little delights Paris style

Let's forget the strikes and les politiques and visit some of the little delights of Paris. There's so many and lots are free, or the price of an apéro or a ticket on the Metro.

Being a flâneur - loosely defined as a walker with no particular destination - is free. It's all about the discoveries one makes à pied.

 Off the beaten track one finds a gate open

Or stumbles into an alley of charm

Or walking here along the Seine in the early morning

Or in the Luxembourg Gardens in the afternoon

For the price of a Metro ticket it's always worth 

taking line #6, one of my favorites, for the view. It zips along above and below and ground - big selling points are the apartment windows you can look in and the view of the Eiffel tower as it trundles over the Seine.

And for the price of an apéro,

sit down here.

 

or plot your way here

Cara - Tuesday 

A French Resolution - How to keep fit like a Parisian

Yes, this is always encouraged and practiced. But apart from l'Amour, ever think of how Parisians stay in shape?
Here are some examples, thanks in part, to the way Parisians incorporate exercise into their daily life. As well as knowing when to stop eating the cheese.
Here's some tip to get in shape the Parisian way.

Take the stairs

Paris is a city in which you may not have much choice in the matter. Only 50 out of 303 metro stations have a lift, and they are about as rare in old apartment buildings, so whether it's negotiating six flights of stairs up to your chambre de bonne or the 104 steps to street level at Abbesses next time the lift decides to take a break, a workout is inevitable on any given day.

Get on your bike - if you can find one

 And when you don't want to walk, skip the Uber and jump on a Vélib  bike that you'll see parked around the city. A hit with Parisians, Vélib has been going for more than ten years now and has the highest market penetration of any bike-sharing scheme globally, with one bike per 97 inhabitants.

There have been some major problems - new docking stations that don't work - recently as a new company took over the running of the service but things look like they are slowly getting back to normal.

Bikes are a great way to beat the traffic getting from A to B, as well as a workout – think of it as a spin class with a view.

Run for the Metro

Parisian commuters love sprint training. And most of them do it every morning on the way to work when they hurtle down the last few steps and across the platform to catch the Metro before it departs – think of it as subterranean interval training. They also give their arm muscles a workout as they force the closing Metro doors back open. Along with applying make-up and talking and texting simultaneously on a mobile phone.

Or you could just take the safe option and jog on the spot until the next one turns up two minutes later. But that's not very Parisian.

Just forget the Metro altogether

Alternatively, ask yourself if you need to take the Metro at all. With stops an average of only 500 meters apart, sometimes you're just as quick - or even quicker walking.  As the map below shows.

Paris is a compact city, only six miles across, and you can walk from one end to the other in less than two hours. Add this to the fact that driving, never mind parking, isn't exactly the most relaxing activity the capital has to offer, and you'll see why Paris is a city of walkers so make like the locals and put your best foot forward.

Cara - Tuesday

a Paris past, post-Bouchercon and the awesome Twin Cities

Wow what a gift! My friend, Maureen in Portland, just sent me this wonderful 1948 map of Paris by arrondissement along with a Metro ticket. Hmm wonder if I can use it in November?

After Bouchercon, the wonderful agent who represents Lisa, myself and Duane Swerzyinski invited us for dinner. A cajun prawn dish and home made cookies.

Then on to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a library talk. Pat Frovart, who I and many people love, took me to lunch and her 'old' bookstore, Once Upon a Crime, now run by Devin and Jessie. Pat, who owned Once Upon a Crime bookstore for years with her husband, Gary, were honored with the Raven award at the Edgars. Gary, passed away a few months ago, and is deeply missed by the mystery community. Just want to say Pat is doing well, and as she says 'Now I've got time to read for pleasure, not work"

To me this is what the Twin Cities really are about :)

Cara - Tuesday who missed seeing Susan Spann at Bcon zut!

a Paris past, post-Bouchercon and the awesome Twin Cities

Wow what a gift! My friend, Maureen in Portland, just sent me this wonderful 1948 map of Paris by arrondissement along with a Metro ticket. Hmm wonder if I can use it in November?

After Bouchercon, the wonderful agent who represents Lisa, myself and Duane Swerzyinski invited us for dinner. A cajun prawn dish and home made cookies.

Then on to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a library talk. Pat Frovart, who I and many people love, took me to lunch and her 'old' bookstore, Once Upon a Crime, now run by Devin and Jessie. Pat, who owned Once Upon a Crime bookstore for years with her husband, Gary, were honored with the Raven award at the Edgars. Gary, passed away a few months ago, and is deeply missed by the mystery community. Just want to say Pat is doing well, and as she says 'Now I've got time to read for pleasure, not work"

To me this is what the Twin Cities really are about :)

Cara - Tuesday who missed seeing Susan Spann at Bcon zut!

back in Paris six months after

I left Paris six months ago the day before the shootings. Looking back, I wondered if a sense of innocence had left with me. Now returning after six months and the recent Brussels massacre I wondered at what had changed.

