PARIS AU RALENTI-CONTINUED

This intrepid reporter is following up on her initial post with a fresh batch of observations and photos collected during her recent trip to Paris. The first part of Paris au ralenti probably gave you the impression that Paris had dramatically changed since the pandemic, and not in a good way: an ebullient, festive city turned into a mournful, quiet one. That’s only partially true. I won’t deny there were a few poignant moments where it was hard to shake the feeling of loneliness but they were vastly outnumbered by the numerous “proofs of life” shown by my fellow Parisians and by the stunning examples of everlasting beauty the city is famous for. To make it even better, I consistently found Parisians to be warm, chatty, and helpful! Follow along and you’ll see that, in spite of it all, Paris is always a good idea.

Versailles might be closed but, if you board the right RER C, a métro ticket is all it takes to be transported inside the Hall of Mirrors.

On our first day out, I decided to hang out in the 16th arrondissement. Why, oh why, would I do such a thing? Two reasons. Except for the Trocadéro-Guimet-Palais de Tokyo triangle and Musée Marmottan, that part of the city is shunned by visitors. I figured this affluent and mostly residential area would look reasonably “normal” and I could observe some Parisians in their natural habitat… Also, I was interested in walking in Hector Guimard’s footsteps but I’ll save that for another post.

Five muscular atlantes are needed to support a stone balcony on rue Jasmin

As expected, the streets in the 16th were very clean and the elegant apartment buildings were well-kept. Except for a few Space Invaders gone astray, we didn’t see any street art but filled our eyes with beautiful architectural elements of diverse styles.

Ceramic decor by Gentil & Bourdet on rue Boileau (1906)

Although cafés and restaurants were closed everywhere in Paris, this neighborhood felt lively in its own usual way (yes, it is more sedate than Barbès or Belleville.) Nannies were watching over boisterous children playing in the parks. Impeccably dressed older women were shopping for groceries at Monoprix or dropping off their dry cleaning at the pressing. A large contingent of masked middle-schoolers exited lycée Jean-Baptiste Say, jumped on their scooters, and headed home for lunch. None of them played ball against the wall of the Eglise d’Auteuil, a testimony to their superior reading skills and good manners.

Défense de jouer à la balle contre le mur. Not as common as Défense d’afficher.

Life goes on in other parts of Paris, too. Would you believe that people still buy pastries?

You can still satisfy your chou craving at Odette

Always a line at Kitsuné at Palais Royal

Early afternoon, rue Montorgeuil was not encumbered by tourists snapping photos of Le Rocher de Cancale: it was busy with locals shopping for meat, fish, and produce or picking up dessert for their evening meal. I suspect that all the other streets devoted to food shopping (rues Cler, Cadet, de Lévis, etc.) are equally patronized.

Picking up a baba au rhum, perhaps? It’s Stohrer’s specialty.

A few observations regarding the food scene. Many restaurants have switched to the vente à emporter or livraison models to stay in business. What struck me was the variety and quality of the food we could choose from. MacDo and Domino have their fans but ethnic and traditional French restaurants are offering a fantastic selection of to-go dishes that echoes what they would serve in their dining rooms. We got a delivery from La Ferrandaise: the menu included pork cheeks with blond lentils, low-temperature cooked veal breast with carrots, organic chicken with morels, and more delicious creations. You may have to forgo the restaurant atmosphere but you will get interesting food! I also really like that many restaurants still want to showcase their dining room as an inviting place either by populating the seats with stuffed animals (like Les Deux Magots in my previous post) or by setting up their tables just as if they could welcome you tout de suite. A nice change from the stacked Gatti chairs.

Would you care for some Champagne before your meal? At Le Pré aux Clercs.

Even when the tables are not set, it’s a delight to gaze at some of the restaurant facades.

So much history at Bouillon Racine, founded by the same Chartier family on rue du Faubourg-Montmartre.

Paris remains a gigantic chantier: construction is ever-present, everywhere you look. The Olympic Games deadline is looming large! In addition to the ongoing reconstruction of Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower is getting a new paint job.

