Parisians are rude, unhelpful and unfriendly, according to – Parisians! Well, that’s the finding, anyway, of a recent survey by French magazine Marianne.
It certainly fits a stereotype, but is it true? Certainly, when I’ve been researching or updating a Paris mp3 tour, I’ve found them to be helpful and friendly. Of course, they can be a bit a brisk – as anyone can who lives in a big city. I’ve found this when I’ve been doing our Rome city guide or our guide to Berlin.
But perhaps Parisians suffer unduly because they are naturally chic, stylish and cool – all properties that can be associated with snootiness and a lack of natural friendliness. A friend of mine claims if you were run over in the Rue de Rivoli, for instance, Parisians would step over you, stopping only to comment on the fact that coat doesn’t match your shoes or that your shirt is so last season.
So, where are the friendliest places in the Paris? From my experience of writing more than one Paris walking tour, the parks are usually a good bet, especially the Jardins du Palais Royal or the gardens at the Palais de Luxembourg. Spend some time here, especially on a balmy afternoon in early Spring and the mood will be warm and relaxed as the weather.
The Rue de Rivoli, the Champs Elysées and the other main streets are naturally some of the most unfriendly as frenetic crows push past tourists and, talking of pushing past, no one can launch an attack to find to get a seat when boarding the Metro like a true Parisian, or Parisgo to give a certain type of Parisian.
But, the Boulevard Saint Germain and the student area are also places where, you’ll be able to prove the Marianne survey wrong by finding yourself amongst friendly Parisians.
Parisians are rude – say Parisians
March 10th, 2010What will happen to the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection
February 19th, 2010What will happen to the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection? Based in Madrid, just opposite the Prado, it’s one of my favourite art galleries and I visit it whenever I’m updating our guide to Madrid.
The Thyssen-Bornemisza gallery is light, spacious and never too crowded and you can see a whole spectrum of art from early Renaissance to the twentieth century in a few hours, as we point out in Madrid mp3 tour. But now it looks as if a row between the Baroness, who still owns the paintings which have a value of about two billion dollars, and her son and heir will put the collection at peril.
The collection is on loan to the gallery and over the next year a decision will have to be made about whether that loan continues or whether the incredibly array of works of art go to a gallery abroad or are bought by the Spanish state. With the country in the grips of a deep recession and fears that it will default on loans this is hardly the time to go about spending huge amounts of money on art, many will say.
The collection of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza includes over a thousand works of art and was acquired by the Spanish state in 1993, with the help, of the Baroness, a former Miss Spain. It’s lovely building – light and spacious – and the paintings are presented in chronological order from early Renaissance works by Duccio, to twentieth century artists such as David Hockney. You can get a complete history of western art in a couple of hours.
The Museo forms one corner of Madrid’s golden triangle of art galleries.
The best time to see Venice
February 9th, 2010I went to Venice again yesterday. I’m a travel writer and I’ve written at least one guide to Venice. I wanted to go at my favourite time of year to update our Venice audio guide. In the summer it’s hot, sticky and crowded – well even MORE crowded – but in the winter it’s reasonably quiet and usually misty – the best time to use our mp3 Venice tour.
I woke up early – it was still dark as I was having a shower – but by the time I’d finished breakfast the winter sun was breaking through the clouds and mist was rolling off the canal in front of my hotel. All you could hear was the rumble of the Vaporetti coming along side the jetties and tap of feet as early morning Venetian commuters shuffled forwards to find a place to sit or stand.
I’d really recommend my hotel by the way – the Santa Chiara in Santa Croce. It’s good value, it’s quiet and clean and the staff are friendly and helpful. It’s near the railway station and just by the Piazzale Romana so if you arrive by bus from either airport it’s very convenient too. You can see the sign on the top of the hotel from the Piazzale Romana.
Having left the hotel, I started walking through the empty streets. There was no about but the rubbish collectors, the delivery boys with their wheelbarrows – a few hungry cats. Venice was silent and still and just coming to life.
