#18 - The A-Z of Paris

In this episode we share the A-Z of Paris. From arrondissements, the municipal districts of the city laid out in the shape of a snail, to the second oldest zoological garden in the world, started when the animals of the royal family were abandoned at Versailles during the French Revolution via a hidden message in the ceiling of the Opera Garnier and a centuries old flower market in the shadow of the great Gothic Cathedral of Notre-Dame and a little chapel older than Notre Dame that when you visit is like standing in a jewel box.

We share our insider guide tips and know-how to reveal the best of Paris whether it’s your first visit or you’ve had the pleasure many times. 

Plus a listener asks – is it true all Parisians are rude?! 

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Transcript

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A-Z OF PARIS
 
INTRO
 

Janine: Bonjour and welcome to the Good Life France podcast – everything you want to know about France and more. I’m Janine Marsh, I’m an author and travel writer and I was born in London, UK, but I now live in a little village in the far north of France where there are no shops or bars, jut 152 people and 1000 cows!  I travel all over France taking photos and writing about my discoveries for the Good Life France Magazine – which is totally free to read (find it at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com) and website the goodlifefrance.com. In fact I just got back from the Ariege region where I went to visit the fairy tale pretty Chateau de Gudanes. It really is the most incredible castle, like walking into a real-life sleeping beauty scene, in a rather secret part of France that’s brimming with medieval villages and glorious alpine scenery… And next week I’m off to Paris and Fontainebleau and I have to say I have to pinch myself most days at how lucky I am to see all these marvellous places… 

Olivier: Meanwhile… I am in the UK, drooling at your pictures and articles Janine and wondering why I moved away from France sometimes. Just kidding of course. Bonjour, I’m Oli, short for Olivier. I was born in the west of France, in Vendee but now I live in Berkshire, west of London – so that makes me a Frenglish, and you Janine, you are an Englench. I visit France often though and I am a huge, huge fan of vintage French music which I play on my radio station Paris Chanson. Details coming up at the end of this episode.

We absolutely love chatting to you about France – and if you have any questions – history, culture, destinations, language – anything, just feel free to ask us! You can send your questions to Janine at Janine at the good life France dot com…

Now let’s get to the nitty gritty of this podcast – Janine – can you tell us what’s on the agenda for today? 

Janine: Well as you mentioned, we’re always happy to answer questions and this is one that has come up time and again – What should I see in Paris? And it’s a great question because there is just so much to see and fall in love with. I am a true Paris fan myself! So in this episode, we’re doing the A-Z of Paris! 

Oli: Everyone remembers their first visit. I was 17, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the size of Paris, and being surprised by how many people were on streets, in the shops, and everywhere really. And, how young those people were (compared to my hometown’s). 

At first, Paris feels big and very crowded, but then, you get a different perspective and realise that it is quite small (compared to London or NYC). Also, Paris can easily feel complicated as a town, but then you learn how to get around this – focusing on public transport (outside strike days obviously) and cycling routes for instance.
 
 “There’s so much to do and see” is probably what you scream out loud at the end of your first day in Paris. I certainly did. But that’s ok, you have time. Paris is not going away anytime soon

Janine: I was more like “there’s so much delicious food to eat”! My first Paris visit I was 14 years old and on a school exchange trip. I stayed with a family in the Paris suburbs, a place called Antony, and I went to school there. By the time I came home I was besotted with French cakes, the Eiffel Tower and hot chocolate drunk from a bowl not a cup! 

But there is so much more to Paris so let’s get going and talk about Paris, the American founding father and Paris fan Thomas Jefferson, once said “A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.” 

