In the rainy fall of my first weeks in Paris I lived near rue Mouffetard, the narrow cobblestone pathway over Montagne Ste. Genevieve that dates back to Neolithic times, was an early Roman road, and now is a hangout for students and tourists. One night, facing the marché at the bottom of rue Mouffetard, I met with another American transplant for an evening drink. The rainy wind slapped at taxis and battered the few trees, and the traffic circle gleamed black and slick. I waited to meet this man who had taught music to my nephew at St. Ann's in Brooklyn, and had now forsaken his career as a concert horn player to get a doctorat at the Sorbonne. Mysterious choice, I thought. As I waited in the warmly lit café an old skeletal bicycle rounded the slick pavement, and there he was.
A bicycle, in this weather? Yes, he told me, he always travels by vélo. To chase away the blues of Paris, his advice was twofold: ignore the labyrinthine social codes of Parisians, and ride bicycles everywhere you go. Never go down into the yellow lights of the metro, where you are faced with sad, gray faces. Ride your vélo into the bracing wind! Freedom from the metro, and freedom from the society.
But--blues in Paris? But---you may sputter--it's Paris! I had already felt those blues descend, those first few weeks in Paris. Hemingway describes it. "All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife--second class--and the hotel where Verlaine had died where I had a room on the top floor where I worked." Those were the streets I also walked every day. And the light was drained from the city.
Before I had lived in Paris I had loved visiting the city in the late fall, for a Thanksgiving with no turkey but misty streets that discouraged all tourists but the intrepid Japanese. Fog enveloped Ile St. Louis, encircled by the glittering necklace of the Seine. The steps of Montmartre were wrapped in mystery, and all Paris was a Robert Doisneau photo. But living in Paris was different. And so, I started traveling by vélo.
In the container that brought my goods to Paris was an ex-racing bike, custom-built for my early triathlons, back in the mists of time. And so I made good use of my little steel pony for several years, owning the hectic Parisian streets, as once I had felt I owned Manhattan by running over the Queensboro bridge every day to work.
Jacques, my partner, took to the advice of my American friend like a boy to a bike. As a youngster in the departement of the Ariège at the foot of the Pyrenees, Jacques had torn up the countryside and villages on his little bike. He had climbed the formidable cliffs where the chateaux of the region were built on impregnable rock. He had also climbed the chateaux themselves, to their crumbling heights, long before they had been restored and opened to the public. Montségur, the spectral white castle at a height visible throughout the region, had been in the 40's and 50's an abandoned ruin. That had been where the last Cathares, remnants of a dissident Manichean sect, had awaited their death at the hands of crusaders in 1244. It had taken the crusaders a 10-month siege to penetrate the fortress of Montségur and then burn the 215 Cathares in the meadow at the foot of the castle. Au bucher! To the bonfire! Little Jacques had climbed Montségur all by himself, and all because of the freedom of the vélo. (For more on the region, see my piece http://hubpages.com/hub/Another-South-of-France-The-Arriege.)
And now we have Velib'! Stationed every few blocks a fleet of heavy, serviceable bicycles are waiting at computer-controlled stands, to be used at your convenience for a yearly fee of 29 euros, as long as your ride lasts under 30 minutes--then you pay for extra minutes. Swipe a card, pick up a bike, and park it again at another station at your destination. Paris has no great heights to be scaled like the Ariège, but there are urban challenges to sharpen the spirit. Bike lanes intermingle with bus lanes and fellow cyclists swoop under your nose without warning. I have heard complaints of 90 euro tickets for traffic infractions (even while the younger set tears around the streets of Paris at top speed). Bicycle crashes surged to 700 in 2007, and there were three cyclist deaths that year, four the next. As of 2009, 11,600 bikes have been trashed, and 7,800 stolen, seen either as no one's property or as bourgeois symbols. But in general French motorists have a supple relationship with the road, as compared with Germans who attack city streets as if they were on the autobahn. Within a few days in Berlin I had been knocked out by a driver, perhaps because I am accustomed to the more perspicacious French.
