Its Paris season in the world again, and we who live here can
feel it in the kind of emails were getting this month. Friends
and relatives are heading this way and the idea of replacing smooth
macadam with bumpy cobblestones seems to get Paree-bound travelers
all giddy with delight.
Its like a trip to France is a chance to go back in time when
things were, well, authentic. Cobbles were not put there to enchant
visitors with historic decor; they were chosen as the most technologically
advanced building material of the day. Not a stylistic touch,
but the way things were. And that excites those who are obliged
to live close to the way things will be.
Many visitors are coming to Paris to re-charge their glands with
a nostalgia that we dont necessarily share. They come to Paris
to momentarily desert lives of Store 24ness, lives of Real Time
Audio and streaming video, of total accessibility... They come
to Paris to find themselves in the historical attraction of the
past.
Thats what Paris is a way station for re-filling lungs with
oxygen before submerging again into the evasive world of the invented,
of the extended workstation, where the human mind is a piece of
the network. A college buddy of mine recently in France for a
trade show in Cannes sent me an email upon returning: Sorry I
missed you in France. Had meetings every 30 minutes for ten hours
a day followed by business dinners. Delicious! How many business
dinners can one swallow per night? I wonder.
A business trip to Paris is a total contradiction in terms. I
rather spend three days cooped up in a Motel 6 on the New York
Thruway than travel on business in any part of France. One lawyer
friend from New York was in Paris 11 times last year and claims
to have only eaten food that had been ordered in. These are
not the travelers were interested in. Get these souls back here
without their briefcases and pocket organizers and watch them
lap up the Béarnaise sauce and bra-less sundresses.
There may be curiosity about how the French are gung-ho on new
technology, but the stampede of the Nouveau Marché and the emergence
of WAP-equipped cell phones, just cant cut the moutarde when
compared to the pleasure of hanging out at a café terrace with
small, round tables sipping cool glasses of slowly-brewed Kronenbourg,
or an overpriced grand crème. Marveling at an Art Deco façade
is far more romantic than riding an elevator to the 36th floor.
Essentially its a lot more fun NOT working in the aesthetic illusion
of the 17th century than working your butt off and following Wednesdays
schedule.
Mass interest in originality creates the paradox of conformity.
That seems to sum up the tourist industrys relationship with
one of their most popular destinations. Everyone is pitching Hidden
Paris these days. Well-kept secrets definitely sell travelers
Paris package trips, guidebooks and magazines, but what do you
call a well-kept secret that everyone and his sisters boyfriend
can find on page 89 of an Insight Guide? How do you reveal tips
and have them remain secret? Simple. You dont a truth which
should tell you something about how to really explore a city.
Do it yourself.
The best thing that writers can do for travelers is ignite curiosity.
The second best thing is to help set in place a travel attitude,
a process for making your own decisions. A guidebook can help
you understand the areas of the city youll want to explore, but
if enough people start asking for the same mousse au chocolat
at a particular bistro, you can bet your bottom euro that the
greatness of that mousse will start to fade. Without sounding
cruel or cynical, the problem remains that for many Anglo-Saxon
tourists even fair mousse will taste a whole lot better than Mighty
Fine chocolate-flavored pudding.
Recently, I decided to dine with an out-of-town guest in a quirky
old bistro I used to frequent on the rue des Grands-Augustins.
New owners I noticed had taken over, redecorated the joint, replaced
the Turkish toilet in the alley, retired the notorious and well-loved
waitress with a wart on her nose, translated the menu, hired a
publicist who got the place listed in every guidebook in English
and Japanese, and upped the price by 30%. The place moved from
being genuine quaint to stylized quaint. What had once been
original now became packaged. The tables were filled with foreign
visitors seduced by the description and the chocolate-flavored
decor. The food was fine and the evening perfectly enjoyable,
and most of the guests probably found the address to be an ideal
example of hidden and authentic Paris, but those of you who still
aspire to tasting the real thing, must be far more discerning.
Not long ago, the inflight magazine for a major American airline
published an article of mine that theyd commissioned on, of all
things, Hidden Paris. The concept is clear ad nauseam: no one
wants to feel like a dumb tourist. No one wants to be perceived
as belonging to a flock of blind sheep huddling together in tourist
traps, everyone wants to at least enjoy the illusion of being
independent and partaking in Parisians Paris, and yet the editors
and publishers are terrified that real experiences are too real
for mass market American habits and values. My editor overrode
the descriptive adjective when I mentioned gay bookstores in the
Marais. The story now refers to specialized bookstores. I warned
readers that the Champs-Elysées was overrun with American fast-food
establishments, but the piece came out ordering visitors to stroll
down the worlds most celebrated avenue.
Keep this as your guiding light as you experience this city: to
insist on the real thing you have to get lost! Eat in neighborhood
bistros that have never been in a guidebook, offer a plat du jour
at 32 F, and are characterized by service that is good old-fashioned
Parisian surly. (You can actually learn to enjoy poor service,
if you see it as a way of slowing down the bulldozer of globalization,
and the self-lobotomy of sanitized voice mail options which remove
the cultural distinctions and insist that credit card use is secure.
I tell my best friends who love to wander through back streets:
Dont unfold your citymap and look lost when you can become
the real thing. Just turn left. Or right.
David Applefield (david@paris-anglo.com) is the author of Paris
Inside-Out and The Unofficial Guide to Paris. He also edits the
popular website www.paris-anglo.com, which is compiling readers
comments and a list of restaurants, cafés, and other Paris establishments
that are non-smoker friendly. So send in your smoking stories!