Meudon: municipalité magnifique!

Eastwards across the Val-Fleury.

I am grateful, particularly given the casse-tête of finding accommodation in Paris, that I have settled in an area as pleasant as Meudon.  In fact, had I not had to cast my net into the département of Hauts-de-Seine and halfway to Versailles, I would probably not otherwise have encountered the town.  I am renting a bedroom in the Val-Fleury, built in the steep valley running northwards to the Seine's first right-hand swerve after Paris. Piled upon the western side is much of the main town - detached houses, modest blocks of flats, much greenery, a street of well-patronised shops and the proud mairie.  The lower (northern) part of town descends to the river at Bas-Meudon or Meudon-sur-Seine, and the western end of the hill has the apt name of Bellevue.  To the south and higher still there is an enormous forêt domaniale (state-owned forest - yes, five kilometres from the great metropolis!), which accounts for the 100 square metres of green space per resident, and beyond which is Meudon-la-Forêt, a new town constructed in the 1960s.

Topographical map of central Ile-de-France.

The altitude of parts of Meudon is remarkable, particularly in comparison to the land which surrounds it and with respect to its proximity to Paris.  Much of the town is about a hundred metres above sea level (point culminant 175m) and this height conspires with the sharp descent towards the Seine to give an almost vertiginous prospect of the city.  From the grande terrasse of the Observatoire, which occupies the site of an old château destroyed in the Franco-Prussian war, the panorama is particularly breathtaking.  Foreign students who have lately been a little indulgent in their consumption of croissants may find the ascent breathtaking in a different way.

A view north and east from the Grande Terrasse - Val-Fleury is in the foreground, and beyond the head of the valley the great swathe of Paris: the Seine, Tour Eiffel, the Tour Montparnasse, les Invalides and the Sacré-Coeur.  Click to enlarge!

le Viaduc de Meudon.

The viaduct which strides across the mouth of the valley was constructed between 1838 and 1840 to carry the railway between Paris Montparnasse and Versailles.  The construction of railways had not hitherto been permitted and this was the first railway in France, authorised when hundreds of miles of track had already been laid in Great Britain.  Geographically, the railway has already reached an altitude of eighty-five metres and the viaduct is thirty-six metres high and 143m long.  Trains pass along this line to Chartres, Le Mans, Rennes and Brest, and the station has a service every fifteen minutes which can convey your correspondent to Paris Montparnasse (at the foot of the tall grey Tour Montparnasse in the distance, in the photograph to the right) in ten minutes.  

A view north over Bas-Meudon towards Paris.

There are certain disadvantages to living in the Parisian suburbs, such as the time and expense of the daily journey to Paris III, but the advantages are more important to me.  For instance, Meudon provides, as many suburbs do, a poumon vert and a refuge from Paris's perpetual energy, and, far from the tread of tourists and the spectacles maintained partly for them, I can observe a different and more ordinary France, along with its people and their wonderful culture - and certainly without the sound of English!  In fact, Meudon is so different from Paris that I wonder if I will actually gain the experience of two years abroad in the space of one - one year rummaging through glorious literature in the 5e arrondissement, and one year puffing up twisting hills with glorious baguettes or partaking of glorious steak in the Brasserie de la Mairie.  

rue de Paris.

And a final gem of information (you will be relieved to hear!) - which links the widow of Molière and Johnny Depp: I have found out to my astonishment that both have lived here!  Indeed Monsieur Depp might still dwell within a mile's radius of where I type this.  I will look out for red bandanas.


More pictures will follow.

Trouver un second chez moi...

'Se loger à Paris est très difficile.' 

Guide Paris III pour la recherche de logement 2012   

With its very first words, the Sorbonne Nouvelle's accommodation guide neatly dispels any optimistic fancies about the subject. It could hardly be otherwise: a far-from-exhaustive search suggests that the number of students who need Parisian roofs over their heads is near a quarter of a million, and of course, other people than students must also live and work in the city. 

The Maison Internationale at the 'Cité-U'

In this light, the university's counsel to seek accommodation in good time seemed indisputably sound.  Having nevertheless had to await nomination to the Erasmus scheme, and then inexcusably dawdled, I applied to the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, which might be described as a campus in the 14th arrondissement.  10,000 students live there in 40 maisons, most of which correspond to a nationality administratively, but which, in practice, accommodate students of all countries side-by-side.  Unfortunately, I underestimated the length of time (a month) before their reply, which was a curt negative.  (I bear no grudge, however: I still think this worth considering for prospective students).