And so, as I take off for the American library along the broad vistas of the Louvre, the Grand and Petit Palais, and Invalides along the Seine, I am glad for this direct relationship with the architecture of Paris. You can fly as on the wings of time, living with the ages of Paris. Liberté en vélo!
A bicycle, in this weather? Yes, he told me, he always travels by vélo. To chase away the blues of Paris, his advice was twofold: ignore the labyrinthine social codes of Parisians, and ride bicycles everywhere you go. Never go down into the yellow lights of the metro, where you are faced with sad, gray faces. Ride your vélo into the bracing wind! Freedom from the metro, and freedom from the society.
But--blues in Paris? But---you may sputter--it's Paris! I had already felt those blues descend, those first few weeks in Paris. Hemingway describes it. "All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife--second class--and the hotel where Verlaine had died where I had a room on the top floor where I worked." Those were the streets I also walked every day. And the light was drained from the city.
Before I had lived in Paris I had loved visiting the city in the late fall, for a Thanksgiving with no turkey but misty streets that discouraged all tourists but the intrepid Japanese. Fog enveloped Ile St. Louis, encircled by the glittering necklace of the Seine. The steps of Montmartre were wrapped in mystery, and all Paris was a Robert Doisneau photo. But living in Paris was different. And so, I started traveling by vélo.
In the container that brought my goods to Paris was an ex-racing bike, custom-built for my early triathlons, back in the mists of time. And so I made good use of my little steel pony for several years, owning the hectic Parisian streets, as once I had felt I owned Manhattan by running over the Queensboro bridge every day to work.
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| Montségur |
Jacques, my partner, took to the advice of my American friend like a boy to a bike. As a youngster in the departement of the Ariège at the foot of the Pyrenees, Jacques had torn up the countryside and villages on his little bike. He had climbed the formidable cliffs where the chateaux of the region were built on impregnable rock. He had also climbed the chateaux themselves, to their crumbling heights, long before they had been restored and opened to the public. Montségur, the spectral white castle at a height visible throughout the region, had been in the 40's and 50's an abandoned ruin. That had been where the last Cathares, remnants of a dissident Manichean sect, had awaited their death at the hands of crusaders in 1244. It had taken the crusaders a 10-month siege to penetrate the fortress of Montségur and then burn the 215 Cathares in the meadow at the foot of the castle. Au bucher! To the bonfire! Little Jacques had climbed Montségur all by himself, and all because of the freedom of the vélo. (For more on the region, see my piece http://hubpages.com/hub/Another-South-of-France-The-Arriege.)
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| Au bucher! - (Reenactment) |
And now we have Velib'! Stationed every few blocks a fleet of heavy, serviceable bicycles are waiting at computer-controlled stands, to be used at your convenience for a yearly fee of 29 euros, as long as your ride lasts under 30 minutes--then you pay for extra minutes. Swipe a card, pick up a bike, and park it again at another station at your destination. Paris has no great heights to be scaled like the Ariège, but there are urban challenges to sharpen the spirit. Bike lanes intermingle with bus lanes and fellow cyclists swoop under your nose without warning. I have heard complaints of 90 euro tickets for traffic infractions (even while the younger set tears around the streets of Paris at top speed). Bicycle crashes surged to 700 in 2007, and there were three cyclist deaths that year, four the next. As of 2009, 11,600 bikes have been trashed, and 7,800 stolen, seen either as no one's property or as bourgeois symbols. But in general French motorists have a supple relationship with the road, as compared with Germans who attack city streets as if they were on the autobahn. Within a few days in Berlin I had been knocked out by a driver, perhaps because I am accustomed to the more perspicacious French.
And so, as I take off for the American library along the broad vistas of the Louvre, the Grand and Petit Palais, and Invalides along the Seine, I am glad for this direct relationship with the architecture of Paris. You can fly as on the wings of time, living with the ages of Paris. Liberté en vélo!
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