Friday 6th August
We’re on our way - no more stopping for Chateaux or coffee breaks - Paris is calling us loud and clear. Even the car seems to be surging forward as if impatient to end its journey. Phillipa sleeps, but I count down the kilometres - 187 - 132- now we’re under a hundred. We wake Phillipa up just outside Fontainebleau, barely 60 kms from Paris. The last time we were here was in 2005 when the car broke down on our way back to Paris and even though the Palace was just around the corner from the garage where I plaintively declared “La voiture est tres mal, m’sieur - peut-etre elle est morte.”, I never got to see it.
There is not a lot to excite anyone in this town EXCEPT the palace, and that is so over the top that you can instantly understand why the peasants revolted at the profligacy of the aristocrats. It is unimaginably HUGE and splendid. It makes Buckingham Palace look like a Frankston bungalow. Impossible to see it all in the time we have - and we’re hankering for Paris - but the idea that royalty used this as a hunting lodge, while peasants starved, means that there is probably a bloody good soap to be written set in 17th century France. http://www.musee-chateau-fontainebleau.fr/
I’m too excited to eat but Tony and Phillipa have a sandwich and I settle for a coffee. Come ON….Paris is so close I can almost smell and taste her.
Fussy Felicity is brought out of her box and Tony puts in the address and tells her to do her stuff. And she does…brilliantly. An hour earlier than expected she takes us off the periphique and directly to our apartment in Le Marais - just 100 meteres or so from the Seine and the Ile St Louis. We are in Paris, in Le Marais, Le 4th Arondissement…..but we’re not in our apartment! The code they have given us doesn’t work on the keypad and we can’t get in. What’s more the rental company isn’t answering their phone. I stay with the car - which is illegally parked - but Tony and Philly are stumped, and can’t leave the luggage. I’m annoyed…I don’t want any part of this Paris trip spoiled by ANYTHING. I call the emergency number and I’m welcomed by a rather jolly sounding young Englishman who is horrified that they have somehow screwed up. With ten minutes we have the right code and we’re able to get through the front door which is so heavy it takes 2 people to open it - and then through the barred gate which looks the way the barred gates in Prisoner SHOULD have looked. I’m very nervous. The hallway is very dark and the old stone spiral staircase is worn from more than 300 years of constant use. This isn’t what I imagined. There’s scarcely room to bring the cases up. Phillipa is looking very uncomfortable. But then we open the door….et Voila! The Marais delight IS a delight. It is everything the website promised - and more. http://www.alacarte-paris-apartments.com/Marais-Delight.html
There is a huge bowl of fresh fruit and a bottle of wine on the table as a welcoming gift. There’s cable TV ( all dubbed in French but hey….) and free wifi. There’s a stunning bathroom and a very high quality bed. Best of all there are TWO long French window which we instantly open to let Paris in. Phillipa is on the net contacting her friends immediately and Tony takes the car back to Gare de Lyon - which is only a short walk back while Philly and get very excited over how gorgeous this little place is. And we have two whole weeks to enjoy living here. Tony returns, looking tired, but leaving the car was painless and he loved the walk back. He’s bought bread and milk and we decide that and the olives and pate we’ve had in a cold pack will do us for dinner. Phillipa leaves to catch a cab and we’re faced with our first drama. A middleaged black Parisien man touches her - and Tony sees it and goes bananas - screaming at the man who has “assaulted” his daughter. Within 10 seconds the man is asking Tony to come down into the street so he can kill him - with Tony threatening police action and yelling…”je suis her pere!” I love this silly man who is so protective of his grown child. So I lean out and join in “je suis sa mere.” And it’s amazing how the phrase Fuck Off! Is understood in any language. He gives up, Pip gets her cab - and we are left alone. Smiling we fall on the bed and fall asleep. When we awake it is after 6pm and we walk a little to get our bearings. This is our fourth trip to Paris together but we have also been many times when we were single. Always we have stayed on the left bank in St Germain des Pres….but it’s become more and more touristy and far more expensive in the past few years. This time the budget wouldn’t stretch that far as the trip has been so long. On our first trip we stayed at the hotel where Miles Davis stayed in 1945...it’s over a market and so small the suitcases had to stay in the hall. But we loved it - Paris plumbing and all. For Tony it was like staying in a shrine….just magic. I wonder how this chic and ultra modern studio will stack up. At least it’s not a hotel room where you have to get out after breakfast. We can do our own thing in our own time. How magic. We are above a sushi restaurant which is closed “pour vacances” but le Rue Francois Miron is full of typical Parisien cafes and bistros, some quite renowned - and there’s a top class Boulangerie and a little supermarket nearby. We know this time will be special - not least because it is just the two of us and we are sorely in need of “together” time. It’s not that Tony inviting relatives to share this trip with us was wrong….it’s just that there were too many for too long. Now it’s just us - and, quite honestly, that’s the way we prefer it. It’s wonderful to eat quietly together and to curl up in a really great bed and sleep in each other’s arms.
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