My destination was the Piazza San Marco – I wanted to see it before the tourists arrived en masse for a piece I was writing. In fact I got there at about 8.30am. There was no else about except two Carabinieri and the guy who puts up the famous flags of the Republic every day. I wonder what else he does for a living? Does he just sit around at home and then come back in the evening? Mist was rolling in from the lagoon and the first rays of the morning sunlight were just picking out the stunning gold of the Basilica.
I spent some time – ten minutes? Half an hour? Just looking at this gorgeous riot of colour and decoration. Is it the most beautiful church on earth – or a bizarre mess of styles and overwrought detail? I love the image above the right hand door which shows a man in a turban leaning away in horror from an open casket, holding his nose.
When I was hear a few years ago I overheard two girls talking about it and trying to work out from their guide book what it meant. Being a helpful, knowledgeable travel writer (OK, a bit of a know-all – but only a bit, honest!) I explained the significance of this strange, almost comical scene.
St Mark was not the first patron saint of Venice. That honour fell to San Teodoro but as the city grew in wealth and importance during the ninth century it was decided that it should trade up in the saint stakes. The official story was that Saint Mark had been sailing on a boat in the lagoon when an angel appeared to him and told him that Venice would be his resting place.
The real story, which the Venetians are not at all ashamed of, is that two merchants were sent to Alexandria in Egypt where Saint Mark was entombed. They took the body – or its remains anyway – and brought it back to Venice where it lay in the first church which stood on this site on this site before being transferred to this Basilica.
It was said that the saint’s body was hidden under joints of pork so that the Alexandrians who were Muslim and regarded pig meat as unclean wouldn’t go near the contents of the basket. The main who is holding his nose is obviously horrified at the idea of encountering this store of pork!
The two girls thanked me for me help. I’m still not sure that they really believed that such a beautiful, historic building could have such a bizarre, cartoon-like story so beautifully recreated on its grand façade – but it’s true!
On this particular morning I spent a few hours in St Mark’s Square before deciding to set off to my next stop.
Why is hotel room technology so complicated?
January 23rd, 2010Am I getting old or is the technology in hotel rooms getting more complicated? I was staying in a five star hotel in Rome recently, researching a possible mp3 tour of the capital to add to our other Rome mp3 tour. Having walked around all day after dinner I fell into bed and reached up to switch off the light.
The overhead light near the bed duly went off – but the bedside lamp stayed on. Hardly able to keep my eyes open I pulled myself, inspected the light control panel, which had about a dozen buttons on it and tried to work out how to switch off the bedside lamps. I was conscious that writing a city audio tour is hard work and I needed to get some sleep.
I hit a couple of buttons and various lights around the room when on and off. But those bedside babies were still shining brightly – far too brightly. I tried a few more buttons on the panel and finally I managed to kill them. But the room was still not dark – a light from by the door had suddenly gone on for no reason.
By this time I’d forgotten which buttons I already tried and which I hadn’t so I hit a few at random. The bedside lamps came on – and went off again. At one point, a light above the desk when it shone down in an otherwise darkened room looked quite dramatic.
Eventually I decided that this was the least worst option, and donning the sleep mask from the aeroplane and finally nodded off.
Televisions are another case in point. I was rewriting our Paris audio guide to keep it up to date and staying in a nice hotel near the Gare du Nord. It’s not best place for a walking tour of Paris but it’s convenient, none the less, for the Eurostar. I must have pressed about 15 buttons during which time I saw my room bill, narrowly missed paying for an adult movie and watched a dreary Rome travelogue. Finally I got the telly to work. By this time I wasn’t that bothered about watching it any more and just wanted to find somewhere to eat.
After I’ve been doing other audio tours of Vienna and have come back exhausted and ready for a bath I’ve found that switching on the tap, getting the temperature right and not having the shower suddenly come on and drench you requires a degree in engineering.
So, my message to hotel room designers is – keep it simple stupid.
Squatters with the best view in Paris
January 8th, 2010I was amazed to read that a bunch of squatters have moved into a house in the Place des Vosges in Paris. Amazed and very jealous, because this is one of my favourite squares in Paris – as we make clear in our mp3 tour of Paris. Our guide to Paris, Romance and Revolution features it along the route and there is quite a bit of both romance and revolution in the decision by 33 squatters, including a lawyer, a pianist and an architect to take over a house in what is surely the most beautiful and tranquil square in Paris.
