constanttrek

Constant Rest

September 25th, 2004

So you thought I was joking when I said we were lazy? Huh! One week in Paris so far and no plans to move on just yet. In actual fact, we would love to be on our way but have had numerous business matters and other such boring practical things to deal with which can only be done in a big city, and we would rather get everything sorted out while we are here than deal with things from Morocco.
But there has been plenty of time for the good things, and so of course we have managed to fit them into our tight schedule.
I am an appalling tourist. Although I may have fine and lofty thoughts of great cultural excursions, every time I find myself in a major European city, I seem to undergo a temporary lobotomy and find myself strangely drawn to the most banal and superficial of attractions. This is the fourth time I have been in Paris, and on each previous visit I have managed to do little other than find fabulous places to eat and drink, and spend copious amounts of time indulging in both of those worthy activites. I have a tendency to apply the same theory to sightseeing as I did to my university education; that is to say, I like to believe that my mere presence is enough, and that any further engagement on my behalf should be avoided at all costs. I also am a firm advocate of the ‘soaking up the atmosphere via one’s stomach’ school of thought. But on this occasion I arrived in Paris determined to DO THE RIGHT THING, goddammit, and traipse the labyrinth of the Louvre if it killed me.
But obviously not right at the start. One has to ease one’s way into these things. So what was the first noteworthy expedition I managed? The Picasso museum? The Rodin collection? In fact any art collection or cultural landmark of significance, no matter how minor? Nothing so noble. No, my first venture out into the hard slog of sightseeing was a shamelessly sensationalist, completely pointless, visit to the final resting place of Jim Morrison. I have no idea why I went. In the midst of the rather incredibly ornate Cemetiere Pére Lachaise, where really important things happened, like the massacre and burial of 140 Communards after an all night gun battle, I found myself staring at a rather insignificant plaque on a dirty headstone with the name of James Douglas Morrison inscribed. It is surrounded by metal barricades and signs requesting visitors to not graffiti the headstone (and, presumably, although my French isn’t that good, to refrain from adorning the grave with spliff ends and empty bourbon bottles) and watched over by an armed security guard with a constantly squawking radio. I imagined him having a drink with his mates at the pub later that night – “yeah, a pretty quiet old day with Jimmy today, but you gotta watch those tourists man, lucky I got a gun or we really could have been in trouble there” – and marvelled at the irony of sending a man with a gun to guard a dead body.
These admittedly useless speculations aside, it was a great place to people watch. I hid myself somewhere between the Fleischberg and Heinmann family crypts and spied unashamedly.
As you would expect, there were a lot of scruffy looking young blokes smoking spliffs, all standing around and looking meaningfully at where the king of deep and meaningful drug screwed depression lay. Each of them had obviously waited some time for this moment, and all were reluctant to be outstayed by any of the others. A strange kind of one upmanship ensued where by varying degrees of big sighs, shaking heads, long streams of blue smoke streaming from nostrils, and scanning of various poetic gems from the great man himself they all tried to prove that they were the most profound of Doors fans. One by one they gradually sidled away, casting resentful glances at those left, who in turn affected complete ignorance of their presence and continued to be absorbed in being mournful. It was brilliant to watch. I reckon Jim must get an absolutely cracking laugh out of watching them all. The best was an old American couple, obviously far more of Edith Piaf orientation than Doors mania, who stood squabbling over who he actually was – “Oh, was he the leader of all those poor guys who got shot up there on the hill?” “No, no honey, I’m sure the book said he was an artist or something…”
Or something.
So, grave touring out of the way, we have managed to see the odd gallery and painting. I am still recovering from the incredible sight of whole rooms of Monet in the Museè D’Orsay, and the Marc Ribould collection in the musem of photography. As a complete philistine of the art world, no-one could have been more suprised than myself at how unbelievably beautiful I have found the galleries, and how much pleasure I have taken from looking at their amazing exhibits. Although I still can’t face the bloody Louvre.
We will be one more week in Paris, and then we intend to move very fast. Note I say intend. But I think we should make good time after this, as a lot of our stops until this point have been for the purpose of dealing with various things from the UK, and should all be tied up at the end of this week.
I will put up the photographs later in the week – and some of Gary’s should be up in a week also. Cheers and I am off to the Montparnasse Cemetiere – well, if Jim’s was a good laugh, can you imagine the pretentious sods hanging around Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre?

Entry Filed under: trekking