The coffee shops of the French capital are where the city's artists still meet. Prepare to be inspired if you're heading for a weekend away, writes GEMMA TIPTON
‘I LOVE PARIS in the springtime,” sang Cole Porter. And while he went on to declare his love for this city in all her seasons, there’s something about the French capital when its trees sport their blossoms, tulips bloom in the Tuileries and the fresh wind makes a visitor feel refreshed, alive, even a little artistic.
Art and Paris go together in the imagination, mingling with images of berets, baguettes, the Eiffel Tower and chic girls and louche boys drinking aniseed-cloudy Ricard in little cafes while contemplating the creation of great works of art and literature. But how real is that picture? Can the casual visitor discover a Bohemian heart to this city?
Paris has attracted artists from Ireland, and all over the world, for centuries, so maybe it’s the Bohemian blow-ins who have the best advice on where to eat, go and stay. Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly have lived in Paris since 1990 and have twin daughters, Lotti and Bo. The couple studied architecture but now work as artists (www.connolly-cleary.com). I meet them at the Pompidou Centre, where their exhibition Pourquoi Pas Toi? took place last January (www.centrepompidou.fr).
By April the queues to get into the Pompidou are lengthening, but you can beat them by going to the door to the left of the main entrance and taking the elevator up to Restaurant Georges (00-33-1-44784799, www.centrepompidou.fr), at the top. It’s not cheap, but the decor and views are incredible. Then you can meander back down through the exhibitions.
Later we go over to Le Petit Marcel, a typical Parisian cafe (65 Rue Rambuteau, 00-33-1- 48871020), decorated with beautiful painted tiles. “We lived right beside here when we moved to Paris,” says Anne. “It was the cheapest place to have a drink.”
We talk about what makes Paris different and why artists and writers thrive there. One of the reasons is financial: you can eat and sleep more cheaply in Paris than in Dublin. Another is the attitude to thought and ideas: philosophy is taught to French school children, and it is involved in life rather than hidden in dusty books.
Paris is also a very real city because it packs 15 times as many people into the city centre as Dublin does. Anne and Denis have been looking at this for a new book, Moving Dublin (to be published by Gandon this year). “That’s sufficient customers to keep any number of bakeries, butchers, flower shops and the like in business,” says Denis. So, even right beside the Pompidou, you’ll still find brasseries and cafes where locals go to eat, drink wine and kiss (there’s a lot of kissing in Paris).
The next day we meet for lunch at Le Nord Sud, in Montmartre (79 Rue Mont Cenis, 00-33-1-46060287). The waiter says the house wine is cheaper and better than the bottle we’ve ordered and that any wine is better than water.
And so, suitably served, we get back to the business of Bohemian Paris. I confess that I am more BoBo – bourgeois Bohemian – than Bohemian itself, as the classic trajectory of the Bohemian was to live in alcoholic poverty, be misunderstood, then die of syphilis or TB at a young age.
I like my Bohemia a little more luxurious, so have been staying at Hotel Bourg Tibourg, in the Marais (19 Rue du Bourg-Tiborg, 00-33-1-42784739, www.bourgtibourg.com). It’s a little opulently overdone but great fun, and the location is fantastic. Anne and Denis agree that being a genuine Bohemian might not be that comfortable – the term comes from the belief that Gypsies originated in Bohemia, and described those who rejected the mainstream.
Lunch over, a spring shower puts us off our proposed trip to “Bohemian” Belleville, a multiethnic area that is increasingly full of artists’ studios. Instead we take a walk with umbrellas over the hill of Montmartre. Skipping the Moulin Rouge and Place du Tertre, where there are often more street portrait artists than sitters, we wind around the pretty back streets and find the Montmartre vineyard. This is one of the last city-centre vineyards; in an annual ceremony, new bottles of (not great) wine are released at huge prices.
Like so many areas of Paris, Montmartre is mixed; the shopping habits of wealthy women on certain streets mean the second-hand shops on others are full of last year’s designer clothes, scarcely worn.
That evening I meet another friend: Thomas Persson is Norwegian, and edits Acne Paper, an international style magazine. We go for dinner at Anahi (49 Rue Volta, 00-33-1- 48878824), an Argentine restaurant in an old butcher’s shop. It’s full of fashion and media people; Sofia Coppola is at the next table. And, as everyone seems to know Thomas, more kissing goes on. Paris, he says, “is an exciting and creative place. Here is where the people making, and doing, interesting things in the world of fashion are living”.
