Note: I am starting to write my Paris diaries, remembering my favourite city over four decades of visits there. This is just an aperitif. Am including my references for books, movies and more. Somehow this post is about what Paris is to me: the river, the quais, books and walking.

Paris is best explored on foot, preferably in the footsteps of Hemingway himself. The quais beckon with their poplar trees, the Eiffel stands tall for miles around, the Seine meanders through the city, people catch some sun on it’s banks. The Parisians  are dressed in black, a bottle of wine or a baguette in their hands. Yes, so Paris! Every cliche comes alive and seems perfect and charming. 

An earlier trip to Paris one June proved to be everything fun and alive and touristy, and not without adventure. For starters, we were unprepared for the bitterly cold north winds blowing across the city that gleamed bright under clear blue skies and never-ending sunshine. The rain was just as unexpected, cold european rain.

We do the touristy things that one must do when abroad: in Paris we walk the quais, sit at sidewalk cafes, travel by metro, almost get mugged, get lost, visit cheese bars and the zoo, and make mandatory trips to the museums to see the art. We pursue the Van Goghs on loan from Amsterdam, enjoying them at the Orsay, and then we skip the museums entirely when we later go to Holland. There is such a thing as museum fatigue, and Paris can easily compete with Rome.

We are staying in a lovely AirBnB in Goeblins, buying our morning bread from a close-by Poilane, eating delicious local cheeses and charcuterie before we set out for the day on foot and by metro.

We love to finish the sights and then become french flaneurs: walking aimlessly with purpose to gaze at the sights and sounds of the City of Light, just enjoying the city itself.

We avoid crowded areas filled with tourists, where the food seems fake and the atmosphere contrived, especially around the Left Bank/ le Rive Gauche, which is so fashionable to stroll around. It is the Left Bank that is haunted by memories of Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, and the artists of the modern movement who frequented the Deux Magots cafe, the Notre Dame Cathedral, Berthillons ice cream, and Shakespeare and Co. that famous bookshop.

We always stop at the Notre Dame cathedral, at kilometer zero, now sadly destroyed by fire and relegated to a work in progress.

After gazing at the magnificent stained glass windows and elegant pews of the Notre Dame, we cross the road to stand outside that most marvellous of all book stores, Shakespeare and Company. It is raining now, and Paris is so beautiful in the rain.

I find myself in line with bibliophiles from around the world, thrilled to be one of them. The 1951 bookstore is a dream: books from floor to ceiling, extremely helpful staff and the possibility of finding any title you might covet. There are places to sit and browse although the tiny space is always bursting at the seams with visitors. The upstairs is legend for offering writers somewhere to spend the night in exchange for work. They were called the Tumbleweeds, and are legend. It is here that James Joyce’s Ulysses saw the light of day, under the nurturing and determination of Sylvia Beach.

The family chooses to stay outside, on our first visit they wander off to the park next door and lie on the grass in the sun. Today is cold and wet and they are impatient for me to finish. I wander around as if in a dream, soaking in the smell and sound and feel of books everywhere. My eyes dart across titles and covers, and the little things that make this place so special: the notes recommending authors, the old shelves, the posters, the signs for meetings, and the general bonhomie that serious libraries tend to have. If I were an addict, this would be my den, where I would lie in a daze and a haze and in bliss.

Don’t miss the bookstore if you love books, they have english titles and they even stamp your book with their rubber stamp, a face of the Bard himself. I have just discovered John Baxter, an expat writer in Paris and I buy several of his books. My favourite is and always will be: The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, a Pedestrian in Paris. Definitely one to read and carry when you want to stroll around beautiful Paris. He describes walks along the Seine, in Montmartre, and in the gardens that make Paris so special. This book stands firmly with my most favourite titles on a special shelf at home. Baxter has written many more books about Paris, its history, its food ( don’t miss these humorous memoirs) and its people. Baxter also writes about film and has penned one very interesting dictionary of sex.

I finally bid goodbye to Shakespeare and Co, my tote bag filled with books all dated and stamped. Yes! I will lug them across the seas to Pune, despite knowing I can buy them here online. It’s my thing. I would rather carry a book home from every place I visit than anything else.

I join the family, and we watch people passing by. The queues outside the cathedral and the tour buses grow and keep growing, never stopping. When it is a glorious June day, everyone is happy, and then they are happier because they are in Paris. Despite the wet and cold, the lights glow warmly and people retreat to cafes and bowls of that French Onion Soup.

But on a sunny day, the bouquinistes set up shop on the Rive Gauche, a Parisian landmark in itself. The dark green metal stalls are open and their wares are on display. In 1989, on my first visit to Paris, the stalls sold prints and old books. Now they sell mass produced tin trays, keychains and other tourist mementoes. The more serious among them still sell old maps, books and posters from the Belle Epoque, clever prints and perhaps the real deal. Charming and popular french art prints and gorgeous postcards line the sidewalks, tempting you to splurge on one more piece of ” typically Paris”.

We walk across to the Ile de la Cite, and wander down side streets to find the original Berthillon’s, probably the best ice cream in Paris. We are not disappointed. The streets all have curious  little shops and cafes, but the ile is more residential than touristy.

We walk further down to find the Bridge of Locks. The chain link sides of this tiny old bridge are weighed down by hundreds of thousands of locks, marked with the initials of couples who hope to belong to each other eternally. Rumour has it, the Paris Municipality removes these locks every once in a while if it is still on the links, and not reclaimed by the hawker who sells it to you in the first place. Still, one for love, and our shiny red lock is on the fence with our initials, RD.

People watching is the most fun thing to do in Paris. There are loads of noisy, happy tourists all over the place, and they differ from the locals in language and face and dress. There are the locals who cater to tourists and are friendlier than average, even speaking in english. Then there are the local foreigners, the Algerians and Tunisians and Asians who have made Paris their home. This melting pot of food and language comes together in tiny shops selling halwa and baklava, and the best Vietnamese food I have eaten.

The French-French walk around in high heels and red lipstick, in black, effortlessly chic and elegant. The men just have an air of je ne sais quoi: they are just perfectly rumpled and low key and so Paris in their casual pants and elegant shirts and jackets. I think Parisians are just born chic from head to toe. Whether it is a store window or a restaurant frill curtain, everything is charming and quaint without the hipster vibe of Amsterdam or the Merry Old England mood of London. There will be flowers, there will be art and there will be something grand and historic that is taken in stride and never amplified. It just IS, and don’t the citizens know it!

Personal Stories from Shakespeare and Company, Paris’s Beloved English-Language Bookstore

https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/history

References:

books by John Baxter on Paris and France ( food, history, people and places)

Midnight in Paris, that utterly charming film by Woody Allen

Moveable Feast- Earnest Hemingway on Paris

Emily in Paris, OTT

Amelie the movie, the cult classic