After a much delayed flight I finally arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport and headed to the centre of town to my hotel near the Opera on Rue La Fayette.
The view from the car window allowed me to glimpse a piece of "Paris by night", a cliche phrase that somehow - like many cliches perhaps - seemed very "a point" as I looked at the mellow lighting of this gorgeous city and admired the first tastes of the unmistakable architecture.
Determined to get into a "La Boheme" spirit I arrived at my hotel in the mood of a travelling artist looking for his "garret" for the next three days. Clearly a laughable proposition as my limo dropped me off at the 250 Euro a night boutique hotel resplendent with wi-fi, Bang & Olufsen telephones and mood lighting - and not to mention that not many starving artistes arrive by air, with 15 kilos of cameras and lenses etc... But never mind...
Exhausted, I slept almost immediately, undecided as to what I would do today.
On waking comparatively early I hit the laptop and started looking at how my steps might be traced for the next couple of days combining art, architecture and aimlessness.
Hopping from one Arrondissement to the next on the digital maps I noted all the places I wanted to visit and even looked up opening times and special exhibits. Very organised.
A quick change of dressings on the infernal finger, showered and clothed I set off with some vague sense of purpose and exited to the street into a grey cloud covered sky with a previous rain showing moistly on the ground.
I managed 200 metres before diving into a pavement seat at a stereotypical Parisian cafe and promptly ordered coffee, bread and juice. Necessary preparations for the long walk ahead.
I call this blog "Old Shoes & Picture Postcards" for reasons explained in several earlier posts. Today I had put on distinctly old (but comfortable) shoes. And as I wandered from the Opera to Place Vendome, I started to see the Picture Postcard component.
To say this city is romantic is like saying Las Vegas lacks a little taste... A massive understatement.
It is breathtakingly romantic. That is the only word that I can think of to adequately describe the whole sensation of walking the streets of Paris. Romantic as in William Blake and romantic as in Petrarch & Dante, Romantic as Verlaine and Rimbaud. One literally aches with romance as you walk through the streets of Paris.
Most of all it's romantic like Rick & Ilsa in Casablanca. "We'll always have Paris" he said to her. I think perhaps everyone should always have Paris....
I meandered past the fabulous boutiques of Cartier, Bulgari, and other monuments to the celebration of woman, love and romance and headed towards the Jardins De Tuileries, bumping into a man who was the spitting image of Samuel Beckett along the way.
The gardens were filled with autumn leaves underfoot, provided by avenues of trees shedding their jewels for winter time and creating a carpet for the joggers, families and strolling couples criss-crossing the pathways, all heading somewhere, but only some of them knowing where.
In the corner of this little park, by the Place De Concorde, is the Musee De L'Orangerie. The building picked by Monet personally to hold his large paintings of the water lillies. I had visited some twenty odd years ago in a post examination summer visit with my mother - the cultural bastion of the family - and was somewhat curious to return.
But I found I could not go in. Not because access was denied or any physical impediment, but because I simply did not want to. I can't explain exactly what came over me, but I just couldn't go in. I felt better to stay outside, in the park.
Instead of entering the museum, I loitered - with quite some intent - by the bronze of Rodin's "Le Baiser" (The Kiss). I am a big Rodin fan and this work is sublime.
Somehow today in the grey, cold and damp environs of the park, this bronze seemed even more powerful and evocative to me. It contains the essence of human erotic contact - it is intensely physical, the whole of the two bodies intertwined in a dynamic embrace and yet despite the physicality it is also incredibly tender and delicate, metaphysical, emotional.
The strength of the man holding the woman with definitive grip, the woman abandoning herself to his embrace, their heads turned to allow their mouths the most full and frontal contact possible, eyes closed, her arm resting on his leg, his hand supporting her thigh as she sits on his lap.
The most wonderful, most tender, most poignant, joyous and heart aching kiss you ever had looks like this. Feels like this.
I crossed over the bridge to the Rive Gauche and made my way to the Musee D'Orsay having decided that the Monet's might wait until tomorrow when I may be more prepared to enter and see them.
As I walked along the banks of the Seine I had a curious, inexplicable feeling that I was not alone. That someone was with me. As I walked, I began to feel that the more I walked, the more likely it was that that person would appear. Feeling like Orpheus I dared not look back - preferring to hold the thought in my imagination as I took my steps.
Maybe there is a far away spirit that is supposed to be here with me - the lone traveller - in Paris.
At the Musee D'Orsay I was once again confronted with a strong desire to NOT go in. It wasn't the queues for entry that put me off - but a curious feeling that today I must be outside. I must walk and be among people and buildings, breathing the air and moving through this city.
And this is truly a city for walking. Most great cities have a "walking" component - some classic places for a stroll. The parks of London, New York and Madrid all spring to mind. The alleyways and turns of Trastevere in Rome, the centre of Florence, Gamla Stan in Stockholm, Las Ramblas and Istklal Caddesi in Barcelona and Istanbul respectively - but Paris is ALL designed for walking. Rain or shine.
As I sit and write this outside the Musee D'Orsay, I am beginning to think that this trip to Paris is a reconnaissance mission. This is maybe why I cannot go inside these museums.
I plan to get lost in the Left Bank now and wander to St Germain Des Pres and Le Marais ... And just take in the steps, note things for tomorrow or the next time I am here.
There is one garden I will visit - filled with sculptures - and where I will sit for a while and reflect. But everywhere else I think I will just wander by - in preparation for next time...
