An Inside Look at Room With Paris View

Room With Paris View, our travel memoir released this spring by Saint James Infirmary Books, is more than just a memoir.  Like a tour guide's oeuvre, it is full of historical anecdotes, and like a travel guide, it offers up advice on cafés, museums, and the métro.  You can walk the streets of Paris with us, including those we never intended to walk.  As author Richard Bunning points out, "...the curious footfalls of the Reesers are a joy to follow, even when they are regularly lost. There are many confused steps, but none are wasted. You see, this really is a guide book for those who want good ideas, but certainly don't want guiding."

  And while we do wander many side streets of Paris (both intentionally and unintentionally), there are plenty of chances to see the main attractions.  The most iconic of these, of course, is the Eiffel Tower.

 Excerpt from Room With Paris View

A short walk along Avenue de Tourville brought us to the Place de l’École Militaire, which connected us to the Champ de Mars.  And that, readers, is possibly the best family park in the city.

The site of the amazing 1889 Exposition Universelle which featured the brand new Eiffel Tower, this field has been the central point of many French festivals and historic celebrations.  It is also the point from which the world’s first hydrogen-filled balloon was launched in 1783.

After a flurry of picture taking, we walked out onto the mall.  The park, with the Tower at the far end, was full of families who had come out to enjoy the warm, spring day.  Forget the fact that the Eiffel Tower is an overused iconic image for this tourist destination.  All I could see were Parisians out enjoying their local city park.  Couples were sitting in the grass, reading or just snuggling with each other.  Kids ran after soccer balls.  Little girls were climbing all over a playground set—a cheesy plastic and aluminum castle—off to one side.  Behind them boys played a pick-up game of basketball.  A white-haired grandfather let his grandson win on the outdoor ping-pong tables while a young girl in a sandbox, wearing a long black coat, fed the pigeons flocking around her.

I suddenly wished I were not a tourist.  I wanted to be a Parisian.  I wanted this to be my park too.  I didn’t want to be an outsider, disturbing their family time.  And yet it was an inescapable reality.  I still did not know the language enough to feel like I fit in.  Surrounded by these families, I could hear them chatting away, could hear the kids squeal with laughter, could hear the parents warn them not to run too far, all of it in a language I did not understand.  This single barrier kept me apart.  It kept me in an observation mode much like a time-traveler who can visit a point in the past but cannot interact with what he sees.

Jennifer fell right into her poet’s mode, dropping onto a bench under the box-topped London plane trees.  (Of course, in France, they do not call them London plane trees.  They call them platane a feuille d’erable: plane tree with maple leaf.)  As per our unspoken agreement, I wandered off with the camera, leaving her to her thoughts, ink, and paper.

And as I walked the Field of Mars, snapping shot after shot of children, old men, couples, and the massive tower, I eventually began to get it.  The Tower.  Eiffel’s Folly.  That great big monstrosity of steel that drove Maupassant crazy.  That simple pointy shape that is slapped on, printed on, engraved on and painted on every chintzy trinket sold in Paris clicked in my head.  I can’t really say why.  It just did.  And as I walked ever closer to it, and bent my head back to look up at it, it won me over again each step of the way.

I’ve stood at the base of the Sears Tower.  I’ve lain in the grass beneath the St. Louis Arch and gaped at that delicate miracle.  I’ve been knocked out by the art deco design of Rockefeller Center.  But nothing like the Eiffel Tower has ever hit me in this manner.  This massive, dark, raw and powerful colossus stands planted in the earth like some alien creature from a Jules Verne science fiction novel.  Yet at the same time, its intricate and graceful design adds intelligence and beauty to offset that initial brash impression.

Does everyone get that?  I don’t know.  Most tourists just posed for silly pictures from afar, with the man or woman in the frame holding up the tower in the palm of their hand or maybe pretending to push it over.  And that’s fine.  That’s part of its magic.  In addition to being powerful and beautiful it is also whimsical.  It seems to be everything to everyone: a universal appeal.

Towards the middle of the park, on the west side under the trees, I found a little carousel, a chevaux de Bois, which looks like it had been there since before the Eiffel Tower.  That’s not to say it was old and run-down.  This wooden gem is in great working order.  When I found it, it was full of children, ready to begin its spinning adventure.  The operator, an older gentleman with dark bushy eyebrows and matching mustache, was just making sure the kids were settled properly in their seats.  Once the kids were ready, he grabbed one of the horse's poles and began to push.  After achieving the desired speed, he slipped inside the circle of horses, and I saw that the machine was operated by hand-crank.  He began to crank away, his initial push making it much easier for the horses to reach a comfortable trot which then required little effort for the hand crank to maintain.

