Barbara Joy Cooley's Paris Journal

Paris Journal 2014 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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Paris may be in better shape for walking than she’s ever been before.

She started on the Les Berges de Seine regime a few years ago, and now she’s fit as a fiddle. Or perhaps, a violin. Make that an entire string section.

I’m not talking about her beach thing that she does in July-August every summer. This Berges de Seine regime is something she keeps up year round, and it extends far beyond the “Paris Plages” beach thing.

She used to do it only on Sundays; walking the Berges de Seine was a Sunday activity – sort of like those “weekend warriors” who only play touch football on Saturday or Sunday.

Now, Paris is doing the Berges thing every day.

People make the city, and people are out walking in large numbers along the Paris river banks, especially since the Berges de Seine dream of the Delanoe administration has become a reality.

The reality continues, and improves, in the current mayoral administration. Anne Hidalgo is now the mayor, and she’s continuing the great Paris pedestrianization program that Bertrand Delanoe started.

After an invigorating warm-up shopping trip to Dia, the discount grocery on our block, Tom and I were ready for the big event.

We headed for the Champ de Mars, which was made for marching. Onward, to the Musée du Quai Branly’s garden, where we met an obstacle – the garden, and museum, are closed on Monday. No matter – we just walked around the eastern side of the building, where its driveway goes all the way through from the rue de l’Université to the Quai Branly.

We rigorously pushed the pedestrian crossing buttons and pressed onward, down the ramp still called the Voie Express Rive Gauche even though it is no longer an expressway.

This “expressway” is now made for walking. So many pedestrians populate it from curb to curb that I would discourage bicyclists from using it during the daytime and early evening. Very early morning might be navigable for cyclists.

Still, some cyclists try to negotiate their way, dinging their bells and saying their prayers.

At the Port du Gros Caillou we left the pavement and stepped onto the floating Archipelago, which is really three connected islands. One’s for the birds, one is for the prairie, and one is an orchard.

Yesterday, the greenhouse on the first island had a display of expository plaques, each one describing a type of fish that lives in the Seine. As you know from reading about my restaurant adventures, I do love fish. I photographed each plaque so I could sit down and read about the fish later.

I often use the camera this way – to take notes, visually. Recently, I read a newspaper column in which the author claimed that people are so preoccupied with recording their surroundings using digital photos or videos that they don’t see or experience their surroundings.

I could not disagree more. When I am walking with a camera in my hands, I am much more keenly aware of what I am seeing. My brain is looking at all the possible images. Later, when I’m processing my photos (typically the next morning), I see things in some images that I never would have noticed in passing by.

As we walked on through the “islands,” which are really flat barges, we could feel the motion of the water under our feet. We admired the maturing vegetation as we walked by the wooden lounge chairs constructed for tired pedestrians.

All along the Berges, there are many places to sit. Most of them are wooden beams stacked in interesting ways, their flat surfaces offering repose to weary walkers.

A non-floating orchard offered shady lanes for us to walk through as we continued eastward along the riverbank. Pears, plums, apples, peaches, almonds, quince, and pomegranates grow in wooden planters along with mint, sage, and other herbs. Bees buzz about, doing their important work.

The next attraction is a Zen platform – an ideal place for meditation. Then there are climbing walls for kids, table after table for playing all sorts of games, from Chinese checkers to chess to backgammon, a silly speed badminton game, and so much more.

Next up was a stretch that offered a number of outdoor eating/drinking venues. We noticed that Faust, the restaurant that was supposed to open in the left bank foot of the Pont Alexandre III still has not opened. Oh well.

Under the Concorde bridge, a weird outdoor disco had been set up, complete with mirrored walls and a mirrored ball dangling overhead. The plaques indicated that you could use your Bluetooth feature on your phone or other device and play your music over its sound system, which was making great use of the acoustics under the bridge.

We just boogied on through. On our right, the cool glass-and-wood cabanas that you can book/rent by the hour (well, by the hour-and-a-half) for relaxation purposes dotted the curbside. You can relax, nap, play cards, etc., but you may not drink alcohol there.

Between the Musée d’Orsay and the river is the Emmarchement – wide bleachers made for sitting and gazing out over the Seine. Up to 600 people can sit there and contemplate life at any given time.

Near the Emmarchement, we looked at a special photography exhibition that had been set up and sponsored by Olympus, the camera people. It featured adorable old photos of celebrities enjoying Paris back in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and even the 1980s.

Then we turned back, and experienced it all again as we slowly returned to the Champ de Mars where we sat on a park bench, watching pigeons and people for a little while.

Dinnertime approached. We stopped at the apartment to freshen up, and then set out on foot once again, to the rue Saint Charles, just south of the rue de la Convention.

I was in the mood for North African food and décor, because I’d been reading The Time in Between, by Maria Dueñas (a great book that I highly recommend). I reserved a table for us at Restaurant Tipaza (not to be confused with Le Tipaza on the avenue Emile Zola).

Tom ordered lamb chops – for the fourth night in a row! I ordered the Tagine Dolma aux fruits secs, flambé a l’alcool de figues – a specialty of the house.

The server brought it out and lit it up. The flames died quickly, and then he presented it to me. Beautiful! And delicious. The tagine came with a separate pot of semolina which was light and fluffy – really nice.

Tom ordered fries with his grilled lamb chops. I tasted one. It was industrial – not handcut.

Moral of the story is order the North African food at this North African resto. North African restaurants are great at grilled meats; Tom’s lambchops were tasty.

We each ordered the Tarte Berbère for dessert. This specialty is basically an apple tart with raisons and cinnamon. It was delicious! For some reason, each tart came with one of those paper cocktail umbrellas as decoration. Go figure.

As we began to wander home, I suggested we take the rue de la Convention to the avenue Félix Faure, just so we’d go back a different way than the way we came. The wisdom of my suggestion became more apparent to us as we re-discovered the forgotten Monoprix on rue de la Convention. I still had a few minutes before the store closed – at last, I could buy some more V8 juice! (Dia doesn’t have V8.)

We joined the last minute shoppers just before the security guard started to refuse entrance to others. Voila, there was the V8, on sale! Buy one, get 50 percent off the second one!

That good value reminded me of Dia, where we’d shopped earlier in the day. A customer there was grumbling out loud about how difficult it was to find things in that Dia. She then turned to me and said something in such rapidfire French that I didn’t understand her. Following is a translation of the conversation we had, in French:

Me (smiling): “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

She: “It is impossible to find anything here. This place is disorganized. Where are you from?”

Me: “The U.S. I come from Florida.”

She: “Where??? I just met someone from Massachusetts today.”

Me: “I come from Florida.”

She: “Oh yes, Florida. And you come to Paris for ???????”

Me: “I love Paris.”

She: “Me, I do not. I have been trying to get out of Paris for ten years.”

Me: “I really do love Paris.”

She: “So does that woman from Massachusetts. Oh well. I’m tired of Paris. But the Americans, they love Paris.” She began to continue her trek up the aisle.

Me: “Have a good day, madame.”

She: “You, too. Have a good day.” Her smile showed her sincerity.

That’s exactly what we did. We had a good day.

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