Makeover time! La Grande Dame will sport her yellow-brown color again.

Fountain Medici in the Luxembourg gardens was emptied out; the renovation of the statues, basin, and water supply continues through June 2021.

Now we know how deep it is

The new Samaritaine complex is ready for its close-up but the new Louis Vuitton headquarters across the street are wrapped in scaffolding.

The Rivoli façade of la Samaritaine got more than a face lift! The Art Nouveau façade on rue de la Monnaie and original façade on quai du Louvre were nicely restored.

There is a running (pun intended) joke that Parisians “discovered” the virtues of sports as soon as they were told to remain inside their apartments. Gyms are currently closed: parks and gardens are the new locations to watch bodies squeezed into Spandex: fitness, running, Tai Chi… Apparently, boxing has many devotees, especially among women: one particular instructor was spotted at Luxembourg on Thursday and at Palais Royal on Friday. Have gloves, will travel.

Tai Chi in the gardens: low and slow.

Fitness class at Palais Royal. Note to self: head out to Kitsuné after working out….

If climbing is your thing, the underside of pont de Grenelle on Ile des Cygnes has been set up as a climbing wall. You can stare at the Statue of Liberty while pulling yourself up. Or, you could head out to the right bank near Pont d’Arcole and ride a stationary bike while watching the barges float by.

Who wouldn’t pick this view instead of riding a Peloton in their living room?

Of course, Parisians are also spending quality time outdoors with their four-legged companions.

Meet and greet on Ile des Cygnes

Cinemas may be closed but film production has resumed and we noticed crews at several locations. No Emily or Lupin sighting, though.

Stumbled upon the set of Les passagers de la nuit starring Charlotte Gainsbourg. No Charlotte sighting either…

And if you need further evidence that life in Paris is quasi-normal, rest assured: you can still enjoy a good street demonstration, and not just during the weekend.

Théâtre Odéon is occupied by actors and stagehands protesting the shutdown of cultural venues. We saw them every afternoon, playing and singing Bella Ciao.

Whether it’s March or July, a prudent traveler always carries an umbrella and keeps a Plan B in mind in case it rains. Covered passages and galleries are open; they provide lovely sights and one-of-a-kind shopping experiences.

Mosaic floor at galerie Vivienne. You did recognize it, didn’t you?

Churches were open as well. We popped into Saint-Germain-des-Prés right after a funeral; the restoration work is finished and the colors are stunning. That same afternoon, the rain and wind were so violent that we took refuge in Saint-Sulpice. During a funeral. We sat down by one of the side chapels. Saint-Sulpice is huge (the second largest church in Paris after Notre-Dame) and social distancing was in effect, along with masking and hand sanitizer. It felt a bit odd –and oddly comforting– to share this moment and space with a large group of strangers. As Aristotle said: “man is by nature a social animal.”

Come to the light! Stained glass projection at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

In general, gardens seemed a bit less populated than usual but the weather was not necessarily encouraging people to linger on a chair with a good book. Tulips were not out yet but the tulip trees at Palais Royal had put on their seasonal show in beautiful shades of pink.

Blooms at Palais Royal

Whatever the season, gazing at floral shops is always a treat. Peculiar buildings, whimsical decorative touches, bouquets of flowers in galvanized buckets, potted plants spilling over the sidewalk… every shop tells a little story.

When the shop is as pretty as the flowers. Floranges on rue Michel-Ange.

Inside marché Saint-Germain, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France creates floral arrangements at maison Beaufrère.

Les Fleurs du Mal: what a great prop! Stanislas Draber on rue Racine offers flowers and poetry.

If all you can do is stroll, Paris might be the most exciting place to do it. Where else can you walk all day long and be treated to beautiful architectural details right and left?

130 rue Réaumur. It’s the main street in the old Sentier neighborhood, the former home of printing presses and sewing machines. Most of the imposing buildings have especially high ceilings on the lower floors where industrial equipment was set up.