Jennifer finally put down her pen and we strolled up to the Tower, our heads tilted in order to view the top of that one-thousand-foot structure, which was the tallest man-made structure in the world from 1889 to 1930.  It’s pretty cool to realize this, since as a native Illinois kid, I was always entranced by the Sears Tower, which held its own world height record from 1973 to 1998.

And as we stood there near the base of this modern Wonder of the World, I couldn’t help but shake my head at the thought that this was really happening.  Here I was, just a kid from the fields of Illinois, standing in one of the grandest locations the world has ever known, where people come from every corner of the globe to stand and stare and become a part of something greater than the little worlds we inhabit during our daily isolation from the planet at large.

I don’t care if you aren’t interested in Paris, or France, or even Europe.  Sacrifice enough in life to save up some money and travel to a place that will mean as much to you.  Go stand on Golgotha, or look out over the Great Wall of China, or plant your feet in the middle of Red Square and marvel at St. Basil’s Cathedral.

For more information on the book, please visit the Saint James Infirmary Books website.

You can also order the book from Amazon (both print and Kindle editions are available).

My Notre Dame View of Paris (Part One)

  Over the course of the next week, I'd like to offer a tour of Notre Dame Cathedral.  While Paris has an incredible number of cathedrals, churches, and chapels, Notre Dame is at the geographical center (in the open square there is a star pinpointing the center of Paris, though I did not find it), the historical center, and the cultural heart of Paris.  Situated on Ile de la Cite, the largest island in Paris on the Seine, it is a part of the original city proper.
  In this post, I'd like to share the extraordinary western view as seen from the upper level of the cathedral, the Gallery of Chimeras, which is at the midway point of the cathedral, and the base of the two towers.  The gallery, with its statues, was part of the restoration from the mid-1800s, as designed by Eugene Viollet-Le-Duc.
  To begin, you can see the left branch of the Seine flowing northwest between the Ile de la Cite and the Left Bank.  The bridge in the center of the photograph is the Pont Saint-Michel.  Just to the left of it, if you click on the photo and look closely, you'll see blue awnings at the corner of the buildings just under the trees.  This is the souvenir shop where Jennifer made friends with Roger, who runs the register.
  Of course you can see the Eiffel Tower, as well as a corner tower of the Prefecture of Police at center right.  The brooding winged figure in the photo is a chimera, not a gargoyle.  Thought they are usually called gargoyles, this name should only be applied to figures which are the termination point for water spouts.

  In this broader shot, you can see the tower of Saint-Severin (on the left, as if the bird is about to bite off the tip of it), the tops of the Saint-Sulpice towers (sticking out of the bent chimera's back), the golden-domed Les Invalides (site of Napolean's tomb), Saint-Germain-des-Pres tower immediately next to it, the Eiffel Tower, and off to the right, the skyline of La Defense, which is the modern business district.
  In the center of the photo you can see the Petit Pont.  This odd little bridge is only one hundred and sixty years old.  However, a bridge has been on the spot since Roman times, but 13 times the bridge had been destroyed by floods, due to the narrowing of the river at this point.  In one instance, back in the 1700's, a woman looking for her drowned child's body, accidentally set a hay barge on fire directly beneath the bridge, burning it down.

  In this shot of the Ile de la Cite, you can see the spire of Saint-Chappelle, which is surrounded by the Palace of Justice.  You can barely see the Conciergerie, famous site of Marie Antoinette's prison cell next to the dome of the Greffe du Tribunal de Paris, which is a grand way of saying the Paris Clerk of Commerce Courts.  This dome is off-set on top of the building so that the Boulevard de Sebastopol has a visual focus at its termination point.  This is very important in Paris street planning.  There should be prominent landmark views at the end of each major thoroughfare.  Oddly, the Boulevard was rerouted to one-way traffic going the opposite direction, so that now no driver can appreciate this view.
  Beyond the immediate buildings on the island, you can just make out the Louvre to the right of Saint-Chappelle.  At far right you can see Saint-Eustache Eglise.  L'Hotel Dieu, a hospital, is in the foreground.

  Finally, completing the view, you can see Le Basilica du Sacre Coeur atop Montmartre, behind that rascal Le Stryge.  On the right you can see the magnificent Saint-Jacques Tower, which is all that remains of the 16th century Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie (which is the unlikely name St. James of the Butchery) which was destroyed after the French Revolution.  I will be posting pictures of it later this year.  A masterpiece of art of which few people are aware.
  If we look at Le Stryge's eye, then shift your own eye an inch to the left, you'll see the arches of the Theatre de Chatelet, which faces Place du Chatelet at the Pont au Change.  It was here that Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days played for 2195 performances, the first of which was in 1876, and only closed in May of 1940 due to the Nazi Occupation.  Though not consecutively, it ran a total of 64 years.

