Few cities evoke the word grand with such passion as Paris. In the City of Light, the storied capital of France, history has been made. The city has been featured in countless novels, plays and movies by Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Woody Allen, among others.
Paris is home to the iconic Eiffel tower, the Louvre museum, the Notre Dame cathedral, and so much more. The River Seine runs through it. The city’s restaurants are world famous. And should you ever get tired of Paris, the Palace of Versailles is located not that far away.
This was my second visit. The weather was great, unlike the first visit when we had been rained upon. We began the tour by walking along the Champs-Elysees, sitting down for lunch at a sidewalk café, and then checking out the Arc de Triomphe.
On the second day we visited the Louvre to view its art collections. Of course, the visit would not be complete without viewing the Mona Lisa. We had been warned it is small and sure enough it was small, but the crowd viewing it was large.
In the evening, we cruised on the Seine River. The boat went past the Eiffel tower and the Notre Dame cathedral. The tower was lit up brilliantly. As the evening progressed and darkness fell, it dominated the skyline.
On the second day we visited the Louvre to view its art collections. Of course, the visit would not be complete without viewing the Mona Lisa. We had been warned it is small and sure enough it was small, but the crowd viewing it was large
On the third day we toured the city in a bus. I asked the guide if we would go past the Bastille and she said yes. At some point she said here it is. But there was nothing to see. I said I can’t see the Bastille. She smiled and said it was torn down brick-by-brick during the French Revolution which overthrew the House of Bourbon.
Images of the revolution flashed in my mind, courtesy of Hollywood. They all concluded with the royal beheadings of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. I thought of Dr. Guillotine’s invention, which supposedly killed painlessly and I thought of the plaintive closing lines of Dickens’ ‘Tale of Two Cities’.
And I thought of Napoleon, who seemed to have been the main beneficiary of the overthrow of the monarchy. His name had come up during a bus tour of Turkey two years prior. A young Frenchman was sitting next to me. I asked him if Napoleon was a hero in France. He said of course.
I said I am surprised since in the end he brought great suffering and humiliation to his nation. In the rest of the world, Bonaparte was now synonymous with an officer who wanting to mount a coup d’état. He grimaced.
I thought it best to drop the conversation and focused on the beautiful Turkish countryside on the road to Ephesus that was flashing by in the window.
On our fourth day in Paris, we went to Les Invalides to view Napoleon’s tomb. It used to be a military hospital. The entrance leads you to a courtyard where large canons are on display. Napoleon is buried at the end and lies in royal splendor in six nested coffins made of iron, lead, mahogany, ebony and red porphyry.
After his defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, he was imprisoned by the British in St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic. He died six years later. In 1840, his body was brought back and buried in Les Invalides.
Later, we went to see the Sacre-Coeur. The Basilica sits on a hill and offers great views of Paris. The highlight of its architecture is the white-domed exterior. It has a well-furnished interior, with gold mosaics and stained glass windows, and one of the world’s largest clocks.
On the last day, we saw the collections at the Musee d’Orsay in the morning. Somewhat overwhelmed with art, at one point we ventured onto the second-floor patio to take in the view of Paris. The Sacre-Coeur stood proudly in the distance.
Now it was time to head back to the hotel. We waited endlessly at the taxi stand since the French Open had diverted all the taxis. So we started to walk back to the hotel which was a few miles away. The weather was beautiful and the Seine flowed on our right. On any other day it would have felt heavenly to be there but our mind was fixated on catching our flight.
Eventually, we hailed a taxi and got to the hotel. In an hour, we were headed to the Charles de Gaulle airport. That name triggered some memories. I recalled the iconic French leader had crossed paths with Winston Churchill during WW II. The two famously did not get along. Churchill is said to have remarked, “The heaviest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine.”
The Americans found him challenging as well, since he was fiercely nationalistic. And apparently he was a challenge for the journalists. They would put questions to him during his press conferences. Regardless of what they asked, they could expect to get one of five standard answers.
The taxi dropped us off at the wrong terminal at the airport. By the time we found the right terminal, after walking for almost a mile with seven bags, our flight had left. No other flights were available.
We were advised to try our luck with the Eurostar which departed from the Gare du Nor train station. To get there, we had to take the regional train, the RER. That proved to be an adventure. Packed with rowdy teenagers and overflowing with luggage, the train took us through parts of Paris that we would never have seen.
At the Eurostar terminal, the lines were long. We had no advance bookings. And by the time we got to the ticketing agent, all seats to London were sold out. Our hearts sank. But the agent had mercy on us and offered an ingenious solution. We would buy roundtrip tickets in first which were being sold at a discount and cost less than coach. We said “merci” and were soon on our way to London in first class.
The Eurostar was super fast. Blurry images of the French countryside were flying by in the window and taking my mind back to all the incredible places we had visited. Napoleon’s tomb stood out. Clausewitz had called him the god of war and he was etched in my mind.
We arrived in London near midnight and caught the connecting flight the next morning to the States. We returned home with some grand memories.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, May 30th 2018.