shewhomust | One day in Paris

The short version: we are now comfortably installed in Pusiano, but have limited internet access. So I'll continue to write posts offline, and post them when I can. And here's the next installment:

Eurostar deposited us at 2.30 am at the Gare du Nord, where a very slick operation swung into effect, with station staff fast-tracking groups with children through the taxi queue, and police (armed police, of course) allocating the rest of us to taxis. By three o'clock we were in our room at the Mercure hotel at the Gare de Lyon. So most of the morning of our day in Paris went on sleeping and showering and taking it easy. But by eleven we were in the café attached to the Train Bleu restaurant on the station, with coffee and croissants and a map, planning where to go next.

The forecast was for rain, but the morning was bright, and we decided we'd walk until we were rained off (and although the day grew darker, we were worn out before the rain arrived) and set off along the Bassin de l'Arsenal, looking at all the boats moored there (and delighted to see a smart blue and white boat called L'Atalante). From the Place de la Bastille it wasn't far to the Marais, looking in shop windows, saying hello to the statue of Beaumarchais.

durham_rambler was astonished at the Place des Vosges - as well he might be, though I have certainly been there before, and thought we had been there together. It must have looked fabulous in the snow, and still looked good with the remnants of the ice pale underfoot and the bare trees letting in all the light of the sky.

The Place des Vosges is the epitome of classical Parisian elegance, but it's also the gateway to the Jewish quarter. We lunched Chez Marianne, in the rue des Rosiers. Marianne is the personification of France, as John Bull is of England, but Chez Marianne is more like a Jewish deli. It's a recommendation my sister brought back from a gay Jewish conference in Paris, long ago, and we raised a glass of the house rosé to her memory. After lunch we wandered through the narrow streets, dropping in to a bookshop, reading the memorial plaques (of which there are many). I don't know whether it's simply that I don't know the IV^e arrondissement very well, or whether the presence of Jewish history is more visible than it used to be - a bit of both, I suspect - but we were surprised at how many of the memorials talked of the complicity (indeed, the active complicity) of the Vichy government in the deportations. The rue Grenier sur l'eau (wonderful name) which runs alongside a new museum of the Shoah has been renamed as the Allée des Justes, and a monument is being installed bearing the names of the righteous gentiles who saved Jewish lives during the Occupation.

At the Espace d'Animation des Blancs Manteaux (which looked like a disused market hall) we found a free exhibition in which 60 artists displayed work on the theme La Métamorphose des matériaux, recycled materials (report of an earlier version here, with pictures). The pieces on show were very varied, from slick 3D images on glass which, as

durham_rambler said, were ideal for the corporate HQ of a Fortune 500 company, to driftwood-framed mirrors of the sort on sale in any seaside town. I liked a large piece of wood painted to reveal its resemblance to a gannet, a chess set made of odd bits of metal tubes and springs, so that both kings had coiled protruding bellies (hence the description: Père Ubu's chess set) and (best of all) Marie Goldstein's collection of sardine tins from each of which a mermaid was emerging, some of them showing only a hand or an arm, some of them almost completely hatched. The catalogue, too, was a sardine tin containing the cards of all of the artists: I said ":But if I read it, I'll destroy it!" and the saleswoman suggested I buy two. Clever, but I stopped at one.

We turned back towards our hotel, pausing to buy a battery for my watch on the rue de Rivoli (which I think of as quite a glamourous shopping street, though I'm probably out of date), looping through the Ile Saint-Louis, shopping for a picnic supper.

Macaroon fever had hitherto passed me by: I knew they were deeply fashionable, and they looked pretty in the shop windows, those ranks of little shiny disks in all those rainbow colours. I had assumed that inside they were just sugary meringue, with a hint of whichever flavour matched that particular shade. Still, I bought one for my picnic dessert, and from the varieties on offer chose salt-butter caramel. It was a revelation, all intense toffee flavour, from the crumbly crisp outer shell through the soft meringue interior which was gradually melting into the liquid filling. Now I see what all the fuss was about, and am scheming to try more flavours.

Picknicked, packed, multiple alarms set and early to bed; and down in the foyer at 7.20 am to meet J* and catch the Milan train.

*There are several Js in this story, and all of them (and I, another J) were at college together. This is the J who lives in Paris, not the J for whose birthday we are here.