Dominique Strauss Khan, head of the International Monetary Fund is a resident of the Place des Vosges but we don’t know what he thinks about his new neighbours.
Walking through the square in an early spring afternoon you’ll find mothers and toddlers playing the gardens in the middle and people strolling past the antique shops under the colonnades or doing what Parisians do best – sitting at cafes and gossiping or contemplating life.
There had been a royal palace on the site of Place des Vosges, called the Palais de Tournelles since the early middle ages. This was where Catherine de’ Medici lived and where her husband, Henry II, was killed in a jousting tournament. Overcome with grief, and unwilling to carry on living in the home she had shared with Henry, Catherine moved out of the Palais de Tournelles and into the Louvre.
Tournelles was later knocked down and this square was laid out on the site in the early seventeenth century. Soon, wealthy Parisians began to move in – and this was when the surrounding Marais district started to become very sought after. This square was known as the Place Royale until the Revolution after which it became the Place des Vosges.
It was King Henri IV who initiated the building of this square but it was his successor Louis XIII who finished the project and you can see his statute in the middle here. Needless to say, the original was destroyed during the Revolution and this version dates from the early nineteenth century.
The Place des Vosges is probably the first example of a properly planned residential square with uniform houses and a coherent design. The great squares in London, Madrid and many Italian cities followed this ideal. There are either 36 or 39 houses here, depending on who you ask, each with matching red brick and stone facades and dark grey slate sloping roofs. The arcades underneath the houses are also unusual in Paris and, along them you’ll find the occasional restaurant and café, gallery and antique shop.
On northern edge of the square is the Queen’s pavilion and opposite it, on the southern side, the King’s pavilion rises above the other houses. The square’s trees and fountains were added during the eighteenth century.
As well as its aristocratic residents, the Place des Vosges has literary associations. The great letter writer Madame de Sevigné was born here and Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame also lived here. His home is now a museum devoted to his life and work and you can find it at number 6, which is in the corner to the left of the King’s pavilion.
Is the Pantheon right for Camus?
January 5th, 2010French President Nicholas Sarkozy has caused a storm in Paris by suggesting that the remains of writer and philosopher Albert Camus be moved to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is covered in our mp3 tour of Paris, called Paris the Grand Monuments.
Camus, author of the outsider was a proponent of the absurdist view of the world. It’s absurd, argued the Alergian-born writer, to try to see any order or logic in the world, or any higher power running it. It’s more sensible just to make the best you can.
Quite what the French left find so upsetting about a right wing President moving Camus to the Pantheon is not clear, although it is a wonderfully intellectual, esoteric French fuss.
However, it does give me an opportunity to talk about the Pantheon, a magnificent but often looked monument in Paris.
The Pantheon was designed in 1764 by Jacques-Germain Soufflot after whom the street leading up this square is named. It’s said that Soufflot died of stress brought on by his great project – especially when it threatened to subside!
It’s a stunning building. The pillars which support the central dome with the decorations on the top of them are Corinthian and the whole design of the building was based on the ancient Pantheon in Rome.
The relief above the pillars shows a female embodiment of France bestowing laurels on great Frenchmen. It’s interesting to note that although France is female, all her heroes are men.
Beneath the relief and above the pillars are the words ‘Aux Grands Hommes La Patrie Reconnaisante’, in gold letters, meaning ‘To Great Men, the Grateful Motherland.’ Is this appropriate for Camus?
As our mp3 guide to Paris shows, this is the highest point on the Left Bank of Paris and you can climb up to a viewing platform around the edge of the dome. It’s said that St Genevieve, the patron saint of the city, was buried here and the Pantheon came to be built because in 1744 Louis XV swore that if he recovered from a fever he would build a great church in honour of the saint.
You can see a vast mural of St Genevieve inside the Pantheon. It’s one of a number of murals which were painted years after the windows were blocked up during the revolution. The interior is vast and ghostly but the crypt is worth a visit as it contains the tombs of famous Frenchmen from Émile Zola and Victor Hugo to Louis Braille as well as Pierre and Marie Curie, who discovered radium. There are guided tours of the Pantheon in English once a day – check at the entrance for details.
The church beyond the Pantheon over to the left, St Etienne du Mont, is also worth looking at if you’ve got time. It’s a lovely mixture of Gothic as we saw at Notre Dame and Renaissance architecture. It’s dedicated to St Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris and contains the remains of the great dramatist Racine and the philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. The pulpit shows Samson sitting on the lion he has just defeated.
The church is open daily except Mondays during July and August and also closed at lunchtimes.
Marolles – Brussels best kept secret
January 4th, 2010As two districts go they could hardly be more different – even though they lie side by side in the same city. I discovered this recently when researching my mp3 tour for our guide to Brussels. The Sablon is one of Brussels’ smartest areas with its broad boulevards and elegant shops while in the Marolles you’re more likely to find rough and ready bars, workshops and immigrants from Spain, Portugal and North Africa sitting out by the pavement watching the world go by.
But in this neighbourhood, the birth place of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, you’re also increasingly likely to see loft apartments, cutting edge furniture shops and hip new bars and restaurants. Over the last few years as demand for property in centre of Brussels has increased, this working class area of the city has begun a slow but steady gentrification – or to use a less formal but more appropriate term, given the rich foodie culture of the Capital of Europe – a croissantisation.
The Marollen or Marollen in Flemish, lies to the south west of the Brussels city centre in the shadow on the grand Palais de Justice, around the broad thoroughfares of the Rue Haute and the Rue Blaes. The Palais de Justice, a vast, overblown creation, was built in the middle of the nineteenth century and was, for many years, the largest building in the world.
It’s said that during its construction, some residents of the Marolles were driven from their houses which were then razed to the ground at short notice, leaving them homeless and angry. However, these displaced Marolliens had the last laugh when the architect responsible died young in a mental hospital – according to local legend, thanks to a curse put upon him by a local witch.
It’s somewhere that I’m planning to do a city audio guide for in my mp3cityguides series of download walking tours of cities.
Since the Middle Ages the district has been known as a rough, working class area and a cultural melting pot with a defiant sense of its own identity. It has a local patois – Marollien, unintelligible to other Brussels residents – and a long standing suspicion of the city authorities. Even today the streets, large and small, are buzzing with noise and energy verging on the anarchic and there is an earthy vibrancy here that you won’t find almost anywhere else in Brussels.
It’s a great place to spend Sundays. There is the famous flea market, the marché aux puces, and you can spend time drinking coffee and wandering around looking at the galleries and furniture stores. Brussels is generally quite restrained but the Marolles has a bit more edge.
Part of the appeal is that the area is very central, but cheaper than most parts of central Brussels. You’re just a minute or two away from the smart Sablon district and it’s not far from Brussels Midi railway station.
The Marolles has a resident population of about 10,000, it’s estimated, around 12 per cent of whom are now young professionals. An equal percentage of residents are students and also pensioners. This broad mix of ages and social segmentation is part of the appeal. But the growing number of shops, bars and new restaurants has increased interest in the area further and somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 people will visit area every day to shop, drink and eat.
It’s the mix of old and new, hip and traditional that characterises this latest stage of one of the oldest parts of Brussels. In the Rue Haute the contents of traditional antique shops contrast with the more eclectic mix to be found in shops such as Jacques Brol and Dune 234, run by another arrival in the area, French interior designer Muriel Bardinet. Similarly traditional neighbourhood bistrots or ethnic restaurants with their regular patrons sit alongside Soul, a Bourgeois-Bohemian chic eatery which was set up by two Finnish sisters who moved into the Marolles and which describes itself as a “bio fusion kitchen”.
Another aspect of the area’s charm is that it contains some of Brussels best examples of Art Nouveau architecture. Private homes and public housing as well warehouses, shops and bars still boast the flowing lines and elegant decoration that were created during the turn of the century. The fact that this still exists – although some of it needs restoration – is again thanks to the willingness of the local population to defend their quartier, this time against developers and planners during the 1960s.
Despite the volume of indigenous inhabitants and incomers working for the European Commission and large corporations, many of those buying or renting in the Marolles work in advertising, public relations and design. It’s becoming known as the area where people in the more trendy businesses live.