Giving Paris one last chance

We went to Paris. As I hinted in the last posting, the idea was that we would completely ignore the semi-marathon and have the kind of fun you expect to have in the city of light, love and other clichés. This was a touch difficult as, when R was still in peak running condition, I had booked a hotel as close to the running venue as possible to save us both the agony of a long hobble back. So close, in fact, that we woke on the fateful morning to the sound of loudspeakers in the Bois de Vincennes calling the running faithful to the start line. Which was a bit tactless, I thought, after I’d stopped sniggering.

We watched them set off in the rain, that happy few, that band of brothers and sisters, and I have to tell you that there were a few tears, because it did actually hurt that he couldn’t do it, that the body just will not do what it’s bloody well told. I took a photo or two and then we walked hand in hand through the dogshit to the Metro.

We last stayed in Paris years ago, for a weekend. It was a bad bad weekend. For a start we camped. Can you imagine? We were in a two-man mountain-style tent and we had no table or chairs, so we kind of squatted on the ground, surrounded by hordes of Eurocampers lounging on what looked like three piece suites, who watched, incredulous, as we cooked our simple and terrible meal of rice and beans, no doubt hoping that we’d entertain them as well by setting light to our hair with the lethal and terrifying Primus stove. Nobody actually told us to move on and find our own kind where we’d be happier, but it was probably just a matter of time.

When night fell, they retired to watch their car-battery tellies and we stayed out to watch the barges passing and the stars. Or we would have done if it hadn’t rained. Actually it wasn’t just rain, it was Marks and Spencer’s rain: not just wet but sleeping-bag-soakingly wet, not just heavy but tent-bucklingly heavy, river-running-through-it heavy, having-to-pack-up-in-the-middle-of the-night-and-sit-in-the-car-until-the-morning-heavy.
Later there was the business of trying to have a proper French meal on the Champs Elysees. As you do. And then finding that everywhere was either full or too expensive. As it is. So we ended up in Burger King.
To sum up. We camped in Paris. We got rained off. We had a burger in Burger King. Later, not being in very good moods, we had a row in Notre Dame. As you do.

Unsurprisingly, we hadn’t been back to stay since, so this weekend felt like a bit of a gamble. Paris we give you one last chance: don’t mess up. And it didn’t. There was no camping, no flooding, and definitely no burgers. It is still very expensive, but then capital cities are.

We went to the fantastic Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie http://www.cite-sciences.fr/ which is huge and packed with French families out for the afternoon but which is big enough not to feel crowded. Outside there’s an enormous mirrored dome called the Geode which looks like it’s dropped in from the nearest galaxy, and surrounding it is the Parc de la Villette which is a strange space full of post-modernist follies and walkways that seem to go nowhere as well as a fairground and cool arty cinemas with cool smart arty types smoking Gauloise thinly and blackly in queues. I read that Jacques Derrida advised the architect who designed the Parc and you can’t get artier or smartier than that.

Afterwards we strolled along the nearby Canal de l’Ourcq like proper flaneurs, and looked at how French people do Sunday afternoon. Good shoes, smart hats, stylish babies and lots of tiny dogs. There were also quite a few men with those man-bags that Frenchmen don’t seem to mind being seen alive with, let alone dead. You’ll have guessed by now what Mr. Macho thinks about them. It wasn’t much different from a typical day out at Castlefield, except that the flesh is definitely thinner and the pound is weaker, and the only people wearing trainers are people running. The next day we walked along the Seine in sunshine and we went into Notre Dame and watched people taking photographs of each other looking at statues and lighting candles. We didn’t have a row although we spotted a few people who did.

It was a great weekend. Paris, you’re forgiven.