Sidewalking Paris
There may be no more salient a place to write a Sidewalking Victoria article about than the original home of the “flâneur.” Charles Baudelaire’s flâneur was a quiet observer of the streets, constantly moving through the city and taking in its social and cultural intricacies. While that might be a little more high-minded than what I usually do, the idea resonates with me and is certainly something I wanted to emulate as I walked the streets of Paris.
I hadn’t been to Paris since I was a 20-year-old backpacker in the 1990s. I had memories of visiting museums and sights, but little memory of the city itself, except that it felt cold to a young outsider. It felt a lot like the New York of the same era: a little dirty, but a real working city. I had heard of the changes Paris underwent both for the Olympics and due to COVID-19 and Mayor Anne Hidalgo. I had heard about the new bike lanes, the cleaning up of the city, and improvements to the transit system, so I let any vestigial ideas leave my head before arrival. It felt like visiting for the first time again.
I arrived on March 22 with my wife and three kids. After customs and walking across what seemed like the whole of Charles de Gaulle Airport, we boarded the RER B line into the city. We were staying some distance from the centre in Neuilly-sur-Seine; when we got to Gare du Nord, we changed onto a different RER line. Exhausted, we finally reached our apartment. Last year, we started using HomeExchange.com (not a sponsor), and we were lucky with our exchange. It was about a 15-minute metro ride to the city centre each day, and the neighbourhood it was in was beautiful. Our apartment looked out over a little square with cafes and boulangeries; just two blocks away, there was a huge outdoor market three days a week. Rather than a day-to-day account of my trip, I thought I would share a few observations and compare them to Victoria where possible.
Transportation
As you might guess, transit is excellent in Paris. We used the RER to get into the city from the airport and to visit Versailles; this commuter rail system consists of five lines. Some are double-levels, like the West Coast Express in Vancouver. The RER trains make regular stops, though fewer than the metro. The Paris Metro, which we used most of the time stops much more frequently, weaving its way throughout the city. Between the two systems, there were few places we couldn’t reach by rail.
One thing that surprised me about the Metro was how narrow the trains are. If you have ridden subway or LRT trains, you will feel this almost immediately. The trains are even narrower than the Skytrain Expo and Millennium Lines in Vancouver. Luckily, the Metro trains arrive frequently meaning that if you don’t feel like squeezing in, you can simply wait three minutes for the next one. To get on the trains , we used the RATP Bonjour app, which reloaded tickets like Compass in Vancouver, I believe that you can also just use your phone if you have NFC.
We didn’t ride the bus, though it seemed a popular way to reach places untouched by the Metro. I did, however, note the bus shelters. I have been on a bit of a bus shelter kick recently with my photography, and I am not a fan of the newest shelters BC Transit uses; they seem like they were designed by a committee. In Paris, while they may suffer some of the same functional limitations, they are beautiful. They are organic looking and complement the Art Deco Metro entrances. These shelters were created by well-known designer Marc Aurel.
Paris has added a lot of bike lanes. They are everywhere, though our Victoria bike lanes seem more permanent and well-constructed. Still, they are well-used and you see many cyclists around the city. I didn’t get the chance, but one of my kids did use one of the numerous bike shares to explore the city along these lanes. From a tourism perspective, I think we are only just beginning to see the benefit of adding bike lanes to our cities.
The transportation mechanism we used more than any other was our feet. We averaged almost 19 km a day. Walking around most of Paris is a true treat. There are sidewalks everywhere, and much like New York, it feels like the city is focused on pedestrians. Some of the sidewalks, especially in the city centre are quite narrow and definitely are not accessible. There is a plan in place to create, accessible routes through each of the arrondissements which is I suppose a start.
One of the best things about Paris is how few cars there are. Even on ‘busy’ roads, traffic is sparse compared to downtown Victoria. Even the Arc de Triomphe traffic circle and the Champs-Élysées felt oddly calm which we visited at what around 4pm on a weekday which would have been a very busy time for traffic in Victoria. In the lead-up to the 2024 Olympics, Paris actively decreased the amount of cars in the city. I am not sure how it is for residents, though it must be quieter for them. Overall, I really enjoyed moving around Paris.