My Snapshot Views of Paris (Part Two)

   One of my goals in Paris was to visit a movie location from the Harrison Ford picture Frantic.  The final scene, where Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner confront the villains, is set below the Pont de Grenelle on the Ile aux Cygnes.  This long, thin island in the middle of the Seine is a stunningly beautiful place.  I was disappointed to find that the tip of the island, where the scene was shot, did not resemble the movie.  Either it was shot elsewhere, or it has changed dramatically in the the last thirty years.  I'll have to do some research and figure that one out.  However, as has happened several times on this trip, any little bump in the road like this has turned into something grand.  That's Paris.  A wrong turn and you will find yourself in an even more beautiful spot.  A place this perfect should be illegal.  Disappointed, or to be more exact, perplexed at my discovery, we began the long walk back along the Allee des Cygnes (Swan Alley).  We were feeling quite good, having just eaten at Jolanda's on the Quai de Grenelle after taking refuge there during a brief rain shower.  So far, rain showers in Paris have only been brief.  Full of good food (Jennifer had a marvelous cup of soupe a l'oignon), overjoyed at the scenery we had found along this idyllic island, we strolled slowly along.  In front of us, I watched a little girl stomping through a puddle in her pink rain boots.  I did not have the camera ready then, but I quickly pulled it out, and snapped a few shots of her.  She heard me, turned with arms stretched out to either side, and stopped.  A smile covered the whole of her face.  Her mother, pushing a stroller, said nothing, but waited patiently for her.  When the girl saw I was not taking any more pictures, she continued walking.  I snapped some more pictures.  She turned around again.  This girl was a natural for the camera.  She was going to be a handful when she became a young woman.  Eventually, we passed them by, as Jennifer complimented the little girl in French.  I'm sure the mother was glad we did, so she was not forced to continue to stop and wait for her daughter to keep posing for the camera.

   In all my preparations for our trip I had never given much thought to the Eiffel Tower.  I must admit that it has never been a favorite Parisian icon for me.  It is technically interesting, and impressive when one considers that it was the tallest man-made structure when it was built, and continued to be so until the Chrysler Building topped it.  But I always felt much like Maupassant, who said he enjoyed the tower's restaurant since it was the only place in Paris where he did not have to look at it.  We had been here nearly a full week before we decided to go see it.  We had only caught glimpses of it from Montmartre as well as the Pantheon.  It is mostly hidden with the six-story high buildings that line every Parisian street.  So on a partly cloudy Saturday, we took the number 87 bus to the Champ de Mars district.   We were simply amazed.  The tower is set in the middle of a beautiful park that was absolutely magnificent.  The crowds were all down at the tower itself, and also across the Seine nearer the Trocadero.  On our side, the great lawn was only dotted with tourists.  What I mostly saw were Parisians out with their families, enjoying a simple Saturday in the sun.  Along the sides of this park are straight lines of manicured trees with green benches tucked in between them.  One gentleman sat alone, taking in the scene, wearing a black ascot cap.  He looked very pleased with himself, and I was more than pleased to catch a few shots of him.  It was that kind of day; sit on a bench and watch the clouds and people go by.

As we prepared to leave for the evening, coming back from the Ile aux Cygnes, we walked along the left bank of the Seine, and ascended the stairs at the Pont de'Lena.  We waited for the little green walking man light to announce it was safe to cross the Quai Branly, and when he appeared, we began to cross.  To our surprise, a Gendarme stepped out from the curb and spread his arms out, calling for us and the other tourists to please wait.  We stopped, in the middle of the road.  The Gendarme was only about six inches from us, trying to stare ahead with a neutral expression.  After a few moments, he realized he must have looked a bit silly.  With a gleam in his eye, he said pleasantly, "Bienvenue a Paris" and smiled broadly, which drew laughter from all of us in the street.  The gendarmes were positioning their vehicles in a line along the curb, and we waited as one of them waved in one of the big blue vans.  Once it was in place, we slipped around it, in search of our bus stop.

   That's when we really paid attention to what was going on.  All around us, uniformed men were climbing out of vans and milling about in riot gear.  This was not something I was use to seeing, save for those international reports of protests in exotic cities like London and Paris.  Well, it did not take long for me to remember we were in Paris.  I also remembered that there was a Presidential election scheduled for the very next day.  I had an idea where this was going.  Someone was planning to protest something, and we were not far from being in the middle of it.  Whatever it was, we were glad to be heading back to the apartment.  We made our way down the east side of the Champ de Mars, found our bus stop for the number 87 line, and were soon 'home'.  I have not been able to discover the event that was unfolding at the tower.  Perhaps if any of you readers out there know, you might leave a comment.