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Not having been to Paris for a while, Herself and myself grabbed a bargain offer and betook ourselves to the city of light for a short break. We had no plan, no programme -- just to be in Paris would suffice. So the reader need not look for an abbreviated guidebook report. We have "done" a good deal of the standard things in the past, and didn't feel a great urge to do most of them again. But Paris has so much to offer that one can make a score of visits and still not have hit all the major attractions.

I won't bore you with more complaints about sore feet. Let's just take it as read that whenever Herself and I visit a city we start out with the intention of managing our walking so as to minimise attrition on our feet, and are tempted into breaking our resolution on the first day. And so it was again: feet wrecked. What did we get for our pains?

The Smell of Food

Among our new experiences was a stroll along Rue Mouffetard on Sunday morning, savouring the aromas of the foodstuffs on sale: fresh bread; cheeses; exotic fruits; charcuterie; herbs and spices. And further up the street, the smell of cooking as the restaurants prepared lunch. Yet again, as we so often do in cities, we wondered if we would have been better off renting an apartment so that we could do some catering for ourselves: I find it difficult to visit wonderful food markets and know that there is no point in getting involved with the produce on sale. Next time...

The Pantheon

For whatever reason, we had never visited the Pantheon before, so we made good that deficiency. It is impressively vast, and far more like a church than the secular building which it is purported to be (of course, it was built as a church and served as one at various times). It is now maintained as a national memorial to many of the great figures of  politics, the military, philosophy, science, and the arts. It seemed fitting, given the turmoil of the French revolution, that two leading figures of those troubled times (Mirabeau and Marat) had been interred there and later evicted. The crypt is worth an hour of anybody's time -- especially on a very hot day.

Parks

The parks of Paris are special -- not just the great and renowned ones such as the Jardin desTuileries and the Jardin du Luxembourg, but also many others, including (perhaps especially) the "pocket parks" which dot the city. They are oases of green which lighten the city, and where one can sit, relax, and observe life, be it the swarming of tourists in the major parks or aspects of the ordinary life of Parisians in the neighbourhood parks.

The Louvre

Of course.

Paris Plage

This was our first experience of this innovation -- a beach resort in an inland city. Work on setting it up was still in progress, but people were already exploiting as much as possible. When I first heard of the idea of taking a major traffic thoroughfare and converting it to a beach-style resort, I thought it seemed a daft idea. Now I think it is not. It's a proper affirmation that cities are for all kinds of people, and not just those in motor vehicles.

Music

Paris has a lot of bad buskers and some superb ones. A five-piece jazz band, average age easily 60, on Rue Mouffetard was well worth listening to. So too was a seven-man outfit on Pont St. Louis (the bridge connecting Ile de la Cite with Ile St. Louis, one of the best locations in Paris for good public entertainment). Less appealing are those buskers who invade Metro carriages and force themselves on travellers, and who are often not very good.

Traffic

On previous visits, I had formed the impression that drivers in Paris are aggressive, and that a green pedestrian light at a crossing should be regarded as an invitation to dice with death. This time, however, things seemed easier. Nearly all drivers seemed to respect our right to use the crossings; the only exceptions were, to my surprise, professional drivers, one in a taxi, and the other in a tour minibus. Obviously, on a short visit, it is impossible to make an informed judgement on whether there has been a real improvement, but it certainly seemed so.

Pavement Hazards

Paris has had, deservedly, a bad reputation for dog-fouled pavements. Various efforts have been made to address the problem and it seems to me that they have been paying off. But now pedestrians in Paris must live with a greater nuisance than the danger of stepping in canine faeces. The new hazard is the roller-blader who moves swiftly and silently, seems incapable of stopping, unwilling to concede ground to others, and can arrive from any angle without warning. Roller-bladers often travel in pairs or groups, and can present a frightening spectacle. Never change direction on a Paris pavement without first looking behind you.

Speaking English

It is often said that the French, particularly Parisians, either can not or will not speak English. This seems to have changed. Both herself and I speak French moderately well, albeit not fluently. In our hotel, in restaurants, in cafes, and in shops we found that almost everybody with whom we dealt switched into English even when it was clear that our command of French was sufficient for the purpose, and where sometimes their English was less good than our French. So the new complaint seems to be that the bloody Parisians won't speak French.

Strolling

Paris has given us a word: boulevardier. It conveys something particular about the city. Paris is a place which offers much to the visitor who simply rambles about. We rambled, and found lively neighbourhoods, interesting buildings and monuments, parks, and pleasant cafes in which to sit for a while to rest the feet. Wherever you ramble, you are likely to come on some guide-book attraction. But most of all, the appeal of wandering about is to see vignettes of the life of the city and its people.