Civic Sites
We visited some special civic sites like the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Archives Nationales, the Musée de l’Armée et Hôtel des Invalides, and the Assemblée Nationale. With the exception of the Musée de L’Armée et Hôtel des Invalides (kids 18 and under were free), these sites were all free and amazing. While you can visit the B.C. Legislature for free, you can’t visit the Legislative Library (though it is one of the most beautiful spaces in Victoria). We also don’t make the public library a tourist destination. We could have done something amazing with the BC archives, but they have been moved to Royal Bay, which I think is one of the saddest things we have done in the region.
Civic sites can be exciting, but we rarely think of them that way. If we created places that inspired us, visitors would also want to see them. Walking into the reading and study rooms in the Bibliothèque Nationale was one of my trip highlights. I would also highly recommend viewing debates in the Assemblée Nationale. The staff are kind, and if you understand a little French, seeing their form of parliament is fascinating. The inside has distinct 1950s steampunk vibes. The Musée des Invalides was also fascinating; I had no idea that the Free French fought against the Vichy French in Africa during the Second World War. We are lucky to live in a capital city in Victoria and I feel like we are only scratching the surface of what we could do with some of the sights we have.
Food
The food in Paris, as you would expect, is amazing. We ate so many delicious treats, amazing meals, and of course, drank great wine. There were also so many little differences from here and some similarities that surprised me. I suppose my favourite couple of food related parts of Paris were the cafés and the markets. Though I should also mention the food kiosks and boulangeries.
The cafés, which are not cafes like we have here, but really what we would call a bistro, except they are open all day and most have amazing outdoor spaces. We arrived just as the spring weather was trying to come out and we certainly had some rough weather, but in those moments of sun, Parisians flocked to the outdoor parts of their cafés. It was amazing, even where we were staying, well outside the tourist area, the cafés were full at 5pm with friends having wine and a chat. It was such a beautiful and social part of the regular day there. We visited a few of the cafés as we moved through the city and I thoroughly enjoyed the chaos and joyful chatter going on.
While we were in Paris we went to quite a few markets. Sometimes we would stumble upon a big market and just walk through the vendors and other times we specifically visited a market that we had heard about. Just two blocks from where we were staying was the absolutely huge and vibrant Marché des Sablons. It operates three days a week throughout the year. The variety of food you can get from this and many of the other markets, was truly outstanding. The Marché des Sablons had multiple veggie sellers, at least two places focused on meats, a couple of seafood vendors, a bread seller, two separate and massive cheese stands and then an assortment of other sellers with jewelery and t-shirts. It was hard to limit yourself to just what you needed for the day. We did visit this market twice; once to get some staples for our apartment and dinner, and a second time to get some items before heading off for a picnic. It really made me think that we could do so much better with our market scene here. Paris doesn’t have better weather than Victoria, so that is not the reason we don’t have markets year round. It is mostly because we haven’t tried to make them work. We need to give them the space and I think it would happen.
A couple of other things to mention. First, there are quite a few food kiosks around Paris. I know that I keep saying this, but we just need to try one. It will work. All the big parks in Paris have a kiosk that sells coffee, beer, crepes, sandwiches and many other things. It is just a simple thing that, like washrooms, lets people enjoy an outside space for longer and creates vibrancy.
Finally, in what in my mind is a huge win for Victoria, I wanted to mention the boulangeries of Paris. There are boulangeries, or bakeries, everywhere. I think I must have tried ten at least and returned to a couple of them a few times. I had some absolutely delicious baguettes, croissants, and other treats. The crust on this one bread I had from Boulangerie Sablonville Taya is something I will never forget. That said, I guess because I had an expectation of being absolutely blown away in comparison to here, there was an aspect of it that was disappointing. What I realised near the end of the trip was that in the last couple of decades, we in Victoria, have actually been extremely spoiled by an incredible bakery scene that in some ways our own wares exceed that of what you might try on the regular in Paris. While I did not specifically go looking for the best of anything in Paris, I did not have a croissant there that was better than what I can get at Crust, Bond Bonds or GoodSide. I know when I said this on my social media feed, people got oddly defensive of Paris, but it was my experience.
I want to say that overall my trip to Paris was amazing. I think I saw about half of a percent of what I could have seen, so I will need to go back someday and maybe spend a month. I would love to hear your favourite places in Paris. What should I have on my list for next time?
