From Parisiis to Paris

Dated: Late June, 2006!
Caution: Don't get intimidated by the French phrases; blogging about the French capital well deserveth the French fantasies :)

Now don't take me to be a world class historian and swear by every piece of informative tidbit I provide, read it, savor it, and let it whet your appetite to read more. Yes, some of it is well influenced by the travel books we followed to make us seasoned travelers, which we definitely are! By the way, if you do get a lot out of your readings, come, share it with me over a steaming cup of café o lait!

So, here we go: The Paris conquered by the Romans in 55 BC was a small flood-prone fishing village on Ile de la Cité, inhabited then by a Parisii tribe. Today, Ile de la Cité and Ile St. Louis, are two islands on the Seine river and almost centrally located in Paris, where Parisians and wide-eyed tourists stroll arm in arm. As they stroll, they do unfurl noveau vistas along nooks and niches of this cute, historic town of about 2 million. Well! I would say touring Paris is a lot like walking down the tracks of history, at times you feel Parisians are so engrossed in their history that they've almost forgotten it's the 21st century, almost! For, when you "pace" across the city, as comfy as ever, getting on and off the RATP and RER trains, you do think again! The metro system is amazingly good, in fact I am tempted to say, it's the best laid out intercity train system I have ever seen. The RATP maps for one are amazingly easy to read, thanks to the Latin script, check out the "Metro map" and remember to note the "track number" and the "destination station", both; e.g., to go from Concorde to Bastille, you gotta take "line 1" toward "Château de Vincennes", and not toward "La Défense", unless you have an unlimited day pass and want to be going round and round the merry-go-round, with no time constraints; or else, you are bored of history and are on the look-out for modernity! Well then, La Défense, Paris' skyscraper district on the Seine, and 3 km west of the 17th arrondissement, is replete with modern architecture! Go for it!!

Getting back on our quest for historic panels and marvels, we started off our Paris itinerary, with an evening cruise along the Seine on Captaine Francaise, and had thirty second glimpses of the Louvre and Eiffel and the Statue of Liberty, yes, the Statue of Liberty! Few people know that a scaled down Statue of Liberty, stands on an isle in the west of Paris, along the Seine, and was donated to the city by the American community in Paris, in 1885. The next day, we started off roving across the historic town, self-guided, along inland roads and (metro) tracks of Paris, starting off with Bastille, specifically place de la Bastille.

Originally built as a medieval fortress, the Bastille eventually came to be used as a state prison. Political prisoners were often held there, as were citizens detained by the authorities for trial. Some prisoners were held on the direct order of the king, from which there was no appeal. Although by the late 18th century it was little used and was scheduled to be demolished, the Bastille had come to be associated in the minds of the people with the harsh rule of the Bourbon monarchy. During the unrest of 1789, on July 14, an enraged mob approached the Bastille to demand the arms and ammunition stored there, and, when the force guarding the structure resisted, the attackers captured the prison, releasing the seven prisoners held there.

The fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, signaled the beginning of the French Revolution, and it thus became a symbol of the end of the ancient régime. July 14, often called la fête nationale in France, became an official holiday in 1880. From the beginning, speeches, parades, and fireworks, along with public revelry, were part of the celebration. The slogan “Vive le 14 juillet!” (“Long live the 14th of July!”) has continued to be associated with the day. The square of the Bastille (Bastille Square) was created later, in 1803. Today, the only monument still gracing the square is the 52 meters tall, Colonne de Juillet (July Column), created by d'Alavoine. The top is adorned by a winged, gilded figurine representing the Spirit of Liberty called the "Génie de la Liberté".

With the 52 meters tall monument, serving as a mere traffic circle, it was quite a disappointing start of the day; but then, thinking again, there was indeed an eerie sensation associated with the place, reminiscent of the angry mob approaching the Bastille and fuming in rage, setting ablaze the spirit of the French Revolution!

From there, we moved on to place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris. There, we explored Maison de Victor Hugo (Victor Hugo's home), home of the workaholic French author from 1832-1848, at 6 Place des Vosges, without much success! Well, if you really want to get a lot out of the musée, I would urge you to mastermind French and then visit the museum, nope! they didn't have much of a documentary or even exhibit labels for English speakers. One thing really intriguing in the museum, though, was Hugo's tall desk where he stood to write, along with woodwork and Chinese-theme panels he created for his mistress!

At a roughly five minutes walk from the place, we joined the lines at the falafel windows of L'As du Falafel, with several competing joints sitting next to one another, but we followed what our travel books told us, and had promptly served Jewish cuisine in the lively falafel joint. We then retraced our steps, satiated and smiling, to Place des Vosges, and our eyes lay feast on some beautiful, "untouchable" painting, well! maybe not untouchable for Bill Gates, ah, well! those painters are blessed with hands of gold!

One block from the square is the Musée Carnavalet (free entrée), chronicling the history of the capital. It is a treasure-trove for lovers of Paris: paintings, prints, artifacts, displays and re-creations, all housed in two magnificent mansions. Re-creations of Proust's cork-lined writing room, the apartments of the famous letter-writer-Madame de Sévigné, or the art nouveau Fouquet jewelry boutique were splendid exhibits, indeed. Though, beware, these exhibits close down for an hour or two, while the French curators and guards, laze in a summer siesta; yeah! we did go back to the museum after the lunch hour(s) to see what the travel books urged us to, and well! we weren't too unhappy, well worth the trouble in fact!

Moving on to the isles of the city of musées, we saw the Notre Dame cathedral in Ile de la Cité, where Victor Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame was based. Set behind the Ile de la Cité, is the romantic isle of Ile St-Louis, having harbored the rich and the famous, including Chopin, Chagall, and the Rothschild family. Walking through the tree-lined rues of this isle, we headed toward 19 quai de Bourbon, and felt the stinging pathos of Camille Claudel, sculptor from 1899 to 1913, having been betrayed by her lover, Auguste Rodin. We also saw the rather non-inspiring wrought-iron facade at the intersection of the quai and rue des Deux Ponts, where the mediocre café-Au Franc-Pinot sits; the wrought-iron facade being as old as the island itself! Well, the oft-felt realization that the journey is often more important than the destination itself, proves its mettle over and over again. We walked along and feasted our eyes on Sorbonne, a 13th century college of theology, one of the oldest universities in Europe and College De France with Claude Bernard's (Claude Bernard-1813-1878; France's most famous physiologist) statue heralding its facade.

With lot said and lot done, Paris looked like a city struggling between the past and the present; the challenge is to remember the past but to frisk free from the throes of the past to embrace the fascinating future, the faster you embrace it, the more fascinating you make it–but then again, is it worth the frenetic pursuit after all!