Fantastic doors and caryatides abound in Paris. These two ladies on rue Monsieur le Prince are called La Studieuse and La Libertine. Which is which?

I often catch great reflections of the Palais Royal gardens in the shop windows under the Montpensier arcades.

In the mood for poetry? Rimbaud’s Le Bateau Ivre unfolds on a wall at rue Férou.

One of my (not so) guilty pleasures is to wait for a large porte cochère to open up, sneak inside, in hope of discovering a secret courtyard.

Score!

Sometimes, it’s “just” a worn-out staircase, a heavy wood beam, and an ornate handrail.

I think one of my next photography projects should be to search for lovely ceramic and mosaic details on Parisian buildings. That will keep me occupied for a while!

Mosaic at Relais Odéon

And, of course, there is also street art and art-in-the-street: even familiar places can be “new to you” on repeat visits.

There is always a photo expo hanging on the fences of the Luxembourg garden. If you can’t come to art, art will come to you.

Be masked and merry!

Each evening, the curfew required us to be back at the lovely hotel Saint-Paul Rive Gauche by 6 pm. We were not allowed to eat out but, one night, a talented saxophonist serenaded us with jazz tunes around 7:30 pm. I watched him pace the street and play until he disappeared from my sight. I took in the grey zinc and slate rooftops, the carved window pediments, and the forged iron balconies. I caught a fleeting glimpse of someone heading home, bathed in the warm glow of a street lamp. I drew the curtains closed. It had been a good day and Paris was still a good idea.

A room with a view

Vocabulary
Le pressing: dry cleaners
Le chou à la crème: cream puff
Le baba au rhum: a sponge cake soaked in rum, with whipped cream
La vente à emporter: take-out
La livraison: delivery
Tout de suite: immediately
Le chantier: construction site
La porte cochère: carriage entrance

My book is perfect to help you plan your next trip to Paris. Or to reminisce when you can’t cross the pond… Buy a copy of Moments Parfaits in Paris: I'll mail you (from France) a signed bookmark in an envelope bearing this collectible Trésors de Notre-Dame stamp!

PARIS AU RALENTI

The trip had been postponed for a year. Despite living in France, I hadn’t set foot in Paris since September 2019. I knew that museums would be closed; cafés and restaurants would not welcome patrons; a 6 pm curfew would still be in place. We decided to go anyway and make the most of it. It was Rick’s birthday after all and it would be a nice change of scenery. The fact that I had been away from Paris for (what seemed to be) an eternity was putting me in a unique position: it would be easier to notice how the city had changed since its pre-pandemic days.

We arrived at Gare d’Austerlitz on a Tuesday at 5:30 pm which qualified as “peak hour” since the curfew started half-an-hour later. I expected platforms and trains to be packed but I was wrong. With no lines at the ticket machines and very few commuters pacing the RER and métro corridors, it felt more like a quiet Sunday morning in Paris before the young set heads out pour bruncher and the 40-years-old carry bouquets on their way to have lunch at their parents’.

Métro-RER corridor between Saint-Michel and Cluny-La Sorbonne

I know this doesn’t quite jive with what is typically shown in news reports but we never encountered crowds in public transportation during our 5-day stay. Call me crazy but I purposely went through the Châtelet-Les Halles interchange for no other reason but to see how crowded it was. I’ll let you judge for yourselves: here is a time-lapse video where you can (almost) count every commuter using the people movers.

Most of the time, we seemed to be stuck in a time warp: the walls were still plastered with affiches advertising winter vacations in sunny locations or movies and plays that briefly opened last Fall before the second confinement began. Many of the paper posters were tattered, signaling that advertisers had pretty much paused any campaign they had planned since the 4th quarter.

“Our Christmas gift to you: to make you laugh!” Are we laughing yet?

As expected, the closure of cafés and restaurants is the most glaring evidence of the pandemic; probably because they’re huge social hubs, day or night.

No onion soup for me today! To think that Au Pied de Cochon had been open around the clock, every single day, since 1947…

Au Père Louis on rue de Vaugirard. Even outdoor service is not allowed.

