Memories on Paris Metro Line 11

During the days in Paris, I took the 11 line a couple of times. It goes through the Marais, which is why I took it, to get to Rambateu, but the reason I remember it especially is that it has a stop called Telegraph. And Telegraph is near the rue du Borrego, and that's where, back in the day, Susan Dawn lived, in a one-room apartment in a huge modern block of flats overlooking a courtyard. She had garden furniture in the room (which was nomad-style at the time) and the bed was on the floor (ditto) opposite the large window.

How do I know the geography of her flat? I have mentioned that I was once a Nine. You may rightly be sceptical. So hear this. Before the Eurostar, to get to Paris, we took a train to Dover, a ferry to Calais and a train to Paris. That's what I did one week. I was drinking then, so I made my way to the buffet car and found myself talking to a middle-aged wiry American of dubious abode and solvency, and a very attractive blond English girl about my age. I have no idea what we talked about, though I do remember the train made an odd noise that suggested something had fallen off, and stopped for a while in the middle of nowhere. By the time we reached Paris, I had Susan's number and the promise of a date if I called. Yes, I was That Guy. Not often, but I had my moments.

I don't remember where I was staying, though I think it was somewhere in the 9th. I may have spent the first night in the hotel, but I didn't spend the second, or the third there. One morning I went out for croissants and cigarettes, and I'm not sure if it was the two croissant and pain au chocolate that raised eyebrows, or my choice of cigarettes, which was Boyard. (Boyard make Gitanes taste like Silk Cut). Ah, those were the 80's! Susan made the rent as a tour operator contact - the person who meets you within a day or so of arriving, talks about the location, books any outings and gives you a free drink on the hotel? That was Susan. Minus the carte de sejours, which meant she was off the books. She had a pretty spectacular figure and by today's standards was a bit messed up. Given that she was a 70's teenager like me, that made her ordinary. We spent the free part of her day wandering around Paris, had supper in Montmartre, where frankly the food was as awful as the location was allegedly picturesque. We always took taxis back to her place - she had this formula to describe her address "(something) rue du Borrego, c'est pres de la Metro Telegraph (and something else)". Somewhere along the line we drank a rose Cote de Provence, a wine which has never tasted quite as good as it did then.

I went back out to Paris for a weekend a few weeks later, through Charles de Gaulle, and we had supper Friday on the Left Bank and stayed at her place. I can't remember what we did Saturday night, but I'm pretty sure we went out. Sunday was lunch and flying back. It went okay as I recall.

We met in London that November and it was the disaster that every movie ever says it will be. We saw a play. The weather was cold. Very cold. No connection, no romance, no sex when she stayed over at my place, and looking back on that attic flat in Wimbledon, I don't blame her. That was that.

And that's the bit of my past I left on the 11 Line - a bit you will notice I remember in some detail. I don't reminisce about it every time I travel on it, but I did this time.

Audrey Runs In Paris

"Audrey runs in Paris" was the slogan on the back of a woman's black tee-shirt. We were boarding the 8 line metro at Bastille. It was so early, the only people out were going somewhere for their morning run.

"Audrey". It's an interesting girl's name: classic without having overtones of social class, rare but not unusual. You've heard the name more often than you've met girls called Audrey, because you've seen the poster for Breakfast At Tiffanies so many times. Audrey Hepburn was nothing like the characters she played but made you believe she was. It's a brave parent who christens their daughter Audrey. An Audrey is going to be good at her job and responsible without being serious, with a suggestion that she might just be a little more fun than the Fun Girl in the next booth.

"Runs". Not walk, stroll, daydream, swim, take taxis or buses. Not hide, work, play, party or get stoned. She might do all those things, but what she wants you to know about her is that she runs. Exercises, glides over the pavement in her Nikes, sweats lightly and politely, and she runs somewhere particular, that she needs to take the 8 line to get to.

"In Paris". She's an American in Paris. She runs in Paris, and you are just visiting. She runs here, so she works and lives here. She's on the metro in the east, so she lives in one of the arondissements, not in the banlieues. Maybe she works in banking, or fashion, or perhaps as for one of the French companies that own the bits of the UK that the Spanish don't own.

"Runs in Paris". She runs in Paris - and Paris is not where people go to run. They go to shop, to look at the art, to bathe in the atmosphere, to listen to the organ recital Sunday at Saint Sulpice, to walk by the Seine, to walk in the parks and stroll round the markets, to sit in the sidewalk cafes and eat in the restaurants. But Audrey runs in Paris. Audrey does unconventional things, and running Paris is one of them. Perhaps she dances to drum-and-bass, and is into Wittgenstein, and white fish recipies, and plays Earl Hines and Art Tatum CD's in her flat, and only watches Jacques Rivette movies on her iPad.

One day she will know it's time to go back to the States, and then Audrey will run in Central Park when she does, but until then, "Audrey runs in Paris".

Six Days In France: An Afternoon in the Parc du Buttes-Chaumont

Cineastes will know this as the park where Eric Rohmer sets the second act of The Aviator's Wife, when Anne-Laure Meury upstages everyone, on- or off-screen in the film. I've wanted to go there since forever but never got round to it.

You can take the 7 line to Botzaris and appear right at the corner, but I took the 11 line and got off at Place des Fetes. Take the escalator to street level and, on a Sunday, you will emerge into a busy local market. The area is working-class and the market fits it: I had a goat's cheese and salmon crepe from a stand there and didn't feel hungry for the rest of the day. Walk down the Rue du Crimee to the park.

I think there's a loi de 25 juillet 1856 that requires all the residents of the nineteenth to spend at least an hour in the Parc when the temperature is above 70F - I imagine town hall employees banging on apartment doors saying "Au Parc Messieur, Medames!. The last shot is outside the park, it's the Petite Ceinture, an abandoned equivalent of the Circle Line.