First up in the A-Z of Paris is arrondissement which means municipal district, it describes the different districts of Paris. So, a bit of history first - in 1795 Paris was divided into 12 arrondissements, 1-9 on the Right Bank and 10-12 on the Left Bank. Then during the reconstruction of Paris in the mid 1800s, commissioned by Emperor Napoléon III (son of one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s brothers) and overseen by Baron Haussmann, eight more districts were added. The city’s map was redrawn in the form of a what looks like a snail’s shell. It starts with the 1st arrondissement at the Île de la Cité and ends with the 20th at its eastern boundary. Here’s a fun fact, Napoleon III held position of Emperor for 18 years until he was exiled and ended up in the village of Chislehurst in southern England, a suburb of London and lived out the rest of his life there – I used to live just down the road, not at the same time of course, I’m not that old! 

Oli: B is for bouquinistes – these are the second-hand book sellers whose dark green book boxes sit on walls along the river Seine. There are 900 of those green boxes in the heart of Paris, filled with 200,000 books, souvenirs and posters and their construction is strictly controlled - 2 metres long. 0.75 metres wide. Higher at the front to allow customers to look in, shorter at the back where they hang over the river Seine. Second-hand book sellers have been selling here for more than 500 years and the boxes are now UNESCO listed. It’s a 3 km long cultural and human journey grand total. And… Last year the city of Paris launched a call for applications to allocate vacant booksellers' locations. Maybe they’ll do it again…
 
 

Janine: I love strolling along the Seine looking at the books! Someone once said that the Seine is 'the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves".

Right we’re up to C for Champs-Élysées – which means Elysian Fields in French, the final resting place of the Gods in Greek mythology. Where the swanky Champs-Élysées now is, was originally fields. In 1616, Marie de Medici, wife of King Henry IV, cleared most of the fields so she could extend the garden of the Tuileries Palace which sadly no longer exists, it was burned down during the French Revolution Now it’s a shopping street, full of cafés, bars and expensive shops.

Oli: D is for Denis, as in Basilique Saint Denis, in the north of Paris.  The body of the first Bishop of Paris and patron saint of France, Saint Denis, was interred here, in 250 AD. His grave became a shrine and pilgrimage centre, and the Basilique became one of the most important sites of pilgrimage in France. The tombs of 75 Kings and Queens and 63 Princes and Princesses are here. It contains some incredible funerary sculptures, many of them depicting the royal likenesses, dating from the 12th to 16th centuries. It was normal practice from the beginning of the 14th century to divide dead French kings into three parts. A bit gruesome, but the thinking was that each part could rest in a different part of the country, three places to encourage people to pay homage, plus protection against desecration in troubled times. This is just what happened at Saint Denis - during the French Revolution, coffins were destroyed and remains were scattered, including those of the Sun King, “Le Roi Soleil” : Louis 14th.

Janine: E is for Eiffel Tower, which is on the Champs de Mars, the field of the God Mars. Gustave Eiffel designed the tower as a temporary construction for the 1889 Universal Exposition. It took two years, two months and five days to build. The tower has 18,038 metal parts: 2,500,000 rivets, and 7,300 tons of iron, and is covered by 60 tons of paint. And here is a little-known fact – in 1925 a conman once tried to sell the Eiffel Tower! Victor Lustig from what is now the Czech Republic was a scam artist and he had the idea to sell the Eiffel Tower for salvage. He contacted companies in Paris, took them to lunch at a very posh restaurant and had a limousine drive them to the Tower to take a look, he even managed to persuade one of the companies to give him some up-front cash – a bribe of course - to make sure they won the bid to dismantle the tower. He eventually got rumbled, escaped to the US where eventually he got caught for something or other and was sent to Alcatraz where it’s said he even managed to con fellow prisoner Al Capone! 

Oli: F is for the Fragonard Perfume museum… It’s free to enter and full of fascinating historic fragrance facts and is in a beautiful 19th century mansion. Very easy to find, it’s a 2-minute walk from Opera Garnier.

Janine: G is for Guimard. Hector Guimard created some of the most beautiful Art Nouveau entrances for the Métro which have become emblems of Paris. He designed 141 metro entrances and 86 still exist and are now protected as monuments historiques.

