LH Franz As planned, we had half a day available for sightseeing. After showering and changing and setting up all our electronic devices for recharging, especially my hearing aids, we were off.
One of the items on my check list was Pont Neuf. It was not far and would make for an easy first jaunt in the city. Doing me proud, Daughter exhibited her expertise with the Metro system. We took the Metro two stops and got off at the Pont Neuf station. On this first trip, we bought our Navigo passes for the week. This credit-card sized pass provides unlimited access to public transportation in Paris for a period of time – in our case, one week. Probably the best €40 we spent. The pass is good on the Metro, the RER system, and the Roissybus. We used all of those extensively.
The Paris Metro compared well with other mass transit systems I know: New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago. Before leaving, I had imagined needing to get taxis every now and then. But it was never necessary. We were never more than a five minute walk from the nearest Metro station, and the Metro system went everywhere. On top of that, the buses, which also take Navigo passes, blanket the city.
I told Betsy the story of Pont Neuf (literally “New Bridge”) as I remembered it. When completed under King Henri IV, this bridge spanning the Seine was “the” place to be. People strolling around could mingle with folks from other social classes, which was not a common experience and made it all the more exciting to visit. The bridge is wide, with enough room for vendors to set up along the bridge selling their wares. Troops of actors would present plays on makeshift stages, and solo performers did what sounds suspiciously like stand-up comedy for the masses. Looking down the Seine at the city vista was a novel, awe inspiring experience for 17th century Parisians. Pont Neuf also became notorious as a mecca for coat thieves. (Hard to picture until you realized that in the 17th century, a “coat” was a cape, a thick, warm wrap against the weather, not something with sleeves and buttons.)
Alcoves allowed people to stand and enjoy the view down the river. These alcoves are still active hang-out locations, as evidenced by the empty beer and soda cans littering the ground under the benches.
Hungry After enjoying the view from Pont Neuf, we strolled down the quai to a random outdoor café.
My daughter and millennial companion describes the day’s activities from there:
A few blocks along the river, I saw one of my “Must Do” items – a small café with a multi-course meal, a “Formule,” advertised on an outside chalkboard. There were two options, the “Formule Complète” an appetizer (entrée), main course (plat) and dessert, or “Formule Simple,” either an entrée and plat or a plat and dessert. At this particular café, a “Formule Complète” was €16, a “Formule Simple” was €13. There were three options for each course listed and none of them translated! Of all the things to see and do in Paris, I had been most looking forward to the food. Whatever else I had experienced in France in my twenties, I remembered that almost every meal I had was delicious, and I had been looking forward to the “Formule” or “menu” method of dining, an authentic French experience. (Not that one can’t simply order an appetizer, main course and dessert, in that order, at an American restaurant, but it is not as common in casual meals and not as cheap.)
We walked into the café, passing a couple of men sitting outside – one at a table facing away from the café, towards the street, and one on a stool by the door. I looked around for a waiter or a host, but the café was empty. The waiter soon appeared behind us, having followed us inside – he had been the man sitting on the stool. This would happen a few more times in the trip before I finally learned to look for the waiter sitting outside the restaurant instead of inside at a podium, as in an American restaurant.
I put my French to work (“How many?” “Two.” “To eat or to drink?” “To eat please.”) and we took a seat at one of the tables outside. The man at the other table was smoking, drinking an espresso, and reading a faded yellow paperback book. (Can one fully appreciate Kierkegaard on an e-reader?)
Mom ordered a glass of wine and we dithered in French over which main courses to order – the quiche or the Croque Monsieur, which I told Mom was “a French grilled cheese.”
“I’ll have the Croque Monsieur,” Mom said.
“I was going to have the Croque Monsieur. I’ll have the quiche instead.”
“We can both get the Croque Monsieur.”
“No, we can’t get the same thing,” I said. “I’ll have the quiche.”
“Ok,” the waiter said. “Une croque. Une quiche.”
The quiche turned out to be excellent, but I had forgotten that the Croque Monsieur has ham in it. Mom is a vegetarian. We switched plates.
Mother’s note: Before I left on my trip, every single one of my friends who had been to Paris waxed poetic, drooling slightly, at how everything they ate there was delicious, delicious, delicious. This was my first experience with Parisian food. What can I say? Everyone was right. With one bite, I could tell this was indeed going to be an absolutely scrumptious meal. And I could tell why: Butter and cream seemed to permeate everything. The fries tasted as though they had been infused with butter before the final plunge into the deep fryer. The dressing on the salad was creamy and tasty. I had ordered a glass of Chardonnay, and although I don’t particularly like much of the Chardonnay I get at home, this stuff was, like everything else, delicious.
After we paid the check, we could have headed back to the hotel and called it a relaxing end to a tiring day – but the remains of the Notre Dame fire were just a few blocks away, and it was only 3PM.
So we crossed Pont au Change and made a left down a pedestrian path on Rue de Lutèce. Along the way, we saw cages of colorful birds in an open-air market. I later learned that this street becomes an open-air bird market every Sunday, and a flower market on Saturdays.
By the time we made a right onto Rue de la Cité, getting close to Notre Dame, there were more people on the street. As Notre Dame came into view, we were wading through crowds of tourists, family groups and couples and big tour groups following tour guides who were holding little flags above their heads. Progress slowed. Having seen as much as we could, we turned back to the Metro and headed to the hotel for the night.
I remember with perfect clarity a terrible experience from my first time in France – waking up, jet lagged, at 4AM, starving. At that time, I wandered out of the student dormitory into the neighborhood, looking for somewhere to buy some food, and absolutely nothing was open. This time, I was prepared. After our trip to Pont Neuf, I stopped in a Monoprix, a French version of Target or CVS, and bought some snacks for the hotel room.
Sure enough, our first morning in France, I woke up at 4AM (10AM East Coast Time), hungry. Mom’s stomach was also looking for breakfast. We ate some snacks, and then ate again when the hotel started serving a continental breakfast in the hotel’s stylish dining area.