And so my time in fairy-land ended. The difference between this and the train out to Charles de Gaulle could not be greater. Or the cab ride from Terminal Four to my house. Or the next day at work. People wisely left me alone.

Six Days in France: On The Rue des Archives I Stopped and Wept

There are four places in the world I want to live: the Centrum in Amsterdam, the East Village in Manhatten, Soho in London and the Marais in Paris. Don't misunderstand me: if you would like to give me the keys to your flat in St Germain, or Kensington, or the Upper East Side, I'll move my books and CD's in tomorrow. But those are the places where I would spend my own money to live.

And when I am where I want to be and brought back to myself, I am brought face-to-face with the truth that I am not living the life I would like to lead in any of the places I would like to lead it. This is something I know, but rarely feel. Walking through the Marais that Sunday, I felt it. And I did what any decent, feeling person would do: I cried for the things that I have missed, and not been brave enough, or hard-working enough, or lucky enough, or talented enough, or courageous enough, or connected enough, or wealthy enough, or foolhardy enough, or sober enough, or clear-headed enough, to have tried for.

The rules changed during my lifetime. It turns out that to be my age and employed in a proper full-time job is not, after all, to be taken for granted. I have survived five or so years of unemployment in the last two decades, sunk into alcoholism in my thirties and spent eighteen years in recovery, have had and lost a long-term relationship, gained enough weight to have been diagnosed with so-called "type two diabetes" and then lost enough and become fit enough to be passed more or less flawless in my medicals, and I am still learning abstract mathematics and reading philosophy. It is also a life with little rest or ease. Even my sleep is filled with detailed, busy dreams. Sometimes tears are a relief. A relief from the endless effort of pretence, of being thankful for what I've got, of living in the moment, of resisting the temptation to turn round and quit everything, of showing up every freaking day.

And that's why, on the Rue des Archives, I stopped and wept. Because it was beautiful, because I was tired, and because I could afford for a few moments to feel honestly.

Six Days In France: Marche des Enfants Rouge, Sunday Morning

I arrived in Paris by sleeper at 07:00 on Sunday, showered and changed in the Gare d'Austerlitz, and had breakfast at 07:30 (!) in a cafe across the road as dawn broke. There was a young man tapping on his Macbook, a BoBo couple with huge backpacks looking at train timetables and waiting for friends to collect them, and a couple of locals. All of us had the coffee-juice-croissant-bread-and-jam breakfast. Which in those circumstances is perfect.

My timetable included a visit to the Marche des Enfants Rouge and the morning organ recital at Saint Sulpice. You could walk right past this little market on the Rue de Bretagne (Metro Filles de Calvaire) in the Marais. The entrance is on a section of road filled with butchers, greengrocers, mini-supermarkets, bakers, a fantastic patissiere - and at 09:00 on a Sunday morning all of them are open for business. Even at 09:00 the Caribbean and other exotica stands are cooking up their various stews, soups and meats, while I'm guessing the crowds don't arrive until about 10:30.

When you go, there's a cafe on the right-hand side, that I'm sitting outside in the third photo down, go get your morning coffee and croissant / bread basket there rather than the cafes on the street. I had a chocolate chaud, with sugar. I needed it. I was slightly out of sorts for that hour or so, as the next post will explain.

Six Days In France: An Afternoon's Stroll Through Paris

I arrived at Charles de Gaulle about 13:00, thanks to delays at Heathrow, and took the train to the Gare du Nord, and the 5 line to Gare d'Austerlitz - the minor miracle being my use of the machines to buy a carnet for the Metro. I left my bag in the Consigne at Austerlitz, where I would be catching the 23:15 sleeper to Biarritz, and headed into Paris.

First stop, a visual rest from the, err, urban experience of the railway trip. A walk through the Jardin des Plantes, which is about a hundred metres from Austerlitz.

After a quick omlette in sight of a closed (Tuesday!) Centre Pompidou, I wandered into the Square de la Tour St Jacques, where I don't think I've wandered before.

The whole of Europe was having a September heatwave, and under those circumstances it is compulsory for Parisians to have picnics in the park. Besides, they have to got be outside to smoke. Smoking is still big in France. They have traditional values there. My destination was the restaurant Le Telegraph which I'd booked for 19:30 on the internet on Sunday. So I did what everyone has to do on a sunny late afternoon...

... I visited the Notre Dame and walked along the Seine. Everyone was out and drinking decorously from bottles. And smoking.

It gets no more laid-back romantic than this. Well, okay, the Nikki de Saint-Phalle statue in the Caisse de Depots may not be romantic, but it's a neat little piece. The staff at le Telegraph couldn't have been more charming, the restaurant was almost full by half-past eight, mostly of family groups, and the food was good. Ten years ago I would have said it was wonderful, but London has moved on now, and I've got used to that level of cooking. I spent the best part of an hour in a sidewalk cafe just up the road, before heading back to the Rue du Bac Metro and so to the train at Austerlitz.

Six Days in France: Padlocks on the Pont des Arts

The Pont des Arts is a wooden pedestrian bridge between the Left Bank and the Louvre. The last time I crossed it, it was a wooden bridge across the Seine. Now look...

The idea is that you get married in an exotic city famous for l'amour and proclaim your undying love by locking a padlock on a bridge. It's done in many other places, including Luzkhov Bridge, Moscow, the Ponte Vecchio, Florence, and has been going on in southern Hungary (!) since the 1980's. The first padlocks appeared on the Pont des Arts in 2008. In 2010 the Socialist Hotel de Ville de Paris made a noise about removing the locks, but that hasn't happened yet.

Well, who cares. The light was perfect and the images are great. Someone with a good camera should do a book on the cadena's d'amour.