Oli: H is for Baron Haussmann who we already mentioned. He was born in 1809 and was an innovative and daring planner. He gave us the Gare de Lyon, Gare du Nord, Gare de l’Est, Les Halles, Hötel Dieu Hospital, The Paris Opéra, the Fountain and Place Saint-Michel. The Rue de Rivoli, the boulevards Raspail, Haussman, Saint-Germain, Voltaire and countless others. 
+ Avenues des Gobelins, rue Mouffetard, rue Soufflot, Bd Malesherbes, Av Victor Hugo, Av Kleber and Av Georges V.  Plus the Bois de Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes, Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Parc Montsouris, Parc Monceau and Jardin du Luxembourg. The Grand Hôtel du Louvre, the “modern” Champs-Elysées, and Père Lachaise Cemetery, where he was buried in 1891. So it’s fair to say that Paris would look very different without him…

Janine: I is for the Hotel Royal des Invalides – which is not a hotel, but was a shelter for poor and injured French soldiers who had fought for la France and in fact part of it still serves the role as a place for injured soldiers. It was commissioned by Louis 14th in 1670 and it is vast. It is now also home to the Army Museum, Museum of Relief Plans and of the Order of the Liberation two churches  and it is the last resting pace of Napoleon Bonaparte. I spent a whole day here and I still didn’t see everything… 

Oli: J is for Jardins Luxembourg, originally created in 1612 by Queen Marie de Medici the gardens have a lovely pond where children sail wooden boats. There are 106 statues, and a beautiful fountain created in 1624. It’s a great place to relax. It’s here that you’ll find the Palais de Luxembourg, now home to the French senate.

Janine: K is for – well this is a hard one, I can’t think of anything except kilometres – which actually is really relevant because if you come to Paris you will walk many kilometres and you won’t care because there is just so much to see.

Oli: Very true. You need good shoes in Paris. L is for Louvre – and again, visiting the Louvre means walking, walking and walking as well… We’re talking about a former royal palace which is now the biggest museum in the world – and beyond (as I haven’t found any bigger museum anywhere else in the universe, yet). 
 
 

Janine: You had to get that in didn’t you – that you think that France is the most popular country in the universe!  

Oli: Yes of course, it is true! Anyway, the Louvre has 73,000 square metres of exhibition space. There is so much to see that if you only spent 10 seconds non-stop looking at each of the paintings – including the Mona Lisa - and artefacts – it would still take a month!

Janine: M is for Moulin Rouge – the red mill, a cabaret near Montmartre in the Pigalle district which was opened in 1889 famous for its Cancan dancers.  
 
 

Sound of Cancan music…

 M is also for Monnaie de Paris - the Paris Mint. It has one of the longest facades along the Seine river and houses the world’s oldest money producing institution. For over 1,150 years, the Monnaie de Paris has been making coins. First on Île de la Cité, then various sites in Paris including the Louvre Palace for a century or so, before moving to the Quai de Conti in 1775 where it is now a fascinating museum about money!  
 
 

Oli: N is for Notre Dame. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, and until the terrible fire, it was one of the most visited monuments in France. It was built in the Middle Ages, at the far end of the Île de la Cité. Work started in the 13th century and finished in the 15th century. Notre Dame was badly damaged during the French Revolution, but the cathedral was restored in the 19th century by the architect Viollet-le-Duc. And now of course being restored again, hopefully to be reopened to the public in 2024.

Janine: And 0 just a little extra tip – if you go to Notre Dame take a few more steps and visit the gorgeous Paris flower market. Flower shops in centuries old green kiosks – it’s absolutely lovely! Now on to O for Obelisk and there is one in the Place de la Concorde which is one of the most well-known traffic junctions in the world. The ancient Egyptian Luxor Obelisk, measuring 22.5 meters in height and weighing an estimated 227 tons sits in the centre of the square. Erected by Ramses II some 3300 years ago. It was gifted to France by the vice King of Egypt in 1830. In return, King Louis Philippe gave Egypt a large clock which is in the clock tower of the Citadel of Cairo. The obelisk took three years to get to France, and three more years to be erected in its new home where hundreds of thousands of people lined up to watch it being pulled into place!

