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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 5 (August 1, 1938)

[section]

Timely Notes and Useful Hints.

Letter From Paris.

Rue Lécluse, Paris, June 20th, 1938.

Dear Helen, — It's after midnight but Paris hasn't yet gone home to bed. The tables outside the cafes are still full, and crowds are strolling past in the soft coolness of the summer night. Through the open French windows I can hear the murmur of the traffic on the boulevard at the end of our street. It is intoxicating; perhaps, if I write now, I can convey some of the atmosphere of Paris.

Think of us, in the morning, wakened by the clatter of lorries over the cobbles. We shall listen for a while to the miscellaneous noises below—the scrubbing of the sidewalk in front of each small hotel, the loud and friendly conversation, the squalling of a street singer. Presently will arrive our petit déjeuner, tea (a muslin bag of it suspended in water), rolls and butter. We struggle bravely with the batons, but eat the croissants (small, sweet, curved rolls) to the last crumb.

Sunshine, if we are again lucky, streams between the curtains and calls us out. We hasten, pausing on the front step to greet Madame, who is sure to pop out to farewell us. Perhaps we shall walk along the great boulevards, so wide with their lanes of traffic, their trees, their pavements wide as streets and half filled with the overflow of cafÁs; through side streets, narrower, where we examine small shops, or wander about the great houses, tenements now, whose courtyard walls front the street blankly; among the trees, the lawns, the fountains of the public parks; beside the Seine, perhaps on the south bank where the second-hand book sellers store their wares in boxes on the parapet, and where one is lured on to find the best view of Notre Dame, islanded in the river.

Everywhere we shall observe the perfect planning of this city and the glory of its public buildings, so classical in design. By that time we shall be hungry and footsore, and glad to take a bus to the Place de l'Opéra. A short way from there we know a restaurant where for 13 f. 50 we shall have a four course meal—omelette (always!), a meat dish, a vegetable dish, dessert. (Don't bother pouring wine for me; the “vin inclus” is too sour).

For the afternoon? We will do an excursion perhaps, with a crowd of other tourists and a guide whose English is more amusing than accurate. To-day, for instance, when our party drew up at Fontainebleau we read a notice: “Ouvert tours les jours sauf les lundi”—and to-day was Monday! Our guide was very apologetic, and explained, “We don't know much.” When we laughed, he improved upon it by saying, “We don't know anything.”

It is all fun, but we prefer to find our own way about Paris, using the ordinary conveyances of the people, and blundering along in our school French which the officials are patient enough to listen to and understand. So we went to Versailles on Sunday, by train, with seemingly, half the population of Paris. We lost ourselves in the great suites of rooms, which, even after Hampton Court and Windsor, are overwhelming in size and splendour. The crowds scattered to admire the lakes, the fountains, the formal gardens, the terraces, the woods. Overwhelming!

But I preferred our trip to St. Germain where, at the edge of the woods for a mile or so, stretches a terrace overlooking Paris. I can imagine no finer vantage point. We walked and wondered, pointing out to each other the well-known places which are so new to us—the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the domes of the Sacré Coeur. Immediately below us we saw the river with its viaduct, the curve of the railway line, the workers in the little gardens on the slopes of the terrace—and felt we were beginning to understand Paris.

To-morrow we may go out to Malmaison and laze by the river, and the day after that on a day trip to Chartres to see the cathedral. But I don't know—whatever appeals to us at the moment.

Of one thing I am sure, I want to come back to Paris again in the autumn, when the parks will be a glory of russet and gold.

I am enclosing postcards, one of the Champ Elysées, the most beautiful street I have seen, and one of the Opera. I would have preferred a view of the interior, which is what you should really see—the grand staircase, the foyers, the long gallery where one promenades between the acts.

There is so much I would like to tell you, about buildings, hotels, restaurants, customs different from ours, dress (particularly dress, as studied on the grand boulevards), that I am in danger of writing a guide-book. But to-morrow is approaching so I must cease my scribblings for to-night.

Yours,

Retta.

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