Hi Ho!

In the pinky-blue sunrise of a crisp Santa Fe winter morning, I think back on five days in Paris and three days’ driving adventure around the west of France, soaking in images of rolling countryside, stopping in Giverny, Rouen, Honfleur, Mont Saint-Michel, Vouvry, Amboisie and returning to the insane traffic and confusion of navigating to Charles De Gaulle Airport, and how describing each rich and tasty encounter, each “aha” and delight, each “ya gotta laugh” moment is like trying to stuff a king-sized down comforter into a quart-size bag; it’s impossible but you compress a corner and keep pushing. 

I was in Spain for a week in November and I’m on my way today to ski Vail. I’ve researched, written and published articles, kept real estate deals moving forward, studied fractional ownership and website design, rearranged the house and spent time with friends. In the fast-forward mode, as the past rapidly receeds, the best I can do is make a brief recount, save the photos to disc and trust that someday the earth will spin slower and days will spread out before me with time to recollect, reflect and recount.

We left Paris on Friday morning in a rented Toyota minivan, but not without a story or two! I had made reservations online through Auto Europe/Hertz, for a 10 a.m. pick-up, and received a travel agent discount. Train stations seem to be the major pick-up/drop off points for rental cars in Paris. Not knowing how to best depart Paris for Giverny to the northwest, I randomly chose the Montparnasse station from a map because it was on the west side of the city. Not a bad choice. The taxi from our apartment on Rue du Seine dropped us at the Hertz office where a line of people snaked out the door and around half a block. Inside, there were two agents, taking an interminable amount of time with each reservation, an enormous amount of paperwork to fill out, questions to answer. This is crazy, we’ll be here all day!

My pushy New York self went into high gear and I “excuse-a-moi’ed” myself to the “gold club” reservation desk where one old gent kept up a lively conversation in French with the attendant as if there weren’t dozens of people waiting. I coughed, I made eye contact with the man behind the counter and finally, in desperation, I asked as nicely as possible, “Can you please help me?” Sure, he replied, folding the old gent’s papers into a folder and wishing him a good trip. He turned to me and began processing my reservation and within 10 minutes we were out the door, past the line of the terminally patient and looking for a car in some underground lot to which we were vaguely directed.

As there were several underground lots in that general direction, we wandered, schlepping our rolly bags behind us, frustration mounting. Finally we saw a small “Hertz” sign across the street, took an elevator down 4 floors and stumbled into the Hertz rental. Once in our minivan we followed the “sortie,” exit signs, powering out of the depths of the earth, descending, rising, going in tight circles until some 10 minutes later, exhausted from stress and carbon monoxide fumes, we emerged into the Paris streets and joined the stop-and-go traffic headed west to the Periferique (ring road) and the highway to Giverny.

Behind the massive royal-blue doors of #23 Rue de Seine, on the Left Bank, half a block from the Quai where the Pont des Art intersects the Louvre, hides a courtyard with an art restoration shop. Within this courtyard is a locked double-door into a 6-story building of apartments. Marie Noel (Merry Christmas) meets us with the ever-lilting two-tone doorbell-like intonation: “Bon jour!”

Marie Noel is our greeter who works for France Homestyle, the Seattle-based property management company through which I booked this apartment. There is an elevator that goes to the fifth floor and is rated for three people, but they’d have to be three stick figures. Like most Paris elevators, it can barely fit one within its accordion doors. Instead of people, we pile in our luggage, push the 5th floor button and walk up the five flights of marble steps adorned with Oriental red carpet runners that wind in a dizzying pattern past oval windows, past the elevator and up to the sixth floor.

Our apartment welcomes us with rich honey-colored wide-planked flooring, creaky with age and character, a wall-hanging coat tree with mirror, a small hallway to the right with a half bath sweetly scented by delicate lavender soap. At the end of the hall is a compact U-shaped kitchen. “It is small but has everything,” says Marie Noel, opening cabinets to show the colorful China, wine glasses and basic provisions. The window above the sink frames the gilded dome of the Institut de France, and I gasp at the closeness of its magnificence. “Qui,” says Marie-Noel with a nod, as if seeing a monumental dome out one’s kitchen window were a normal occurrence.

Back in the entry and straight ahead is the public space. A narrow wood stairway spirals down to the guest en suite and up to the master suite, but first, the room opens into the dining area, with French doors on to a small balcony overlooking the inner courtyard. In the center of the room is an imposingly elegant square wood table with 6 straight-backed upholstered seats. Against the wall a marble topped buffet sideboard of carved oak, with statues from the Far East in ivory and porcelain. Beyond there is the living area with sofas draped in white muslin and dappled with red-striped silk pillows, side tables stacked with picture books and billowy-shaded lamps, a blood-red wood coffee table with carved legs, perhaps from Indonesia, a large leafy plant and another French-door balcony. Mirrors, paintings and art nouveau sconces adorn the walls. There is a stereo system and telephone, which Marie Noel explains how to use. There is a bookcase full of interesting reads for which we will have no time. It is elegant and chic and all ours for the next five days!

Marie Noel next guides us down the creaky spiral which enters into a unexpectedly spacious room. To one side is an inviting queen-sized bed with draped canopy, a romantic nook. To another is a large desk backed by a wall of built-in cabinets, including a TV which she apologizes does not work but can be fixed. We assure her we do not care. There is a storage room with one of those marvelously absurd European washers, which take forever to cycle, and unvented dryers that go to a thousand degrees to fry but not dry one’s clothes. And there is a bathroom, more spacious than most Paris hotel rooms, tiled in small black and white octagons, featuring a giant claw-footed tub, and a sturdy deco-era lav, plus a toilet and bidet. We ooh and ahh, grateful that this flat more than compensates for the disappointment of the one in London.

Finally, we tromp up the spiral, past the main floor to the piece d’ resistance: the roof-top 3-sided glass room I’d seen in the website photos. The Eiffel Tower is straight ahead to the north, Sacre Couer gleams white on the eastern hillside, the towers of Notre Dame rise to the south, as do the spires of St. Germaine and St. Supice to the west. For the next 5 nights, on the king-size futon that fills this room, I will fall asleep to the gaudy light show on the Tour Eiffel and wake to the view of it over the Mansard rooftops of Paris.

This glass perch is so above-it-all that even sitting on the toilet one has a clear view of the Eiffel Tower. Who’d have thunk it?

But that’s not all. The glass room opens to a terrace and it is here, on folding cafe chairs around a large wrought-iron and glass table, that the four of us will share meals and laughs and stories and, most of all, create memories to cherish for the rest of our lives.

“It is OK then? You will be happy here?” asks Marie-Noel. Yes, we will be very happy here.

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