“J’ai quitté Paris et même la France, parce que la tour Eiffel finissait par m’ennuyer trop”
I left Paris and France as well, because the Eiffel Tower finally succeeded in boring me too much.
Actually delicious coffee at Peloton – a Parisian novelty if I'm being truly cynical
I named my site for Maupassant's classic travelogue for so many reasons. His winding path is one I've taken (though not in the same order and hardly all at once), and his itchy wanderlust is equally familiar. The opening line (above) is one I've memorized; it is hilarious and somehow something I both deeply understand and can't begin to fathom. The tower is not for me, but there is not a thing in this world that could bore me into wanting to be anywhere other than Paris.
If you switched out the city and country, though, the sentiment is one I feel in my bones. I get restless – I always have. Modern sterile vapid New York made me feel that way constantly when I lived there. Both the cold glass monstrosities and the tower in their own times are symptoms of a cultural ennui of sort. If the zeitgeist leaves you uninspired and apathetic, you have to change the place... if only because you can't change the time and you most likely can't change the culture.
There's a pretention about Maupassant that clearly resonates with me as well.
People watching on an early morning in the 9th
Paris is one of a handful of cities that serve as excellent antidotes for me. Modern and energetic (the two traits of New York I quite like best), but new (for me) and different and fascinating. Parisians are somehow able to care about work, business, finance, but not let them become all consuming. Most importantly for me, food is a shining star, not an afterthought or a backdrop as it so often is in New York. I relish it, I thrive, I fairly hum.
Richer's deceptively simple breakfast tartine
At odds with my search for the new is the way I return to some places nearly every trip. Having regular spots in a city over 4,000 miles away from your legal residence is horrifically bourgeois and stereotypically millennial, though despite my misgivings and guilt I've built a repertoire over the years. I have a set of Parisian rituals: ride a bike, buy a baguette, listen to Yann Tiersen by the Seine, flip the door handle on one of the old metro lines, wander the Tuileries as the sun goes down, jazz. It's a city ridiculously easy to romanticize.
I do have the particular advantage as well of having a dear friend who lives there, in that oddly liminal existence of an ex-pat. He has given me a few of my favorite haunts, and I've found a few more in my stolen days here and there. And since this is ostensibly a travel blog, I'd like to share a few.
Saturday Jazz (be still my heart)
To visit (photographs throughout, in order):
- le Peloton, 4ᵉ
- Richer, 9ᵉ
- La Fontaine de Belleville, 10ᵉ
Peloton is a Fernando find – which automatically means it has the added benefit of being aesthetically pleasing. Photographers, you know. It's a perfect, easy, casual café. The type of place you can drop in for a quick pastry and coffee (thankfully, not French coffee, which is frankly garbage), or sit and work for hours.
Next is the restaurant that sold me on the idea of moving to Paris one of these days or another, Richer. For me, it's the perfect idealized neighborhood restaurant: casual too, but absolutely put together (the basic American notion of the Parisian style across the board), excellent food and drink, leisurely paced. I've eaten there at every time of day and never once been disappointed.
Finally, another stolen spot: La Fontaine de Belleville. I go for one thing: Saturday jazz. And the requisite food and drink. Cosy and enveloping in the winter, lush and airy in the summer. It looks the part of a Hollywood stand-in for a Parisian café but is so much more.
Drinks at La Fontaine de Belleville