Promenade parisienne: ubi Anglorum, ibi pluvia!

Musée d'Orsay.

In the fortnight before the beginning of lectures, even as I basked in the prospect of a whole year to sift through the city at leisure, I decided to become a tourist, complete with map, camera and gape.  And who can blame me, or anybody else, in this city of wonders?

My most obviously touristic ramble took me from the Musée d'Orsay on the rive gauche, across the river for the first time to the Louvre and the rue de Rivoli; thence east to Châtelet and back over the Seine via the Ile-de-la-Cité, on a remarkable day of alternate buoyant sunlight and drenching showers.

rue de Solférino

A barge forges upstream.

A view downstream of the Seine: the Grand Palais in the distance.

My ambitious plan to execute a rapid visit to the Musée d'Orsay, a former railway station whose exhibitions follow the Louvre's chronologically, fell to pieces when I beheld with dismay the early-afternoon queue.  I very much want to go, but it will necessitate an early arrival.  So I spent some time on the Pont de Solférino, whose steel parapets, like others in Paris, have been turned a gold colour by thousands of padlocks inscribed with lovers' names.  Of course there were a few opportunistic padlock-sellers there!  The keys are also accumulating on the river-bed, but no doubt there are still a few weeks before they block the river entirely and Paris is flooded.   The Seine is a much plied water-way, not only by bâteaux-mouches and pleasure-craft but also by hard-working barges carrying freight.  Further upstream they navigate the islands and the narrow bridges with remarkable agility.  It is good to see use being made of the Seine in this way.

A  bâteau-mouche - Plenty of water around!

rue de Rivoli

A 'batobus'

The apparition in the south-west of clouds  bulging with the colour of slate sent me scurrying over the river to the Louvre, where thousands of motorists seemed in a terrible pickle.  (Did I really use a word like 'discretion' to describe Parisian drivers?).  I saw again the marvellous view westwards, slicing through the city down the Champs-Elysées, to the Arc-de-Triomphe and beyond to the Grande-Arche at La Défense.  Just as I arrived at the rue de Rivoli, the rain swept in with gusto (and gusts).  I hurried on past the mixture of gaudy gift-kiosks and hopelessly expensive stores to Châtelet, at which point the sun, that great astronomical wind-up-merchant, re-appeared as if nothing had happened. Thence I wound my way past the Hôtel de Ville and onto the Ile de la Cité, where stands the glorious cathedral of Notre-Dame: Our Lady of Paris.  

Pardon?  Mais qu'est-ce c'est que ça?

During this walk, I think I heard French spoken on no more than five occasions.  Everybody else seemed to be speaking English: British, Americans, and even French people themselves.  Perhaps the rain had brought it out? How strange it is that the very heart of the city which is the heart of the petite couronne, which is the heart of the Ile de France région, which is in turn the heart of France, is awash with a foreign language.  I could make this Year Abroad very easy if I wanted to!