O is also for Opera National de Paris. Like a mini-Versailles it is gilded to within an inch of its life and home to a beautiful Chagall painted ceiling. It was completed in 1964 a stunning work of art that hides a secret. Chagall always told his son he left a message for him in the painting, but it wasn’t discovered until 2016 when the Google Arts team created a massively powerful camera which they use to capture images of the world’s most amazing artworks. They took photos of Chagall’s ceiling at the Opera and invited his son to come and see for himself. He told them that his dad had said to him that he had painted him as a tiny baby in the ceiling – but the image is so small it can’t be seen with the naked eye. The Google team zoomed in and incredibly there it was, it was a very emotional moment for Chagall’s son, he never expected to be able to see it. 

Oli: P’s for: Panthéon, which was originally built as a church dedicated to Sainte Genevieve. It’s now a mausoleum for the great and the famous of France. Its facade is modelled on the Pantheon in Rome. There is a large crypt, covering the whole surface of the building in which are the vaults of some of the most famous French people and heroes including Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Marie Curie, Louis Braille and American-born Josephine Baker – who had 2 loves - her country and Paris, as we all know.

Janine: Q is for Queen Marie-Antoinette, one of the most famous characters in French history and whose footsteps can be followed in Paris and Versailles. The queen’s chocolate makers Sulpice Debauve, now called Debauve & Gallais are still going strong, and Lubin parfumerie, Pierre-Francois Lubin would take the Queen some of her favourite toiletries when she was in the Conciergerie Prison in Paris… 

Oli: R is for Rue Mouffetard, allegedly one of the oldest streets in Paris and locals call it la Mouffe. You’ll find a lovely street market here, and plenty of picturesque buildings. Some say the word Mouffetard comes from the original Roman name of this road, "mont Cetardus" which refers to a hill close by, and also from Mouffette, which means “skunk” in French. The street was popular with animal skinners and horrible smells come from the process of skinning. Sunday afternoons in la Mouffe are lively as locals and visitors dance and join in the singing by the Chapel of Saint-Médard in Saint-Médard Square.
 
 

Janine: S is for the Basilica of Sacre Coeur on top of a hill in Montmartre from where you get the most amazing views over Paris.

S is also for Sainte Chapelle, a former chapel that is older than Notre Dame and absolutely beautiful. It was consecrated on April 26th, 1248. There are 15 stained glass windows, each 15 metres high, which depict an astonishing 1,113 scenes from the Old and New Testaments recounting the history of the world up to that point. It must have been one of the wonders of its time – it still is. When the sun shines through the windows it’s like standing in a jewel box. The chapel is deconsecrated now and hosts music performances in the evenings. It’s once of my favourite Paris visits. 

Oli: T is for Tertre or rather La Place du Tertre in Montmartre where you will see many artists painting or drawing caricatures of visitors. It’s on all tourist guides in the world. 

And T is also for Tabac - short for tobacconists. The oldest Tabac in Paris is À la Civette, which opened in 1716, a year after King Louis 14th died. It has been at 157 rue Saint-Honoré for 140 years, just across from the Louvre Museum and the Palais Royale. À La Civette had many famous 18th customers including Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Oli: and U is for Exposition Universelle. The original 19th century Exposition Universelle, or Paris World’s Fair, showcased the best and latest innovations in agriculture, industry and art. 

Janine: V is for vineyard – did you know that there is a secret vineyard right in the centre of Paris? It’s next to the lovely little Museum of Montmartre where August Renoir once lived – well worth a visit! 