Sad sight at Café de Flore.

Some, like Les Deux Magots, “pretend” to serve customers.

Les Nounours des Gobelins do get around! Lucky bears…

Many of the smaller eateries shifted to the vente à emporter model, either click-and-collect or delivery by UberEats, Deliveroo, etc.

Le Pré aux Clers offers vin chaud, soups, and to-go meals.

Clearly, restaurants have no idea when they might resume operations.

“Nous rouvrirons à l’automne.” Polidor was using the Spring confinement to do some remodeling, expecting to reopen in the Fall. They’re still remodeling.

A café at marché Saint-Germain is not making any time commitment: dès que possible…

The “fruit bar” on quai des Grands Augustins has an injunction for all: stay fired up!

Not being able to sit down at a café for lunch means that more French people eat while they walk (the horror!) or look for a bench in public parks.

No seats left in square Laurent Prache.

Front row seating on place Saint-Germain.

Window seating at Palais Royal.

I purchased a couple of Merveilleux on rue du Pont Louis-Philippe and we ate them right on the street, using the top of a shipping pallet as a table.

Undoubtedly, the pallet had been used to build a parklet in front of the now-closed restaurant.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to spend six-to-eight solid hours on your feet without the possibility of seating down in front of an espresso or a glass of wine! And it’s a bit tricky to depend on public toilets since cafés and department stores are closed. Whatever you do, do not leave home without loading the (free) Toilet Finder app on your phone: truly a life-saver.

Public restroom on rue du Four. All toilets are automatically cleaned after each user and have hand-sanitizer dispensers on the outside.

Speaking of urban furniture… The Wallace fountains work very well, most of the Morris columns advertise plays that theaters can’t show, and it looks like the old newspaper kiosks have all been replaced with their “new-and-improved” models.

Sign of the times at the kiosks: few postcards, many masks.

Many other sites are in “sleeping beauty” mode.

Like all movie theaters, the UGC Danton only showed a few films in Summer-early Fall before having to shut down again.

Notre-Dame will not wake up for several years but the work continues. All the melted scaffolding was removed. Engineers and artisans continue to consolidate walls. There is still debris to evacuate inside the cathedral before restoration and rebuilding can start.

The bouquinistes’ lockers didn’t see any daylight while we were there but perhaps they feared rain showers. On the other hand, many of them heavily rely on the tourist trade.

Car traffic has gone down noticeably: nowadays, you are more likely to get run over by a vélo than a voiture. Even the Seine seems to be taking a break. There are no Bateaux-mouches or Vedettes du Pont-Neuf on the water. Even the Batobus service was suspended at the end of September. They hope to resume service in April (dream on…) The only boats we saw were houseboats moored on the banks and merchandise barges carrying wood, sand, or construction debris.

Esperanza on the Seine.

After staying on the Right Bank for many years, I had booked a hotel in the Latin Quarter for this trip. It was “my” Paris when I was a student in the late 70s-early 80s but the neighborhood had changed a lot over the past 40 years. The rectangle defined by boulevards Saint-Michel, Saint-Germain, Saint-Jacques, and quai Saint-Michel used to be an exciting and culturally vibrant area before the fast-food outlets, kebab joints, overpriced cafés, and souvenir shops turned it into a tourist mecca. It truly had become a zoo.

This time was very, very different. Foreign tourists had no choice but to stay home, and so did most French students after remote-learning became the norm. It was a ghost town. Many of you are quite familiar with that neighborhood and I think you will be shocked when you take this little stroll with me.

An eerily quiet rue de la Huchette. Rue de la Harpe wasn’t any livelier.

Curtain down at Théâtre de la Huchette. Ionesco’s La Cantatrice Chauve and La Leçon had been playing there since 1957, the longest running show without interruption at a single theater.

Le Caveau de la Huchette also went dark. After the Liberation of Paris, its caves welcomed jazz greats like Sidney Bechet and Claude Luter. Until the pandemic, it was open every single night.