Until then I don't want to spoil it...
The view from the car window allowed me to glimpse a piece of "Paris by night", a cliche phrase that somehow - like many cliches perhaps - seemed very "a point" as I looked at the mellow lighting of this gorgeous city and admired the first tastes of the unmistakable architecture.
Determined to get into a "La Boheme" spirit I arrived at my hotel in the mood of a travelling artist looking for his "garret" for the next three days. Clearly a laughable proposition as my limo dropped me off at the 250 Euro a night boutique hotel resplendent with wi-fi, Bang & Olufsen telephones and mood lighting - and not to mention that not many starving artistes arrive by air, with 15 kilos of cameras and lenses etc... But never mind...
Exhausted, I slept almost immediately, undecided as to what I would do today.
On waking comparatively early I hit the laptop and started looking at how my steps might be traced for the next couple of days combining art, architecture and aimlessness.
Hopping from one Arrondissement to the next on the digital maps I noted all the places I wanted to visit and even looked up opening times and special exhibits. Very organised.
A quick change of dressings on the infernal finger, showered and clothed I set off with some vague sense of purpose and exited to the street into a grey cloud covered sky with a previous rain showing moistly on the ground.
I managed 200 metres before diving into a pavement seat at a stereotypical Parisian cafe and promptly ordered coffee, bread and juice. Necessary preparations for the long walk ahead.
I call this blog "Old Shoes & Picture Postcards" for reasons explained in several earlier posts. Today I had put on distinctly old (but comfortable) shoes. And as I wandered from the Opera to Place Vendome, I started to see the Picture Postcard component.
To say this city is romantic is like saying Las Vegas lacks a little taste... A massive understatement.
It is breathtakingly romantic. That is the only word that I can think of to adequately describe the whole sensation of walking the streets of Paris. Romantic as in William Blake and romantic as in Petrarch & Dante, Romantic as Verlaine and Rimbaud. One literally aches with romance as you walk through the streets of Paris.
Most of all it's romantic like Rick & Ilsa in Casablanca. "We'll always have Paris" he said to her. I think perhaps everyone should always have Paris....
I meandered past the fabulous boutiques of Cartier, Bulgari, and other monuments to the celebration of woman, love and romance and headed towards the Jardins De Tuileries, bumping into a man who was the spitting image of Samuel Beckett along the way.
The gardens were filled with autumn leaves underfoot, provided by avenues of trees shedding their jewels for winter time and creating a carpet for the joggers, families and strolling couples criss-crossing the pathways, all heading somewhere, but only some of them knowing where.
In the corner of this little park, by the Place De Concorde, is the Musee De L'Orangerie. The building picked by Monet personally to hold his large paintings of the water lillies. I had visited some twenty odd years ago in a post examination summer visit with my mother - the cultural bastion of the family - and was somewhat curious to return.
But I found I could not go in. Not because access was denied or any physical impediment, but because I simply did not want to. I can't explain exactly what came over me, but I just couldn't go in. I felt better to stay outside, in the park.
Instead of entering the museum, I loitered - with quite some intent - by the bronze of Rodin's "Le Baiser" (The Kiss). I am a big Rodin fan and this work is sublime.
Somehow today in the grey, cold and damp environs of the park, this bronze seemed even more powerful and evocative to me. It contains the essence of human erotic contact - it is intensely physical, the whole of the two bodies intertwined in a dynamic embrace and yet despite the physicality it is also incredibly tender and delicate, metaphysical, emotional.
 |
| "Le Baiser" - Auguste Rodin |
The strength of the man holding the woman with definitive grip, the woman abandoning herself to his embrace, their heads turned to allow their mouths the most full and frontal contact possible, eyes closed, her arm resting on his leg, his hand supporting her thigh as she sits on his lap.
The most wonderful, most tender, most poignant, joyous and heart aching kiss you ever had looks like this. Feels like this.
I crossed over the bridge to the Rive Gauche and made my way to the Musee D'Orsay having decided that the Monet's might wait until tomorrow when I may be more prepared to enter and see them.
As I walked along the banks of the Seine I had a curious, inexplicable feeling that I was not alone. That someone was with me. As I walked, I began to feel that the more I walked, the more likely it was that that person would appear. Feeling like Orpheus I dared not look back - preferring to hold the thought in my imagination as I took my steps.
Maybe there is a far away spirit that is supposed to be here with me - the lone traveller - in Paris.
At the Musee D'Orsay I was once again confronted with a strong desire to NOT go in. It wasn't the queues for entry that put me off - but a curious feeling that today I must be outside. I must walk and be among people and buildings, breathing the air and moving through this city.
And this is truly a city for walking. Most great cities have a "walking" component - some classic places for a stroll. The parks of London, New York and Madrid all spring to mind. The alleyways and turns of Trastevere in Rome, the centre of Florence, Gamla Stan in Stockholm, Las Ramblas and Istklal Caddesi in Barcelona and Istanbul respectively - but Paris is ALL designed for walking. Rain or shine.
As I sit and write this outside the Musee D'Orsay, I am beginning to think that this trip to Paris is a reconnaissance mission. This is maybe why I cannot go inside these museums.
I plan to get lost in the Left Bank now and wander to St Germain Des Pres and Le Marais ... And just take in the steps, note things for tomorrow or the next time I am here.
There is one garden I will visit - filled with sculptures - and where I will sit for a while and reflect. But everywhere else I think I will just wander by - in preparation for next time...
Until then I don't want to spoil it...
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