V is also for place des Vosges, a little square of Parisian paradise – and one of the oldest squares in the city. It started in 1604 as a royal pavilion built by Henri IV. The king loved the design of his regal townhouse so much that he commissioned another thirty-five to surround the square. Then it was called “Place Royale”.  It became the prototype for all subsequent residential squares throughout the cities of Europe. In 1800 Emperor Napoleon changed the name, because he could, and to acknowledge the department of Vosges - they actually paid their taxes, the first to do so. It’s a lovely place to relax and stroll and you can also visit the house where Victor Hugo once lived at No. 6.

Oli: W is for Avenue du Président Wilson. He was the American President who promoted the idea of a League of Nations, which was the precursor to the United Nations.

Janine: X is for… ok I give up, I can’t think of anything. Except extraordinary, Paris really is extraordinary, and I love Ernest Hemingway’s words about the city he said: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

Oli: Y is for Yves Saint Laurent Museum, which is full of the great French designer’s drawings and designs – jewellery and clothes, costumes for ballet, photos and works of art and also his studio, left exactly as it was when he worked here. 

Janine: Z is for Parc Zoologique de Paris – the Paris zoo. There is another zoo in Paris called the Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes which was founded in 1794 and homed animals that had been abandoned at Versailles after the French Revolution and it’s the second oldest zoological garden in the world. It’s smaller than the Paris Zoo but very charming. 

Well I have to say, we covered a lot of Paris but there is still so much more to talk about when it comes to the City of Light! We have to do another Paris episode! 

Oli: Two episodes… or maybe more!  But now it’s time to answer a listener’s question…


Q&A

Oli: So what have we been asked this week Janine? 

Janine: Well in my newsletter this week (you can subscribe at www.thegoodlifefrance.com), I revealed that I’m going to the Rouen Armada, an event held every four years in historic Rouen in Normandy. Tall ships come from all around the world to dock in the port and there are ten days of festivities! I’m going on the 8 June the day it starts and I’m going to be sleeping aboard a tall ship and I had a load of people asking if they could come too – and you can, but only in Instagram (thegoodlifefrance)! So that was the most popular question this week… But we’re going to answer a question from Lisa Stead of Glasgow in Scotland who asks: Is it true that Parisians are really rude? 

Oli – what do you think?

Oli: Mais non c’est pas vrai, grrrrrr. No it’s not true!
 

Janine: I agree!

Oli: Paris is a city, people are busy, they’re going to work, rushing to the shops in their lunch break, trying to get home, so sometimes if you ask them to stop as you have lost your way and ask for help, they might be in a rush and not have time to help, so it’s just like any city, Parisians are no ruder than Londoners or  new Yorkers!  

Janine: Actually, I think Parisians are less rude than Londoners and New Yorkers. Honestly, I find Parisians pretty friendly and helpful, and I often get people offering to help me with my luggage when I’m going up and down stairs at the Metro! So Lisa – don’t be worried that if you visit Paris you’re going to meet a heap of rude people – you won’t! A few maybe!

Now before I go a big shout out to lovely Karen who lives in Perth and who I met last week at the Chateau de Gudanes - she told me she is an avid listener to the podcast and shares us with everyone – Karen thank you so much from me and Oli – by the way Oli she did confide to me that she likes listening to your silky tones on this podcast! 

 And if you want to know more about the chateau de Gudanes, pop to podcast episode 9 where we chatted to the lovely Karina Waters who is preserving and restoring the most beautiful castle I’ve ever seen. And I’ll be writing about it with heaps of photos in the autumn issue of The Good Life France magazine which is free at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com

 Olivier: Janine, are you really doing this? You’re throwing out there that I have a fan and then that’s it? Non non non. I’d like to thank Karen very much for saying this. From now on, I’ll make sure to take a bit of honey in warm water before each recording, so my voice stays perfect, as she likes it. Karen: merci beaucoup, c’est très gentil.  Thank you so much for listening and a huge thank you to everyone sharing this podcast with friends and family – we’re massively grateful for your support. 

 Janine: Yes a huge heartfelt thank you to everyone for listening and sharing, we really really appreciate it. For now it’s au revoir from me

 Olivier: And goodbye from me.

 Janine: Speak to you soon!