 “Souvenirs row” across square Viviani, on rue Lagrange. Speechless.

The bookstore was open but when was the last time you could take a pic of Shakespeare and Company without an American tourist photobombing your shot?

Last days at Gibert Jeune, an institution for more than a century. For any former Latin Quarter student, this feels like the end of an era. All four stores around place Saint-Michel are closing forever.

So, yes, Paris feels like a different city at the moment. During the first confinement, mesmerizing photos highlighted the beauty of an empty city. They felt strangely peaceful; time was suspended. My photographs tell a different story; they show a city that’s wounded and is barely convalescing; but it’s also reinventing itself. There is some gloom and some sadness but there is resilience as well. And the beauty is still out there for everyone to see. That’s what I’ll show you in my next post…

Coming soon to a café near you: Gatti chairs and an aperitif en terrace. Can’t wait!

Vocabulary
Au ralenti: in slow motion
Pour bruncher: to have brunch
L’affiche: (f) poster
La vente à emporter: take-out
Vin chaud: (hot) mulled wine
Dès que possible: as soon as possible
Gardez la pêche: lit. keep the peach; remain upbeat
Le vélo: bicycle
La voiture: car

JOURNAL D'UNE CONFINÉE - WEEK 1

March 17, 2020

Ah, to be a dog, immune to COVID-19 and blissfully unaware of what’s happening in the world. After our retour précipité from California, we picked up Lily at my sister’s house. We’re back home by noon to, well, stay home. The confinement is now in effect. I take inventory of what I have in the freezer and the pantry; I notice the empty fridge didn’t spontaneously replenish itself while we were away. Lily gets reacquainted with her surroundings after her two-week vacation with her canine cousins: there is a lot of sniffing around and some napping in her favorite armchair. She has no reason to worry: kibble magically appears in her bowl twice a day. The dog is all set. If things get too dire for her humans, they’ll have to crack open some homemade cans of foie gras. The horror!

Vocabulary
Le retour précipité: hasty return

Hyacinths in bloom in front of Mom’s house

March 18, 2020

My confinement is better than yours. If the virus is a great equalizer, the stay-at-home experience is not. Some people have to spend their days in tiny apartments; we are lucky to live in a spacious house à la campagne surrounded by fields and wooded areas. Rick is back in tractor mode: the weeds grow fast at this time of the year. I check up on Mom at least twice a day but refrain from entering her home. No hugs, no kisses. We stay six feet apart and I wear disposable gloves when I bring her food. Nurses still come to her house morning and evening but her aide à domicile can no longer fulfill her schedule: she also watches over the children of the Gourdon medical personnel and is not supposed to work for elderly people. Meanwhile, Mother Nature pays no attention to the turmoil: wildflowers are blooming all over the fields.

Vocabulary
A la campagne: in the countryside
L’aide à domicile: (f.) home care assistant

Very few shoppers at the local supermarket. Still plenty of bread and fresh flowers.

March 19, 2020

I ask Mom to give me her grocery list. She says she really doesn’t need anything: she has three bottles of sparkling water, a camembert, one sous-vide dinner, and a box of frozen fish sticks. Let’s put this woman in charge of disaster preparedness, shall we? I fill out a permission slip and drive to town for supplies. At the roundabout, I’m stopped by a gendarme who asks why I am out of my house. To go to the supermarket. “I hope you’re not just picking up a baguette and sliced ham,” she says as she waves me through. Most of the shops are closed and the streets are empty. At Intermarché, I don a mask and a pair of gloves before pushing my cart into the store. The shelves are well-stocked; plenty of toilet paper. I check off everything on my list except for my favorite brand of butter. I should have enough supplies for a week. I tend to be an impulsive cook and usually pick up food every other day depending on my inspiration. The confinement is forcing me to be a methodical meal planner. It’s a new exercise and, at this point, I’m mildly amused by the novelty. I’m even making chicken stock from scratch!