More maisons at the Cité.

Thus abruptly removed to square one, I once more had recourse to the estimable Guide Paris III pour la recherche de logement.  The suggested foyers seemed appealing but inconveniently were also full.  In other student housing, little choice remained available from the CROUS, and a high rent was charged by independent résidences.  That left independent accommodation, in the search for which www.lokaviz.fr was invaluable.  This accommodation service caters exclusively for students, requires only electronic proof of academic status, facilitates access to proprietors' details, and is the reason why I am inflicting this blog-post upon the world from a room in Meudon, a suburb south-west of Paris (Hauts-de-Seine 92) - photographs of and waffle about which I will produce soon.

Now with the weary air of experience, but aware that I have been fortunate in finding a solution, I will join the chorus of exhortation of anybody who intends to study in Paris to begin the search in plenty of time and in several places.  It is more important than it seems to remain alert - yea, even (as it turns out) in the grimmest hour of the shadow of exam term - to the practical aspects of the Year Abroad.  Nevertheless, there is no cause for utter despair: all students find somewhere in the end.  After all, even the Guide pour la recherche de logement leaves some hope: the search is not impossible; it is merely difficile.

À nous deux maintenant!

It is already the end of my first week in Paris.  Probably I ought to have known that I would not have time, nor be calm enough, to produce any prose pretentious enough for this blog's pretentious title before now! 

 It is exhausting to arrive in an unfamiliar city: bus tickets and pedestrian crossings hurl the newcomer into consternation.  He wonders what use it was looking up the French for 'anvil' when he can't ask for a filled sandwich on the top shelf.*  He makes a public nuisance of himself trying to see what everyone else does as they glide through ticket barriers, without going through himself.  He (literally) cannot get his head around looking in the right direction as he crosses the road.  However, the question mark hovering above my head is at last beginning to fade and I think I have recovered enough to record my first and raw impressions...

1. This is real! Here am I, not merely staying but living and (soon) studying in Paris!  The great slabs of parchment-coloured apartment blocks with their cast-iron balconies are real;  the broad straight corridors of the avenues penetrating through the city are real; and, outside the classroom and lecture theatre, the French language is real.                                
2. Some of what the British imagine about the French is actually true!  They really do carry baguettes down the street, for instance  (and who can blame them: heavenly manna or some other celestial panary essence falls daily from Heaven onto the shelves of a million boulangeries).  Another example is the proliferation of paperwork involved in the opening of a bank account (just in case any worldly riches come my way – one never knows!) which testifies to the famous French bureaucracy.  Motorists give the impression of making up the rules as they go along,  though I feel that Parisian driving is no more aggressive than London's for the greater reliance upon motorists’ discretion.
3. There is more graffiti in Paris than in London: a warning which drivers of pristine white vans should heed.
4. The French are not slaves to their mobile phones.  There are plenty around and in use, but in public they are no more evident than books or newspapers.
5. More people – and certainly more young people – smoke in Paris than in London. 
6. Plenty of time is taken over meals.  The sort of food which, in Britain, is beyond the powers of the average wallet and palate, is in France expected, duly received and savoured in the company of one's beloved, one's friend or one's newspaper.
7. The French language is supremely beautiful (and therefore deserves its own blog-post!).
8. There are moments of euphoria when I feel that France is better than Britain.  No!  No!  I didn’t mean that!  I think this the general effect of arriving in a foreign culture: that certain particularly noticeable novelties make the whole seem better or worse, even though it is always composed of the currents of goodness and corruption.  In the same way that turning a kaleidoscope produces a new pattern (that might be called better or worse) but does not alter its nature, the human condition is borne here in slightly different ways, in some ways better, in some ways worse, even though the human condition is invariable.

I shall write soon about Meudon, the town to the south-west of the city where I am living.  Here is a panorama of Paris from the Observatoire at the top of the town: visible are the Tour Eiffel, the Tour Montparnasse, les Invalides, the Seine and La Défense.  Eugène de Rastignac had a view like this (from the north-east) at the end of Le Père Goriot.  He too was a student unfamiliar with Parisian society (though he was also fictional): so like him I can say, ‘À nous deux maintenant!’

Click to enlarge... I Spy 20 points for each landmark.

*enclume (f).  One of these days it will come in useful, mark my words!