only an hour and a half away from our regular escape in the Ardeche. A beautiful Roman town that is twinned with Preston where I lived from birth until starting my career. The link was derived from their vital roles in the cotton industry. My school had exchange visits to Nimes every summer but I never managed to take part as we didn’t have the space in the house for guests or the money to engage in the exchange. 

The nearest I came to meeting my peers from Nimes was helping my father when he was asked to DJ at a dance for the Nimes teenagers. It was the summer of 1964 and my father’s DJ days were no longer in tune with the mood of the times. His call of "take your partners for a waltz or whatever dance" was no way to address our generation. His attempt to appeal to the French with Francois Hardy's hit 'Tous Les Garcon's et Tous Les Filles' had gone down like a 'ballon de plomb.'  I was familiar with his DJ set-up and had brought along some of my recently acquired 45 singles and a couple of albums. Normally I was only there to wire up the equipment and demonstrate the hula hoop or the twist and an excuse for a late night. 

Dad's attempts to interest the teenagers were disastrous so he instructed me to see if I could get them on the dance floor by playing my records. I started by playing the Rolling Stones' hit, It's All Over Now, and it certainly was curtains for DJ Dad. The floor was immediately full of 40 or so jiving teenage girls. After playing other hits of the summer including Bama Lama Bama Loo by Little Richard, Rosalyn by Pretty Things, the Animals hit House of the Rising Sun, and Doo Wah Diddy by Manfred Mann, I was besieged by requests to join the french girls on the dance floor. I only wished that I had paid more attention in French lessons and carried on with my paper round so I could have afforded the 36-hour bus, boat and train trip back to Nimes with them. Still, I reckoned that if my 'O' level results, due the next week, were not great, I could try and get a job as a DJ on the pirate Radio Caroline ship moored in the Irish sea off the Isle of Man.

Shoot forward fifty-odd years and the journey to Nimes was surprisingly straightforward, a two-hour flight with no long queues at Edinburgh airport. although the cost of airport parking had set a new record for hyperinflation and the cost of coffee at the airport made you want to gargle. The flight was on time and Ryanair did the basics well, even the cramped hard seats seemed comfortable and they were cheaper than a train journey to Inverness although the cost of taking luggage more than doubled the price. Nimes has a small, new airport so our exit and roll through customs were extra speedy. Within minutes we had a car, which is where the trouble began.  

We had not been given a parking ticket to leave the car park so had to return to the airport building to retrieve one and then the satnav directed us to the autoroute for the short 7-kilometre drive to our Airbnb in the city centre. It added distance, time as well as a cost but there was no escape from having to enter the herd of speeding vehicles heading for le weekend. A few minutes later we were stuck in a queue playing a horn symphony in protest at a driver that could not find how to pay at the exit barrier.  

As we entered the old city, the final straw was discovering that both indicators were flashing. In a strange car with left-hand drive, busy traffic and shouts from my agitated passenger to turn the indicators off, I tried every switch from indicators to lights to windscreen wipers and washers, all to no avail. I decided that it was probably safer to continue with both indicators going and try to find our Airbnb than to find a parking place on the narrow streets The owner was stationed on the street to meet us and guide us into a tight underground garage. We discovered after parking that Aileen had inadvertently switched the hazard warning lights on. We declared a mutual truce on our pent-up angst.

By 8pm we were promenading to the city centre on a balmy summer evening. The clean pedestrianised streets with limestone flagged pavements, the Arena of Nimes, a Roman Amphitheatres that serves as a venue for many musical events and a centre alive with outdoor cafes and restaurants all helped revive our post-Covid spirits. Love was in the air. The beer was cold and the steak hache and frites were a real treat after three years of vegetarian food.  The place was buzzing and the locals seemed relaxed and happy, I even wondered if I had wanna dance with any of the 70 year old waitresses during the twinning visit back in 1964. Surprisingly the prices in euros seemed no different than our last visit here in 2018. However, we must remember that the pound has plunged in value from 1.40 euros to 1.11 euros since Brexit.

We arranged with our Airbnb host to leave the car in the underground parking until the next afternoon so we could have a few hours enjoying the city. We were in the centre by 9:00am and after croissants and coffee in a cafe, we began to explore the city. The mainly independent shops in the centre were busy as was the market and there were few vacant shops unlike in most British towns. After an enjoyable perusal of the centre, we walked up to the Jardins-de-la-Fontaine, the first public gardens in France and climbed to the high point of the town before returning to the centre for a fine salad lunch by the Maison Carree, a Roman Temple. The heat was 37°C as we left Nimes for our gite which was only an hour away but we took the scenic route via Usez squeezing between the plane trees and oncoming traffic on the narrow rural roads of the Gard. We picked up some drinks and food at Gaujac to make a meal when we arrived at our gite. It was good to be back in Europe, it feels like home.