The pear tree is in bloom

March 20, 2020

This spring has been milder than usual and the trees seem to visibly change day by day: buds, blossoms, and tender green leaves appear as in a time-lapse video. The pear tree is gorgeous and covered with white flowers. I’m making a mental note that I’ll surely need to thin the fruits in a month or two. A memory rushes in: a vision of my grandmother’s poire prisonnière. I’m thinking I should make my own. I’ll have to find a pretty carafe, attach it to the tree, slide the neck over a small pear, and let the fruit grow inside the glass. When the fruit is ripe, cut the stem, remove the bottle with the pear inside, and fill it with some alcool de fruit. Maybe I’ll call it my poire confinée, année 2020.

Vocabulary
La poire prisonnière: captive pear
L’alcool de fruit: (m.) clear fruit alcohol
La poire confinée: confined pear

Illustrator Battì Manfruelli from Corsica has perfect take on how many people are feeling right now.

March 21, 2020

My cousins and I started a WhatsApp group a year and a half ago. We’re scattered along a Paris-Toulouse axis but usually manage to see each other throughout the year. Getting everybody together at the same time is a challenge but I was lucky to have them at the house for last year’s Christmas dinner. The group has been active this week; we’re checking up on each other and posting humorous pictures and memes about Le Confinement. On Day 5, this thing is still fairly new and “manageable.” Some of us are retired, some are en télétravail, some are raising toddlers while trying to work from home… I wonder: how long will it take before we feel like caged birds?

Vocabulary
En télétravail: working remotely from home

Several religious services are broadcast on the France2 channel every Sunday morning. Catholic mass is usually filmed in churches and cathedrals, in France or other francophone countries.

March 22, 2020

I’m bringing Mom some of my homemade chicken soup. As I walk on her porch by the living room windows, I can hear her TV set blaring a religious hymn: if it’s Sunday, it must be Mass. I drop off her food on the outdoor table and we spend ten minutes chatting, she inside, me outside. She plans to have lunch, take a nap, and watch Michel Drucker’s TV show. All in all, an ordinary Sunday for her. Back at home, I catch the last five minutes of “Le Jour du Seigneur” and notice that, today, Mass is not taking place inside a spectacular cathedral but is broadcast from a TV studio in the 13th arrondissement: four priests respecting la distanciation sociale, a simple wood table doubling for an improvised altar, a giant screen showing rows of empty pews. Not an ordinary Sunday for them. At noon sharp, I hear the bells of the church in Payrignac. They sound louder than usual today.

Vocabulary
La distanciation sociale: social distancing

LIFE IN THE TIME OF CORONA

What a difference a week makes. I was in Eureka enjoying elaborate Victorian mansions, colorful street art, and a superlative dinner prepared by the talented executive chef at the Carter House, a young lady I first met when she was a mere ten years old. She says that watching me prepare French dinners at home inspired her to choose that profession! My heart is full.

Check-in counters at SFO

While I was combing spectacular Agate beach on Thursday, it was clear that we would have to cut our trip short: we were scheduled to fly back to France on March 24 but, with the new restrictions placed on travelers from Europe to the US, it was hard to imagine that airlines would not drastically cut back their destinations and frequencies.

TSA at San Francisco airport: no need for Fast Track today!

By the time I got back to Modesto on Friday evening, I had played several scenarios in my mind but they all hinged on how United Airlines would handle our non-changeable tickets. I called the customer service line and was kept on hold for less than ten minutes; another ten minutes and a very efficient representative had rebooked us on the Saturday SFO-CDG flight. No hassle, no fee, no extra money; grateful for United. We would miss a family gathering on Sunday but I felt we needed to return home ASAP and not take the chance to be stuck abroad for several weeks.

Nice to see those tails!

The sigh of San Francisco airport was eery, Whole banks of check-in counters were closed; we approached one agent without waiting a single minute. The empty lines at TSA only reinforced the feeling that we were walking through a ville fantôme.

Pick your seat at the UA lounge

We had allowed extra time to spend at the airport in case there were some sanitary controls before boarding but they were none. We spent an hour at the United lounge which is usually crowded with passengers flying to Asia and Europe. Empty seats everywhere, no food buffet, wrapped plates of salad veggies and cheese on a rolling cart, a box of disposable gloves by the wine bottles… Yep, it felt different.

All food at the lounge was wrapped

At Gate 97, it was very easy to practice distanciation sociale and the agent dismissed formality by calling Groups 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 to board simultaneously. We briefly engaged with the American couple in front of us: although museums were closed and their tours had been canceled, they were still ready to go and visit Paris on their own. When is your flight back, I asked? In ten days; supposedly; we’ll see how things develop.

I took this photo after the doors closed. Pick a row, or two; or three!

We settled in the plane very quickly and I was hoping we could depart earlier than our 3:25 pm scheduled departure. Macron had announced France would be on lockdown at midnight (3 pm here) and I thought it would be safer to be in the air before that time. Sure enough, the announcement came in at 3:10 pm: the gate agent was trying to figure out whether we could fly out or not.

It would have been so easy to score an upgrade. Not free, but easy…

The crew had already agreed to work this flight even though they were told they would not be allowed to disembark on arrival: they would need to stay aboard until the plane turned back to the US. Non-French citizens or permanent residents of France had to deplane as they would be refused entry on French soil. The American couple we had talked to earlier, and a few more passengers, quickly exited the plane. We waited a little longer while the corresponding luggage was removed from the cargo hold. I was sooo relieved that Rick had finally gotten his residency card ten days before we left! When we pushed back from the gate, there was a grand total of 27 passengers in our 787: that is the closest I’ve ever been to flying in a private jet.

Out of luck if you were planning to purchase discounted alcohol or tobacco products

Take a rain check for that café experience. All bars, restaurants, and cafés in France are closed.

The flight itself was uneventful and so was our arrival at CDG1. No sanitary control there either. Most shops in the terminal were closed, except for the Relay newsstand and, oddly enough, Ladurée. I guess we could all use a box of tasty macarons to weather what’s ahead. I had decided not to take the train back to Gourdon: in a fluid situation, many reservations were being canceled and the stations, unlike the airports, looked like zoos: expecting severe restrictions on domestic travels and looming confinement measures, many Parisians were making a quick exit to the province. We spent Sunday night at a hotel by the airport, picked up our rental car on Monday morning, and drove home.

CitizenM at CDG airport: our home for the night.

On Monday night, Macron announced that the French population would stay in confinement the following day at noon. Any travel would require an Attestation de déplacement dérogatoire that you must have on your person if you must leave your residence to go to the pharmacy, get food, assist an at-risk person (i.e. elderly or vulnerable people living alone,) go to work (if your job is “essential”,) exercise outdoor or take your dog out for a walk. On Tuesday morning, we made a quick trip to my sister’s house to pick up Lily so that she, too, could be confined on her beloved home turf. We were back at the house at 11:57 am, just in time to join 65 million countrymen for what is shaping up to be our fiercest war since WWII.

The permission slip to go out of your residence while we are confined

All of us will be impacted by Covid-19, wherever we live. Le confinement will be easier for those of us who live in rural areas and have more space around them. Rick will continue to run the tractor, mow down the weeds, clear the woods… Some of his home improvement projects will take a back seat because Bricomarché is closed and he can’t get supplies. As for me, I’ll be looking after my mother: she lives only 30 yards away but I’m not supposed to go inside her house. I’ll tend to the garden and start the vegetable seeds I picked up in Eureka. I’ll bake cookies and leave them at my aunt’s door across the road. And I’ll continue to blog. In fact, I plan to go through my photo files and share with you my stories about the places I love. Escapism is a good way to cope in times like these. And those of us who love to travel always dream of our next destination.

Be safe. Be well. Be dreaming.

Yes, Paris loves you and will be waiting for you when the skies clear up.

Vocabulary
La ville fantôme: ghost town
La distanciation sociale: social distancing
La province: any area of France outside of the greater Paris
L’Attestation de déplacement dérogatoire (f): permission slip to travel
Le confinement: lockdown, shelter in place