Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Last Sunday, before we began
the four evenings of laundry and housecleaning at the apartment in the 6th,
we stopped in the Hotel Recamier which backs up to the apartment building. The hotel has been undergoing
renovation for eight months. The noise
during the day has been bothersome.
But 15 days ago, the renovation was
completed and the hotel was opened for business again. When we entered the hotel, we
were warmly welcomed by the young woman sitting at the manager’s desk and by
Bernard, a hotel staffer. We explained
that we were curious about the renovation because we have often recommended
this hotel to friends in the past. Nobody seemed to be staying at
the hotel at that moment. I think the
young woman and Bernard were bored, and thus happy to see us. The young woman asked Bernard to show us
each type of room, and he was pleased to do so. The rates at Hotel Recamier were once a bargain,
considering its glorious location off of a peaceful corner of the Place Saint
Sulpice. It was a two-star hotel
then. Now it has four stars. We began with a look at the
breakfast room. There is no lobby or
lounge area in the hotel, so the breakfast room must suffice. It is now way too crowded with tables and
chairs, including some modern armchairs.
With some difficulty, I made my way across the room to the tiny
garden. Nothing much has been done
with the garden. It costs 18 euros to have your
breakfast in the breakfast room or garden. We went to examine what is now
the least expensive type of room, the chambre
classique. In high season
(beginning in September), it will cost 250 euros per night. Right now, until August 31, the cost is 190
euros. Nothing changed about the room
size. It is still a very small room, yet
miraculously somebody squeezed a king-size bed into it. The room has been very tastefully
redecorated. The bathroom has been very
nicely redone, but is still small. The next room up the scale is
the chambre tradition. It is a little bigger, and so is its nicely
redone marble bathroom with shower. It
costs 210 euros per night now, and will be 280 euros per night. The chambre de luxe is starting to look like a comfortably sized
room. It has a comfortably sized
bathroom, too, with a very nice shower.
All the decorating is quite good.
This room will cost 320 euros per night, and the special rate now till
the end of the month is 240 euros. The chambre club is the best room, and it is elegant. The bathroom has a wonderful soaking
tub. The rate is 420 euros per night,
and now you can get it for the “bargain rate” of 330 euros. You can even get a chambre de luxe plus a
chambre club together, and there is a door in the hallway which can be
closed to make these two rooms into a sort-of spacious suite. The best rooms on the front of
the hotel offer a view of the Place and Église Saint Sulpice. If you are as high as the sixth floor, you
can also see a bit of the Eiffel Tower. Tom and I both doubt that the
renovated Hotel Recamier will succeed.
For the prices they want to charge, you can do much better in Paris. About that Eiffel Tower which
can be glimpsed from the top of the hotel, some controversial plans have
emerged. Rachida Dati, the mayor of
the 7th arrondissement where the Tower is located, is very upset
about these plans. The headline in the
French paper says, “Rachida Dati:
Don’t touch my Eiffel Tower!” According to the article, since
the quality of reception at the Tower – with the interminable waiting lines –
is the subject of much criticism, the business that runs the Tower has
decided to do something about it. Beginning in 2010, a temporary
reception building will stand under the tower for five years. Somehow, this is supposed to “fluidify” the
access to the Tower. Rachida Dati has declared war
against the project because it will muck up the mythical view through the
Champ de Mars along the axis of the École Militaire to the Trocadero. The article claims that the
word “war” is not too strong. On the
construction permit application, Mayor Dati has given an unfavorable
opinion. On July 29, she sent a letter
to Paris Mayor Delanoe and to all residents of the 7th
arrondissement judging the project to be “entirely unacceptable.” The same day, she met with Delanoe’s
deputy in charge of tourism as well as the president of the company that runs
the Tower, Jean-Bernard Bros, for an “interview.” “Rachida Dati was very worked
up,” assured one of her friends. “As
the mayor of the 7th, she sits on the administrative council for
the Eiffel Tower. And somehow, nobody
spoke to her about this project!” Blamed by Dati, Bros navigates
between appeasement and firmness. “She
was agitated enough right at the beginning of the meeting. In fact, she didn’t even seem to be aware
of the problems of reception at the tower.
She just kept repeating incessantly ‘the inhabitants of the 7th
are going to find that frightful!’ The
ediface hides a little of the perspective, but not the monument. After all, it is only for five years.” Filed with the Paris city hall
in the Spring, the construction permit application will be validated before
the beginning of 2010. According to
Bros, the required agreement of the Architect for Buildings of France has
been obtained, and the project meets the guidelines of the Ministry of
Culture. Nothing requires Paris city
hall to take into account the opinion of Rachida Dati, mayor of the 7th. It doesn’t matter. “She will be on its case,” repeats one of
her entourage. The temporary reception building
constitutes a part of the transition from now until 2016 when the work on the
elevators should be finished. Then the
system for receiving visitors will be reviewed. Two possibilities are foreseen. The most probable will be that
some little booths at the base of the pilings (the four ‘feet’ of the Tower)
will permit the breaking up of the long lines into several shorter lines. The other scenario is more costly. It entails a ‘hidden’ underground reception
area like that at the Louvre. In each
case, nothing will begin to be constructed until 2014. After walking over to the
sixth, finishing the household chores there, and walking all the way back, we
dined at La Gitane again last night (not far from the Eiffel Tower). We find this restaurant to be a very
welcoming place, almost entirely patronized by locals. Tom and I each had the dorade royale, a very fine whole fish, served with a big pile of
spinach and a little pot of fine lemon beurre
blanc sauce which I applied to both the fish and the spinach. Tom had the dessert of the day, a croustillant des fruits rouges, which
was delicious. The “croustillant” part
was a homemade praline. Yum. |
Thursday, August 13, 2009
A cute and very tiny Fiat parked in front of the Ecole
Militaire on the avenue de la Motte-Picquet.
Horses waiting to cross the avenue de la Motte-Picquet
in front of the École Militaire.
Charming hotel sign on the avenue de la Motte-Picquet. Below, the squirrel mascot of the savings bank, Caisse d’Epargne,
is being used to promote the bank’s sponsorship of La Parisienne, a race for
women runners that takes place a month from now. Most advertising for this bank now seems to
be focused on attracting female clients.
Perhaps they save more?
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