As we are flying into Paris I notice the Picardy countryside passing under the plane. A mosaic of small fields in differing shades of green, regularly punctuated by small clusters of habitations I take for villages. Then every so often a larger town or small city with a old town center. For the most part my initial impression is of a pastoral society, which hasn’t changed in a long time. I had known and indeed expected to see some old villages, but I expected them to be like in the U.S. with more sprawl, along with more houses scattered across the countryside. Here there appears to be only an occasional house or chateau on the land. Furthermore I didn’t expect to see so many villages, only a few kilometers apart if that. I live in Montana where it isn’t unusual for there to be 20 to 30 miles between towns.
This is not what I expected. I don’t really know what I expected, I hadn’t really thought about France before. In fact I had never really had any desire to go there. I’m not sure why that was, I had thought about Ireland, Britain, Scotland, Spain, Italy and Germany, but never France. Perhaps it was a sub-conscious prejudice, from where I don’t know and certainly unwarranted.
I had always thought of Europe as more industrialized than the U.S., so while the country side made sense it was a change in my expectations. I remember growing up in rural southwest Missouri, I had the idea that New York State must just be a suburb of New York City, at that time the largest city in the world. When I traveled there in my teens I was surprised to find that upstate New York was predominately rural. Once I saw it, I had to wonder how I could have had such a misrepresented view.
After arrival at Charles de Gaul airport we took the train into Paris arriving at Les Halles, a train stop in Paris. We were a little early to meet the caretaker of the apartment, so we parked ourselves at a sidewalk cafe to pass a little time. We were at the end of Rue Montmartre, an area closed to traffic to allow an open air market. Even exhausted from the flight and jet lagged, I found the city exhilarating and laid back at the same time.
I didn’t expect much from my visit to Paris, just staying long enough to see some museums and monuments and move on. I’m not a big fan of cities. I like New York and San Francisco but don’t have much desire to spend a lot of time there.
Paris was a surprise. We had an apartment in the 2nd arrondissement on Rue Montmartre one of two remaining market streets left. It was alive as a community, like it could have existed without the rest of the city. Over the course of the next few days as I ventured though the streets and alleys of the city I found numerous other neighborhoods to each have a feel of their own.
We, of course, started out with a laundry list of sights to see, but after a day settled into slowing down and pretending to be Parisians. Each day making the rounds to shop for the days meals, but taking time to stop at a brasserie for a cup of coffee in the morning or lull away an hour for lunch watching the world go by at a cafe with a pitcher of wine, referred to by the Parisians much more eloquently as a Pichet.
I had hoped to practice my French in the city a little prior to arrival in the countryside where they speak less English. I did’t get much practice, I would start speaking to a shop keeper in French and I presume after hearing me butcher their language they would usually reply in English. Oh well, the stop in Paris was a still a good primer on France prior to departing to the boat.
*****
This is the end of the Third installment in the ongoing series that details our introduction to river cruising on the European waterways and to our purchase and outfitting of our own boat to for travel and living in Europe. If you are interested in being notified of future installment releases, Subscribe to this series in the sidebar on the right.
If you missed the first installment it can be found under the category “A New Adventure-Series”