Day 32: Paris: Didier's Paris

June 20, 2012

Yesterday we hit the main sights of Paris by taking the tourist bus around, then getting off and walking much of the same circuit. That was great, but today we had access to our friend Didier, a real Parisien, to take us into town.

Although I am calling this "Didier's Paris", it does not exactly represent Didier's own favourite haunts, but rather his take on what would be good to show us. Where we went was still to favourites of his, but with his idea of what we would like to see still a governing factor.

Before we could get to any cool stuff we had to drive into the city. In a real sense this is also Didier's Paris. It's a Paris that is separate from the outdoor cafes and lively sidewalks, even though it uses many of the same streets. Being in a car we have to change a bit our assessment of Paris as a calm traffic place. We witnessed so many near misses, so much of motorcyclists weaving in and out, so much cutting each other off, that we have to admit it is a bit of a zoo. On the other hand, we saw in Didier and the other drivers the saving grace. That is, the willingness to give way when clearly out maneuvered, and to do this with good grace and humour (usually). If it were not for this, it would be bumper car mayhem out there.

Paris is different from behind the wheel. Even Didier wants to get away from the Arc de Triomphe quickly, before he gets mashed in the six lane roundabout with thirteen exits.

Narrow streets may mean you are going nowhere for a while.

Didier's first choice of a place to go to was Montmartre. This is a hill that has the Sacre Coeur basilica on top of it, plus narrow streets filled with cafes, art galleries, and sidewalk artists.

If you zoom in on this detail from atop Sacre Coeur you will see the heart shining through.

The tourists are a bit rampant at Montmartre, but actually they add to the atmosphere. I found the artists interesting to look at and some of the actual work was interesting but I am sure not "great". Mostly the place is picturesque, with a great photo at every turn. Take a walk with us:

The artist looks really authentic because he is.

Meals on this menu are in the 30 to 60 euro range per person.

Dali is one of several famous artists that had studios here. They include Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso.

Didier says this was one of Joni's favourite galleries while she was here.

Our next move was to cut across town a bit, heading east toward the Pere Lachaise cemetary. The cemetary was Didier's choice for all the famous people's graves it contains. But it had other, even more interesting things about it.

Meanwhile, we were passing in the car through some areas where the tourists are thinner and life is a little raweer. There has been a lot of north African immigration to Paris, and naturally there are neighbourhoods were the people have clustered. This is what I saw from the car window:

Near the cemetary, really our next project was to find some food. Though this was just a random couple of blocks in Paris, yet we had a choice of Korean, Indian, Italian, and other restaurants. Instead we decided to have "French" food, which means just sitting at any cafe.

We choose a cafe near the Pere Lachaise cemetary

The Grampies are actually at a Paris cafe!

Our waiter was quite scandalized because I asked for my steak to be "well done". Seriously, people all around me were eating steak Tatare - which is raw ground beef, so my order was quite far out. The waiter reluctantly brought my steak and was interested to see if I would actually eat such a thing. I did!

At the end of the meal, Didier ordered "Cafe Gourmand". The waiter then said to me the French equivalent of "I suppose you will want Cafe Americain". What I wanted was a plain old coffee, and I supposed from his tone that this would be it, so I said yes.

I would say the coffee in the "gourmand" was on the turkish side, while mine was espresso. I don't think any cafe in France actually has "plain old" coffee!

Our waiter, Chokri, had a Moroccan background.

Even the pigeons in Paris have good bread.

Next on the list was the cemetary. This is one like we have never seen before. Not only is it huge and crisscrossed by lanes with leafy trees, but it has little or nothing on the headstone and hole in the ground model. Plus, many of the richest and most famous are to be found here.

Dodie and Didier check out the list of famous graves at the Pere Lachaise cemetary

The cemetary is acres of quiet tree lined walkway

All graves are tombs, many that you can step into

This one is seriously bricked in. Some others have angels or some other figures guarding the doorway.

School kids on assignment. They had to find certain tombs. Didier pulled out his smartphone and helped them out.

More of the sort of standard tomb design

Space is at a premium. Some tombs have been endowed to be here forever. Others are at risk of being removed and replaced.

This string of memorials feature ghostly designs and are for various concentration camps. I did not take close ups. Too upsetting.

Oscar Wilde's tomb is surrounded by plexiglass

The glass is completely covered by messages of appreciation

Young girls, strangely attracted to the Wilde tomb. We believe Jim Morrison is here as well.

Finally leaving the cemetary, we made a run to a train station to buy tickets for Nantes tomorrow. As usual, there was a long line. However this time we were given no grief about bikes or luggage. Maybe they are holding that in reserve!

Rue de Rivoli runs just back of the Louvre, parallel to the Seine. Didier took us down it in the car, though it would have been lots of fun to walk had we had time. It was full of people come out on this last evening of Spring and with the sun shining, to walk the shopping area:

We naturally continue to see huge drifts of scooters and motorcycles, the dominant non car culture here. Bicycles are quite rare. But have a look at these: