I. Thursday

We arrived at the Gare du Nord at around ten o’clock on Thursday evening. I could see that Grace was tired and so was I; we had been travelling since lunch-time and we had barely had anything to eat. Wearily but excited, we made our way outside to be immediately greeted by a bustling hub of French looking people and French looking buildings. It was beautiful. I turned to Grace and she gleamed an ear to ear smile back toward me. Grabbing our bags we began on our way to our hotel heading south down the main road passing a small church, stopping to take photos of each other to show off to our friends when we returned home, rubbing their faces in our weekend away whilst they endured a mid-march weekend in England.

We found the hotel down a small side street that was just wide enough for a single car to pass down with there still being enough room for two pavements on either side and the hotel was called ‘Les Plumes’, or ‘The feathers’ which Grace found suitably romantic. After ringing the bell a small, well-dressed man in black attire came out to greet us and checked us in, giving me the keys to our room. The reception was small but adjoined to a dining area with a few tables and chairs with some modern looking bookshelves and some older looking books filling them. The walls were either black or a wine red and the room as a whole gave the feeling of class. Our room’s decor was similar. A double bed taking up most of the main room with a black cupboard on one side and a small nightstand on the other and then a table and armchair in the opposite corner of the room. Opposite the door was a large window that could be opened completely and gave a view of layered Parisian rooftops all coloured like turquoise and sloped sharply downwards at the edges. Standing next to her, I turned my body and held my arms around Grace so we were both pulled close to one another, both gazing out over the Paris landscape.

“We’re in Paris,” I said.

“I can’t believe we’re in Paris,” she said, moving one arm around my neck and placing her other hand lightly on my cheek “I can’t believe you took me to Paris.”

“Neither can I, to be honest, I’m still having trouble taking it all in.”

“Happy Birthday,” she said, turning her head to look at me directly, then planting one on me softly.

A while later we were both hungry and thirsty as we hadn’t eaten since the Eurostar where we had had a snack and we decided to go out to find a grocery store to buy some food. I took forty Euros out of the paper envelope in my suitcase and told Grace whilst she was getting ready that I would ask the receptionist if there were any such shops nearby. Grace told me to come back upstairs after so we could go together as she didn’t trust me to find my way back alone in Paris at nighttime. The receptionist was very helpful and told me there was one at the end of the road and left. I decided to abandon Grace and head out on my own anyway just to prove her wrong and within a minute I had already taken a wrong turn. Following my own route, I ended up back out onto the main road and after backtracking and trying again I found myself in the same place. I wandered aimlessly for a while to see if I could chance upon it and instead found a wine cellar. ‘Perfect, that takes care of the thirsty part’ I thought to myself. It then occurred to me as I walked in they were beginning to close up for the night, but a polite older woman came over with short grey hair and a welcoming smile.

“Bonjour,” I said.

“Bonjour.”

“Pardon, je parle petite Français. Parlez vous Anglais?”

“Oui, I can speak English if you prefer, which wine do you want to pick?”

I reached for a bottle of merlot that had ‘€17’ painted on the side with white paint and gave her a twenty euro note at the counter. Then, almost twenty minutes since I had left I made my way back to the hotel making a mental note to remember where that place, ‘Le Rouge et le Verre’, was, forgetting about the food entirely. Back at the hotel Grace found two cups and poured us each a glass. She preferred white wine but didn’t mind that night and we lay on the bed drinking and talking for hours until we had finished the wine and had finished talking.

Then we slept.

It took Grace a while to believe I was taking her to Paris. I first mentioned it in passing when she asked me what I would like to do for my eighteenth birthday. She thought I was joking. Then I brought it up again in conversation a few times more asking her the places she would like to visit and she still thought I was joking. Even when I visited her house to check with her parents that they were okay with the trip a part of her still didn’t believe me. Finally, after having dinner with my father who was the patron of the trip, and having him ask her whether she was excited she finally believed me. After that, it was just a slow wait until the day of departure. The night before I again had dinner with my father, without Grace this time, and my family to celebrate my birthday and I was given a small gift bag. Inside was a number of envelopes, one had the first set of train tickets to London, another had the Eurostar tickets to Paris, a third had details of the hotel. And then a final envelope was filled with money. I didn’t count it then as to not be rude but I had the feeling overcome me as if I were a spy being given his next assignment, or a man on the run being given the necessary items to flee from the country. I felt excited, to say the least. I was excited that for the first time I was venturing out on my own, that I was in charge of this journey and it was my responsibility. We were dining at a local restaurant and I ordered the burger, a personal favourite, but I found it almost difficult to eat because of my eagerness to be on my way, to be on the train travelling to almost a different life even for just a weekend. After that, it was just a night sleep, a morning of college, and then a quick drive home to pick Grace up. She was excited and was not trying to hide it. After a quick drive to the station, we boarded the train and found our seats. First class, a table to ourselves with cutlery and two glasses laid out. A man pushing a cart came through and offered us something to eat. It was now mid-afternoon. We had both already ate so Grace only got some biscuits and orange juice to wash it down whereas I had a brownie and strong black coffee. The conversation came about naturally and I told Grace the general plan I had for the few days. Soon enough we arrived in London with our cases in tow and from their hopped on to the Eurostar with only a brief wait before we departed from London St. Pancras station. A while of the British countryside, then a while with only black outside the windows, and then much more scenic French looking countryside for the better part of two hours. During the Eurostar train journey, we had some food from the onboard restaurant and then I read my book whilst Grace mostly looked out the window until we arrived at Paris, our weekend getaway, our romantic little corner of the world with only one another for company.

II. Friday

Friday morning I awoke around ten and there was already a shaft of light streaming in through a skylight, brightening the room with a fresh tinge of white. Grace was already up and pottering around the room putting her face on and generally getting ready because she wanted to make the most of our short three days stay in the most romantic city in the world. I, on the other hand, wanted to just stay in bed with her all weekend. Finally, after an hour of back and forth wrestling and convincing each other of both plan’s merits, I found myself forcefully shoved into the shower and dressed, ready to leave.

Walking down to central Paris we found was easy enough as our hotel was situated almost directly north of the Louvre, the first place we wanted to visit, and only a twenty minute walk down main roads except for when we happened upon the Jardin Du Palais Royal; a large rectangular garden filled with four rows of square cut trees stretching lengthways across the gravel floor, punctuated with a fountain of water in the centre that streamed into a circular pond beneath it. A beautiful aesthetic. The surrounding building, or palace if it ever was, had a similar grandiose aesthetic in that every window was the size of a door and had an accompanying small balcony in front of the lower half. In between the windows were Romanesque columns to allow arches to replace the bottom floor windows and to create a sheltered path around the perimeter of the garden. Atop each column was a small chalice shaped statue, and then the same Parisian blue rooftop behind it, I imagine making the palace almost identical to every other building from a bird’s eye view. It was lightly raining that morning and I remember feeling slightly melancholic as I held hands with Grace and walked through the gardens. It would have been spectacularly beautiful in a time long past, perhaps the belle époque era, I thought, when it would have been brimming with people, or perhaps earlier before the revolution when it would have hosted any number of noblemen and women. But still now it was a beautiful scene when you walked through the trees and past the pond, underneath some of the columns and into a more traditional looking courtyard.

At last, we arrived at the Louvre though and we took in its grandeur. The Jardin du Palais Royal was extravagant in itself but compared to the Louvre it was a footnote. The breathtaking regality of the buildings surrounding the gleaming glass pyramid. It looked like something both from the future and the past merged into one. It was obvious why people flock from around the world to visit this esteemed location. It was fit for royalty. And people were flocking, flocking in the dozens. Groups of tourists, of school children and many, many more. Grace and I stood on the sidelines, almost beneath one of the arches taking it all in, until finally, she spoke.

“It’s a very large queue for the gallery, looks as if we’d be there for an hour.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” I replied, “What would you like to do? I’ve been before, I don’t mind skipping it.”

“Let’s do that.” she said after taking a moment to think “But can we please get some food at some point. I’m very hungry.”

I took her hand again and off we went abandoning the Louvre in favour of a food cart I’d spotted across the ways, passing under the Carrousel Arc de Triomphe but not quite entering the Tuileries Gardens. Grace bought a pastry and she ate it as we walked romantically down the River Seine, as close to the gently ebbing blue-green water we could be, watching the reflections sway from clarity to absurdity and back to clarity again. At Point Neuf, we crossed over and headed toward the Notre Dame cathedral. I’d seen it before but Grace couldn’t remember if she had and through her, I felt the excitement again of seeing it tower over me and her for the first time. Some things, I thought when we got there, will never get less amazing no matter how many times I see it. The sheer intensity of the gothic architecture and the beautifully creepy gargoyles dotted around the two huge towers. Simply astounding in its artistry. Grace and I wandered inside and it was just as beautiful. The stained glass arched windows high above and then the second-floor arches below them lit up in white, and below them, the rows of arches and prayer seats lit up by tall candelabras giving a soft, warm yellow glow. After some more gushing by me, we made our way round chatting idly until we came back out again and found the weather had become brighter, though still raining faintly, almost too little to notice. We walked around the back to the gardens and found a bench to sit on for a spell to get off our feet. Grace’s sister phoned and they chatted whilst I just sat there with my arm around her resting on the back of the bench and enjoying the flying buttresses on either side and the wonderfully jagged spire in the centre of the cathedral. I felt a wave of appreciation come over me, how lucky I was to have been given this opportunity. To spend my 18th Birthday in Paris is something very few will be able to match I thought. Most of all, however, I was appreciative that Grace was with me by my side. To go alone would be a solemn trip and to go with friends would’ve taken away from what I wanted to get out of it; Romance, culture, fine wining, and dining.

But it was past lunch now and we were both starting to get hungry again. We crossed the bridge south from Point Neuf and found a nice little (If a bit commercial) restaurant at the edge of the Seine. A very polite waiter dressed in a white shirt, bow tie, and apron to his waist welcomed us and showed to a little alcove with a table set for two, secluded enough from the rest of the restaurant but next to the window so that we had a perfect view of the Notre Dame across the river. First, we ordered wine and then food. I had chicken and Grace had pasta; We both enjoyed our meals very much so.

The day was beginning to clear up by then and after paying for the meal with a generous tip we decided to visit the Eiffel tower by way of another romantic stroll down the river Seine. When we got there however we found it was under restoration so we couldn’t go up to the top, we could only gaze at the 324-metre high metal monolith from the bottom. Grace, disappointed by this was in a mood so I suggested we head toward the Palais de Chaillot so we could see it from afar and get the obligatory photo every couple gets in Paris, despite my obligations, and cheer Grace up. When you see the Eiffel tower from it’s base it looks tall, and you can tell that it is a monument of a structure. But when you see it from the Palais de Chaillot’s balcony, unobstructed and surrounded by a cloudy white sky, dominating the skyline unequivocally, you’re taken aback slightly at how impressive it really is, even looking at it I didn’t think I quite grasped how tall it was. It was tall. Perhaps only made to look taller by its low surroundings but still, it was tall.

By then it was somewhere in between three and four o’clock and excluding lunch we had been walking all day and were getting tired. We walked, somewhat slower than the way down, back up the opposite side of the Seine until the Louvre and then back to our hotel, stopping at a supermarket on the way to get snacks to hold us over till dinner.

The conversation about dinner arose back at Les Plumes after we had been eating madeleines and resting our feet for a couple of hours.

“Thinking about it, It is your birthday.” Grace said, lying on the bed next to me, “and so far all I’ve got you is a jumper…”

“A nice Jumper though.” I interrupted.

“I want to take you out for dinner tonight and pay for it.”

“Okay, let’s do that. Do you have a place in mind?”

“No, not really. Let’s leave the hotel at eight and wander around a bit. See if we can’t find somewhere nice.”

“Okay, I still want to go to that wine cellar I found yesterday though. It looked nice, but we can do that tomorrow, on our last night.”

And so after a bit of wandering, we stumbled across a place called “Abradavio”, a small pizzeria, which we were both happy with. Sat in a corner table again we were placed next to a stone wall with three oval shape paintings, all placed next to one another with the middle much larger than the outer two depicting a gondola rowing down the Grand Canal in Venice. The entire decor of the restaurant was styled similarly as to provoke an Italian feeling, with green plush seats and little wooden tables covered diagonally in a white cloth, stone walls and a tiled stone floor the same colour as a sunset just before it goes behind the horizon, and then on the opposite wall from us, a large stone mural of a lush, Italian countryside with pillars at each end as if it were a view you were actually looking through. For dinner, I had a perfectly serviceable margarita pizza with a nice red wine, and Grace had the Risotto with gin and tonic. The conversation flowed between us as easily as the drinks flowed into our glasses and the night went by quick. On the way out we picked up another bottle of wine at the same place as the night before, the wine cellar. We were told to pick a wine from off the shelf, but we didn’t have a bottle opener back at the hotel which limited our options. In the end, we found a nice Merlot on the shelf next to a young, beautiful French couple enjoying their dinner.

“Excusez moi.” I said,

“Oui?” the man in the couple said back, looking up from his date. I pointed to the wine. I didn’t know how to say “could you pass the wine?” in French, but through some muttering and some ‘uh’s he figured out what I was blundering and passed it over to me.

“Merci Beaucoup,” I said graciously. He then said something in French which I didn’t understand.

“Je suis Anglais, Je parle petite Francais”.

“Oh,” he said back in a heavy French accent. “I said you speak French with a very good accent. Why are you visiting Paris?”

“C’est mon dix-huit anniversaire!” I replied, “It’s my eighteenth birthday”.

“Congratulations, happy birthday.” the couple said with a smile, and with that, they went back to their meal and Grace and I paid for the wine, took it back to the hotel, and drank it together until we became tired in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The Apple Pie.

Part 2: https://theapplepie.blog/a-weekend-in-paris-part-2/