Well, a lot and not a lot. April ushered in blooming lilacs, school vacations and a quiet in the streets. A sort of quiet since the students were protesting the upcoming labor laws in an unusual alliance with workers unions, staging 'Nuitdebout' Up all night at the Place de la Republique to show their defiance and of course making it a party. Depending on who you believe they mostly ended up turning violent - which was the intention. Outsiders with crow bars and Molotov cocktails joined in and disrupted. My friend, a policewoman says this is part of the campaign 'haine des flics' hating the flics. Lots of Parisians don't like the police but in the press even these disrupters are called outsiders brought in to wreak havoc. The police and military presence in Paris is huge...everywhere you see them strolling with Uzi's - your bags are checked on the Metro, even bicycle riders are stopped and their bags searched. Yet, no one minds, oddly, because it's done with that 'laissez-faire you know we need to do this' attitude. Often as I walked a trio of CRS the riot police passed me, or I was in step with another trio of blue uniforms or the military. I did what the Parisians did and opened my bag, and kept going. Like most I ignored them but tried to take pics when they weren't looking. On May 1st, fete de la muguet which is when lilies of the valley are sold on the street corners for good luck and everyone is - and has been for centuries - allowed to sell without being taxed. It's also International Workers Day and brought the demonstrations which in theory are forbidden by the Emergency Laws enacted after the shootings. All of France is on high alert. So clashes with the police, tear gas but that's getting ahead of the story. On May 1st I passed Place de la Republique and couldn't figure it out. My friend had too and said there were so many groups protesting in their own cells and then families out for the day and it was hodgepodge. No teargas until that night at Metro Nation, the old Place de la Trone where the 'intermittents' part-time union actors were protesting since their benefits were being cut. Again, the rumor was that disruptors came in and got violent causing a strong police response. The actors took over the hallowed Comedie Francaise theatre and the next night we saw them on the balcony of the Odeon theatre waving to a few supporters. They'd shut down and taken over the theatre. Another French friend said -- Eh it's May, it's getting hot, the month is spreckled with holidays signifying summer is coming and that's when everyone demonstrates--- Two other friends trumpeted the conspiracy theory - According to them the Government knows that every thirty years a possible revolution might take place and they do everything they can in planning a strategy to stop it. So, to their thinking, the French government, even while on high police and military alert against a further Jihadist attack (everyone says there is going to be another one) are sending in armed and violent disruptors to scatter the students and strong unions who the Government feels threatened by. I don't know what's true. All I know is that my Parisian friends and the Parisians I know just want to take their kids to school, go to work, pick them up and take them to gorgeous Jardin Luxembourg and later sit at a cafe with friends over an apero in their beautiful city - contemplate which exhibition to attend (So many to choose from! I recommend the photo show at the Conciergerie by a Greek photographer - it's amazing in the old Gothic vaults) and what to do in the upcoming long holidays. There was a sense of solidarity which I attribute to the feelings after the November attacks - people talked to each other in line at a boulangerie, countless times people gave up their seats on the Metro, on the bus for an older person, a parent with children, a stranger helped a mother carry her stroller up the Metro steps, a woman in the street saw an errant toddler get away from a father and caught his hand before disaster could strike. Paris is a village, as they say, and it felt like that to me. More than ever. I was lucky to speak with two police - both involved in the Bataclan murders investigation - one in the Brigade Criminelle who was in charge of the scene and another a CSI investigator who spent all weekend there identifying the bodies ---well, they both teared up as they told me...and it shows in those whose lives were touched by that.

Here's our own Jorn the bestseller in Oslo airport very prominently displayed and the lilacs in Paris Cara - Tuesday and jet lagged

20 Mistakes to Avoid in Paris

Here's one from the archives!

20 Mistakes to Avoid in Paris

1. Missing the last Metro home

Full taxi's pass you by, you face a long walk home

2. Heels on cobblestones - unless you’re Parisian + have grown up doing this.

3. Sacre Coeur pickpocket petition scams - avoid them and go up the back stairs

4. Bicycling the rond-point Bastille - you value your life, right?

5. Sales clerks on the Rue St Honoré - only if you’re really buying that Vuitton should you face them

6. Demonstrations + strikes - forewarned is knowledge - check before leaving the house or you might have no bus or Metro to catch

7. Side stepping suspicious streams on the pavement/trottoir - you get the reason, non?

8. Les soldes/ The Sales in January and June - only if you’re obsessed, determined + have your game plan in place should you enter the fray at Galleries Lafayette

9. Touching the fruit at greengrocers - just don’t

10. Fishing in the Canal St Martin - it’s very shallow and yet they find bodies once in awhile 

11. Paris Plages - your call if you want to slap on oil and sardine crunch with the Parisians who couldn’t get out of Paris in August 

12. Driving through Sunday manifestations/strikes - again, you value your life, right?

13. Not greeting shop assistants when you enter and leave - an expected common courtesy

 14. Flashing an iPhone at Metro stations - that’s if you want to keep it

15. Puces St Ouen - instead go to Porte de Vanves fleamarket more locals and deals

16. Pigeons - hard to avoid but keep extra cafe napkins in pocket to alleviate those white plops

17. Late night kebab - eh, go for the frites 

18. Sunbaking on the Seine - see #11 Paris Plages + #16 Pigeons

19. Lining up for the Louvre - find the back entrance and enter via the Pyramid

20. Dog deficit - hop, skip + jump 

Any questions?

Cara - Tuesday