Paris Chic

The idea of the parisienne chic is something of a cliche, but when I first visited Paris it appeared to me that it had some basis in fact: the city seemed to have more than its fair share of well-groomed, well-dressed women. It no longer appears so. Yes, there are still beautifully turned-out women, but their numbers seem to have diminished. Crumpled casual is the new black. One exception that struck me was Galeries Lafayette, one of the "grands magasins". Most of the staff, who are presumably moderately paid rather than wealthy, are very well dressed, and put their customers to shame. If you want to identify a sales assistant there, look for the best-dressed people.

Frenchmen in Suits

In Ireland, a suit is usually business uniform, and wearing one is almost a means of self-effacement, a way of blending with others of one's ilk. But there is something distinctive about the way men in Paris wear suits. The suits themselves are fine, usually very good and apparently expensive. But, more than elsewhere, it seems that a persona is donned with the garb. The suit says "Je suis un homme d'affaires, quelqu'un d'importance ; il faut me respecter". Non, monsieur, I don't buy it: you have no right to occupy two seats in the metro, and I will not deviate from my path so that can proceed without accommodating me -- I'll make a little room for you, and you make some for me.

Bloody Tourists

I am sure that many Parisians resent the numbers of tourists who throng their city. They should not, as tourism pays the wages of many of their fellow-citizens. But there are problems, not in the numbers of tourists, but in the way that some comport themselves.

First, there are those who are mindlessly obstructive -- at least I hope that it is merely mindlessness, but it can feel as if the obstruction is malevolent. These people move slowly in large groups (it is amazing how two people can constitute themselves into a large group) and make it difficult for other pedestrians to make reasonable progress. When they stop, they form a defensive circle, fully closing off as many routes as possible.

Then there are those to whom la politesse means nothing in a country where it means a lot. A few "bonjours" and "si'l vous plaits" and "mercis" cost nothing, and it is easy to learn to ask "parlez-vous anglais?", but not many seem to bother. Even a smile and "do you speak English" will do much to avert French ire. A good tourist should be culturally sensitive: you visit Paris to experience a little of French life, and not your own way of doing things at home, wherever that home may be.

There are tourists who generate antipathy, and I suspect that they are the sort who go home and complain about how rude the French people are.

An Outing to Giverny

Herself had been given a book depicting Monet's house and garden at Giverny, and expressed a wish to go there. Initial research brought up several coach tour options, costing 60-70 euros each.This led to more determined research, and we found that we could do the visit using train and bus connections for about half the cost. And we like trains.So that's the way we did it.

The garden is indeed lovely, and the famed lily pond is well worth seeing. But the visitor is confined to fenced pathways, and there are not many opportunities to sit and enjoy the views (to be fair, I should say that there were so many visitors there that it is difficult to see how this could be arranged without cutting large chunks out of the garden).

The house, too, is interesting, probably little changed since Monet's day. It is surprisingly small, being only one room deep, and again the number of visitors was a problem: we were swept through it in minutes by the throng.

A visit which we had supposed might take three hours was completed in less than half the time. Had we spent 70 euros each, we might have felt hard done by, but it was fair value at less then 30 euros each.

The Bad Bit: The Airport

Airports are a necessary evil for those who travel. Soulless characterless places. I would sooner wait in a railway station than an airport (especially, in Paris, the Gare d'Orsay).

We were due to take an evening flight, and decided to go to CDG early, check in and get the bags out of the way, and then have some food before boarding the plane. Check-in completed, we looked for a restaurant. The only sign we found pointed towards the boarding area, but that was all right; we went through. After some searching about, we found a small restaurant on an upper floor -- but it was not serving food. All the catering we could find airside was sandwiches, and I wanted real food.

We asked a AdP staff member where we might get food, and he told us that the restaurants were on the lower floor landside. Could he let us through? He indicated the exit for passengers who had just landed -- where there was a long queue being processed carefully by a single immigration officer. I made my displeasure known (politely, as I presumed the problem was not of his making), and he smiled, shrugged, and said "This is Paris". How much that says about the French attitude to bad bureaucratic arrangements: an official, rather than trying to find a solution to a problem, limits himself to explaining what the problem is. Not everything in France is perfect.

It would round off my account nicely if I could report that we were rewarded for our pains with a superb meal but, sadly, airport food is airport food -- expensive and not particularly good.

And then home to contemplate our next trip (Madrid).