Paris my first love
Why this will always be the most romantic of cities
PARIS never gets old, never goes out of fashion. Few need an excuse to visit the City of Lights and Air France’s new direct service from Cork to Charles DeGaulle was sufficient reason for me.
Paris delights in its reputation as the most romantic city in the world and it is also the metropolis in which my first love now resides. I wasn’t so presumptuous as to think of rekin- dling a romance that last flickered over 30 years ago, but I thought, if possible, I would love to meet her.
Over social media we arranged a rendezvous for a million reasons and none, for old times’ sake…I’ll tell you more about Judy later.
The Cork to Paris route may mostly appeal to Munster customers and French tourists who want to explore the delights of the south of the country.
However, travelling from compact Cork airport is hassle-free compared to the delays at security which has characterised recent experiences at Dublin.
‘Don’t blame us. Blame the terrorists’ they may argue, if they chose to appropriate the wording of a sign at a certain British Army border checkpoint in the seventies. It didn’t alleviate the frustration of the delays back then, it doesn’t now.
The security checks are bunkum anyway. If so inclined, a tightly rolled-up newspaper or a pen could be a weapon in the right hands.
The security checks in Cork follow the same format as anywhere else, but with smaller volumes of passengers I breezed through.
Soon, I was sitting with my travelling companions in the Aspire Lounge. The newlyrefurbished facility is an excellent addition to the experience at the airport.
It’s an hour’s journey from Charles DeGaulle to the centre of Paris by road. We privileged westerners looked and turned away again and again at the sight of refugees who have made their homes in tents under the grim, graffiti-covered flyovers; “a cheap holiday in other people’s misery” as Johnny Rotten once sang.
We drove straight to the Aux Lyonnais restaurant on Rue Saint Marc for dinner.
Aux Lyonnais was established in 1914 and as its name suggests specialises in the cuisine of Lyon. Alain Ducasse, who has earned almost one hundred Michelin stars for his various eateries, has owned it since 2002. The small bistro favours rustic décor suggesting it has changed little in the century since its doors first opened.
We dipped breads in Cervelle des Canuts; the fresh cheese and herbs provided a tart-tasting start to the evening. The cold ham served with warm ham and potato in Lyonnaise sauce as a starter was adequate for its purpose. The Quenelle, however, a fish dish served with whipped egg to the constituency of a soufflé, was a fluffy, flossy winner. The light-tasting river pike was perfectly complimented by a generous amount of the Nantua sauce in which it lay.
A quick night cap in the Hotel Le Belmont in which we were staying ended our first evening. The 75 room Four Star hotel on Rue de Bassano is only a few minutes’ walk from the Champs Elysees. The recently refurbished hotel would be ideal for a city break provided you are prepared to pay steep city centre premiums.
Predicted thunderstorms the next day never materialised and thank goodness as the open-topped tour through Parisian streets in a Citroën 2CV proved to be an utter joy. The 2CV or the ‘deux chevaux’, as the French and singer Lloyd Cole would have it, is a gallic icon.
Lucy Jordan might have fantasised about speeding through Paris in a sports car “with the warm breeze in her hair” in the Dr Hook song but I would have rather seen Paris in this jam jar than a Ferrari. Parisians maybe cool, chic and know it, but pedestrians and drivers in all vehicles stared; some smiled and saluted as we weaved through the streets in a three-strong convoy of them.
I sat in the front of a 35-year-old white model, which its owner and driver Jean Marc had named ‘Nina’.
Jean Marc kept his hands on the wheel, lightly, at all times as we drove on cobbled streets and down boulevards; the little car bouncing along as if hydraulic suspension was science fiction. Three abreast, we took the Arc De Triomphe by storm; drove up to Montmartre for stunning city views, stopped off in front of the Eiffel Tower where Jean Marc could have made a tidy amount if he’d charged the tourists who wanted to pose in front of these automotive little dotes.
Jean Marc and his colleagues dropped us at the achingly expensive Fouquet’s restaurant for lunch. A large artichoke in tartare sauce softened me up for a perfect medium rare Steak au poivre.
We took a stroll around the Galeries Lafayette, which is perhaps the most striking shopping mall in Paris. The fashion world’s most famous houses have a presence there. Takings annually regularly top one billion euro at the art nouveau wonder. The views from its roof garden make it a tourist attraction on its own.
Ihad to rush then for an appointment with my first love. The clothing store in which I first encountered the then 18 years old Judy Rottenberg might not have been of the type that could have graced the Galeries Lafayette, but a love story has to begin somewhere. The New Yorker was on an exchange trip to Strabane, Co. Tyrone when I met her on Christmas Eve 1984.
Although I was very uncoolly accompanied by my mum who was buying me ‘a nice pair of slacks’ for Christmas, Judy’s interest was piqued.
I think she mistook my awkwardness for some class of enigmatic assuredness. When I was again introduced to her the next night at a midnight disco in my home town of Lifford, we two non-drinkers got a bit drunk on mutual admiration.
On leaving a week later, she extended an invitation to me to come to New York the following summer and this firsttime flyer took Flight EI 105 to Kennedy on the 15th of June 1985.
A school trip to Paris, coincidentally, three years previously had been the extent of my overseas travels to that point.
New York, despite going through its worst period in a socio-economic sense was a wonderland for me. Judy’s family were, by my limited life experience, wealthy, but welcoming of a gauche spiky-haired, Irish boy to which their one daughter had taken a shine.
A high school graduation dance straight out of a John Hughes movie was the centrepiece of my trip. Roller coasting at the Six Flags amusement park was one highlight, seeing The Smiths at the Beacon Theatre was another; all this and so much more in the presence of this beautiful young woman with whom I had fallen hopelessly in love.
Three weeks flew by and I flew back to Ireland. We met very briefly in Ireland again in December 1987 but that was the extent of our contact until just a couple of weeks ago. The years have been kinder in a physical sense to Judy than she
thinks. Still beautiful, still engaging though nobody, not her, me or you get to toil with life for 30 years without as many kicks as kisses.
Three hours in her presence bridging over 30 years to our two very different worlds was bitter-sweet One beer for me and one wine for her on a hotel roof garden refreshed us as we spoke of was and when, as David Bowie once sang. Hey by the way, you people who post receipts of rounds you’ve bought in pubs in Temple Bar on social media castigating their out- rageous prices try this on for size.
A 330 ml bottle of 1664 lager and a small glass of wine cost me €38, now desist from your postings. Back to the divine and former Ms. Rottenberg and myself. We had to part again. We embraced, with the Eifel Tower in the background and she drove me to my hotel and then motored back to her world.
That evening myself and my travelling companions went on a dinner trip down the Seine.
Thousands of young people lined its banks drinking beers and wine; some brought picnics.
The pleasure boat veered close enough for us to hear that there was not a sign of trouble. I thought of the ghastly behaviour of some people on the Liffey boardwalk in Dublin and could only sigh in wonder at these comparative sophisticates.
Only in Paris would they welcome families to the topless night-time Lido show which we attended on our final night. The cabaret was risqué, politically incorrect, but still entertaining regardless. “Let’s go, let’s go Paree!” the performers chorused closing the show. Okay so lyrically, they wouldn’t be on a par with Brel, Cohen or Dylan but we were singing it with smiles on our faces on the 10 minutes’ walk back to our hotel.
My first love lives in Paris and Paris was the first city I fell in love with. Love is a multi-textured thing, I will always have love somewhere in my heart for both.