Paris for a day

Paris for a day. It seemed an impossibly romantic notion. But actually you can do it for as little as £69 return on Eurostar.

 

I decided to go. I would sit at pavement cafés. I'd eat frites. I'd wear red lipstick. I might even smoke a Gauloise. Though taking up smoking was probably a step too far - even for Paris.

 

And so I found myself applying red lipstick at 5.15 one morning, layering on the mascara, tying a Liberty scarf with a 'sourire', taking the early train to St Pancras and boarding the 7.22am Eurostar to Paris.

 

10.47am. Paris. Ha!

 

I am here - an accordion plays in my head, overlaid with Edith Piaf belting out 'Non, je ne regrette rien', there are croissants and men shouting in French...

The strains of the accordion die away as I face the realisation I have no Euros and cannot buy a map, jump on the metro, take a taxi or withdraw any cash as the only cash machine in the station is out of order. And so I find myself being fleeced by the station bureau de change which charges €7 for the privilege of exchanging my pounds for euros and so my £45 becomes €37, which has to be the worst exchange rate in history. I then spend an age in the metro peering at a huge map and trying to work out how to get to Notre Dame while realising I should perhaps have done a bit more preparation than just putting on red lipstick.

 

Still, I cheer up when I come out at Cité station to find Notre Dame towering above me and a cluster of lovely flower shops. I buy an Eiffel Tower for my nephew and a 'Félicitations' card for his parents in honour of the birth of his brother, not yet 24 hours old. I go to Notre Dame, arriving during mass and take Holy Communion in French - turns out 'Amen' is the same as in English. I stare at the stained glass windows for a while and try to imagine what the jewel-like colours must have looked like to a 12th-century congregation before books and colour printing and mass produced images. I can't.

But with books on my mind I spend a very happy hour in Shakespeare and Company (37 Rue Bûcherie), the English-language bookshop founded by George Whitman in 1951, named in tribute to the original Shakespeare and Company founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, which became a meeting point for writers like Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce in the 20s and published the first copies of Joyce's 'Ulysses'. If I ever opened a bookshop, it would be a bookshop like this; tables stacked with second-hand bargains outside and in the uneven-floored winding warren of rooms inside, rickety shelves piled high to the roof. There are glass cabinets full of faded Penguin originals, library books, antique books and books that people have loved, alongside brand-spanking-new books in the front of the shop.

I buy a slender volume of Ernest Hemingway's prose sketches on Paris and 'A Moveable Feast' screams 'pretentious tourist' as I leave the shop and wander around the Left Bank. Past the Sorbonne and through the winding streets that are home to many more bookshops. I leave touristy Paris and the banks of the Seine behind as I walk through the 'rues' where people live and shop, past boulangeries, boucheries and salons de coiffeur, past French women doing their shopping and people walking their dogs.

 

I stop when I come to Place de la Contrescarpe to have lunch at La Contre (57 Rue Lacepede), which has been recommended by 'A Hedonist's Guide to Paris', my bible for the trip. (It's the perfect companion for a short stay, is handbag-sized and covers the essentials: where to eat, drink, shop and stay, with a smattering of culture.) La Contre turns out to be exactly as good as promised, a large terrace overlooking the small square gives way to a lovely old wooden 'library' with bar and dining room behind. Apart from a few tables of French men taking coffee and a lone writer tapping on his laptop, I have the place to myself and take a table by the window in the library, order onion soup, poulet suprême and frites. Hemingway lived on Place de la Contrescarpe in the 20s, he describes it for me in the first chapter of 'A Moveable Feast', which I've given up trying to hide in my newspaper. Because there's no way to hide that I'm a tourist, regardless of how much lipstick I slap on.

 

After lunch I walk down to the Jardin du Luxembourg and have a great time taking photos of it with my new camera (an Olympus SP 810UZ in case you're wondering) and try out both the watercolour and sketch effects - those poor old artists on their rickety wooden chairs really are wasting their time...

 

From here I walk all the way down Montparnasse, the centre of cultural coffee-house life in the 1920s, and through the grand military museums and monuments of Les Invalides to the Rodin Museum (77 Rue de Varenne), arriving just as it shuts. But I don't care because this means I'll have more time to wander down the Champs-Elysées and ogle the designer shops on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. But not before I've spent another half hour photographing myself under golden-coloured trees on the Esplanade des Invalides.

 

It's getting quite late as I reach the Champs-Elysées and I take some photos of the Eiffel Tower outlined in the distance against a violet sky, and then it's dark and the streaming traffic from the Arc de Triomphe makes beautiful ribbons of coloured light all along the wide boulevard. There's just time for a quick walk along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré before I have to work out how to get to Gare du Nord for my 18.43 train home. The spectacularly bad planning which has characterised the entire trip almost results in me missing it. Here's a tip, remember that Paris has the same rush-hour traffic as anywhere else at 6pm and you don't want to be sitting in it half an hour before your train leaves.

 

I've treated myself to a Standard Premier ticket on the way back which means I get a big comfy seat, dinner and a glass of wine. (Standard Premier on the way out gets you a continental breakfast.)

 

My day in Paris has been wonderful but oh so quick, a quick flash of magic, a 'bonheur bref'. But I have lovely memories and my photos, though none it turns out of me on the Esplanade des Invalides. I had to delete them. Paris may still be beautiful after almost two thousand years, but it looks like I can't do close-ups past 40! 

 

Eurostar operates up to 18 daily services from London St Pancras International to Paris with return fares from £69. The fastest journey time is 2 hours 15 minutes, tickets are available from www.eurostar.com or 08432 186 186. Upgrade to Standard Premier for flexible fares from £189 return, spacious on-board accommodation, a light meal and a selection of magazines. 

 

Eurostar Plus partnerships offer great savings on Paris museums and galleries (Eurostar Plus Culture: 2-for-1 entry into paying exhibitions on presentation of Eurostar ticket); discounts at top city restaurants (Eurostar Plus Gourmet: up to 50% savings for pre-booked tables on presentation of Eurostar ticket); and shopping discounts (Eurostar Plus Shopping: 10% discount at the Galerie Lafayette plus invitation to a private fashion show). For more information visit www.eurostar.com/UK.