Arena of Nimes

Canals leading to the Jardins de  la Fontaine

Jardins de la Fontaine

Nimes Centre

Ardeche

Cherry time

Our eighth trip to the Ardeche on the Provence/Languedoc border was primarily to relax after the rigours of the recent house move. It was made less so when my passport went missing during the move. It may be somewhere in a box we put into storage. The national passport office was adamant that I couldn't get a replacement passport with only 5 days' notice until our flight but they would guarantee one in 8 days if I paid the express fee for a replacement passport. They seemed blind to the illogicality of this. It is another example of a centralised government agency ramping up its charges to meet government income targets.

I ignored the advice and tramped along to the local passport office in Glasgow. They were immediately helpful and let me use their phone to get the UK office to set up an interview in the Glasgow office later in the afternoon. The Glasgow office had created a vacant interview slot for me and explained what I would need to do in the two hours before the interview. It included a new passport photo and finding a friend to sign it.  They then had the new passport printed for the next day. The staff in the Glasgow office showed what good customer care is all about and proved once again that local is best.

We arrived in Beziers on a Sunday evening and unlike Scotland, which was baking in the summer heat, we were treated to three days of cool wet weather. It didn't matter, we had booked a gite for the first week and the Chambre d' Hotes for our second week. Evelyn, the proprietor, welcomed us with coffee and cake and provided a basket of cherries in the gites for our arrival. She and Aileen resumed their friendship that began during our first visit in 2007. We picked and ate cherries, walked and read books. The environment around the accommodation is glorious with walks through lavender fields, cherry and peach orchards, almond groves, vineyards and native oak forests replete with truffles and wild boar. Our genial hosts held an aperitif evening with other guests and Jean-Pierre lent me his mountain bike. I went for my regular 8-kilometre run each morning followed by a swim in the pool before Evelyn's perfect French breakfast - coffee, fruit, homemade cake, croissants and yoghurt. We visited local towns, and the local "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France". After the weather turned days we enjoyed afternoons in the wonderful pool we had to ourselves, who needs beaches. Aileen would disappear to practice her French with Evelyn, their values and interests translated well into an enduring friendship.

We visited Nimes, the Cevennes National Park, the Rhone Valley, the Ardeche Gorge, the Ceze River and its villages and continued to eat cherries,  admire the lavender fields and enjoy the fresh produce in the local restaurants. I even managed to acquire some Topiary skills as I shaped one of the olive trees in the garden for Jean-Pierre. We had 10 days of uninterrupted sunshine. We were content and so was France with its football team sailing through the early stages of the World Cup. 

Picking cherries

Le Garn

Lunch

Room with a view

Lavender time

Monclus and the Ceze river

If only the UK could embrace this sentiment

Aigueze above Ardeche river

Ardeche Gorge

Pont d'Arc

Our Gite

My first attempt at some Topiary with an Olive tree

Confiture

Local cheeses

Nimes

Nimes arena

Library and Museum by Richard Rodgers

I was invited to go to Nimes as a 14-year-old schoolboy. We were twinned with Nimes and each summer our school had pupil exchanges. At the time the limit of my travels was Ambleside to Llandudno with one crazy camping holiday in the Scottish Highlands. Wales was about as foreign as you could get. We were limited by bedroom space at home so an exchange visit with a Nimes teenager was a non-starter. The link between Nimes and Preston was based on cotton. King cotton was prevalent in Preston with forty or so cotton mills producing quality products and Nimes gave the world denim.

The nearest I came to the Nimes pupils was when a dance was held for the visiting teenagers and I helped my father run an outdoor disco for them. He had been a DJ from the 1950s but was struggling to keep abreast of the new music of the 1960s. I used to help him set up equipment and demonstrate new fads like the hula hoop or twist. On this night I was told to play the records after his selections were not to the taste of the young French pupils. I enjoyed the chance to play Little Eva, the Crystals, Beatles, Drifters and Stones. The Nimes teenagers invaded the floor, jiving with energy and enthusiasm and I was besieged by requests from the girls to dance. By the end of the night, I wished that I could return to Nimes with them and, errr, learn French.

Yesterday; we finally made it to Nimes, a 90-kilometre journey from our summer hideaway in the Ardeche. What a revelation, after negotiating the usual ring of ugly and busy commercial developments that enveloped all French towns, we entered the historic centre. From its magnificent amphitheatre or arena, as it is now termed, to the white limestone streets, Nimes is a revelation. Pedestrianised with squares to relax, modern shops, spotlessly clean and exhibiting a municipal pride that includes its gendarmes on bikes and a wide range of museums. Preston, it ain't. We spent a couple of hours in the arena, had a lazy lunch in a square, saw films of the Roman capture of Gaul and just pottered about as you do in wonderful urban environments.

I wish that I had discovered this place fifty-odd years ago, I might even have been inspired to speak French, something I regret every time we indulge ourselves in this most hospitable and glorious country.