After dinner we hunt for genuine Bohemians in the bars of the Marais. We find a dissipated-looking Frenchman who claims to have known Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick, and tells us that French is the language of thought and English merely a second-rate tongue.
He might be right, but I’m too tired to care. Perhaps this is what Bohemian Paris was like: wine and absinthe-fuelled discussions about the meaning of life; thousands of conversations going nowhere, for the few that changed the course of art and literature.
On my final morning I bring my hangover to the Centre Culturel Irlandais (5 Rue des Irlandais, 00-33-1-58521030, www.centreculturelirlandais. com). With its beautiful old library and chapel, it’s a short and lovely walk from the Luxembourg Gardens and the Panthéon. The director is Sheila Pratschke, an Irishwoman who has lived in Paris for three years, running a programme of artists’ residencies, concerts and exhibitions. Shelia believes “you’re pushing at an open door” with culture in Paris, as people here are so open to it. She loves the markets, particularly the one on her doorstep on Rue Mouffetard. “We’re all very competitive about our markets here. We all think ours are the best. But this one really is.”
This month sees the work of Diana Copperwhite and Eamon O’Kane on display at the centre (both until April 19th).
Paris is beautiful, inspiring, cultured, artistic and fun. It’s one of the great cities of the world, and whether you are on a quest to emulate your creative heroes, find good food and wine, soak up some of the icons of art history or just follow in the footsteps of Baudelaire, and be a flâneur (a “stroller of city streets”), you can skate on the surface, or dive deeper in, but it would be very hard to leave this place disappointed.
Is Bohemian Paris just there because you are looking for it, like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps. Jack Kerouac once said of the Beat Generation that, as with the Paris of Sartre and Genet, “chances are it was really just an idea in our minds”.
Maybe that’s true of Bohemian Paris, too, but it’s a beautiful idea, and on a trip to Paris in the springtime it’s a lot of fun finding out.
Go there
Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus. com) flies to Paris-Charles de Gaulle from Dublin, Cork and Belfast. Air France (www.airfrance.ie) flies from Dublin and Shannon. Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies to Paris-Beauvais from Dublin and Shannon.
Where to stay, where to eat and where to go if you’re planning an art-inspired break in the French capital
5 places to stay
Hôtel Villa des Artistes. 9 Rue de la Grande Chaumière, 00-33-1-43266086, www.villa-artistes.com. Once hosted Beckett (as well as Modigliani and Hemingway). Charming, but a little less atmospheric now than then.
L’Hôtel. 13 Rue des Beaux Arts, 00-33-1-44419900, www.l-hotel.com. Formerly Hôtel d’Alsace, where Wilde died, soon after writing “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.” Brendan Behan stayed here, too, when it was shabby, but it’s all opulent silks and gold leaf now, with opulent prices to match.
Victoria Paris. 6 Rue Blaise-Desgoffe, 00-33-1-45497000, www.victoriapalace.com. Joyce began writing Finnegans Wake here, but these days he might find it a little too chintz-and- marble for inspiration.
Hôtel Saint Merry. 78 Rue de la Verrerie, 00-33-1-42781415, www.hotel-saintmerry.com. Near the Pompidou Centre, this is a converted 17th-century presbytery full of chic charm, sloping ceilings and dark wood. Rooms from €90 per night, so it’s also, almost, Bohemian too.
Hôtel du Petit Moulin. 29-31 Rue du Poitou, 00-33-1- 42741010, www.paris-hotel- petitmoulin.com. At this converted bakery in the north Marais (which Christian Lacroix had a hand in designing), every room is different, from fashion sketches as wallpaper to 1960s design to a theme of the moon and stars. From €190, so a little less Bohemian, but definitely very good fun.
5 places to eat
Bistro Beaubourg. 25 Rue Quincampoix, 00-33-1-42774802. Steak frites and house wine cost next to nothing, the food is good and the atmosphere is a treat.
Grizzli Café. 7 Rue Saint-Martin, 00-33-1-48877756. Named for the bears that used to dance outside. Unfussy bistro-type menu, including mussels, lamb and hot-plate salmon.
Breizh Café. 109 Rue Vieille du Temple, 00-33-1-42721377, www.breizhcafe.com. French crepes with a Japanese twist, washed down with Breton cider. Believe it or not, it works.
Le Châteaubriand. 129 Ave Parmentier, 00-33-1- 4357 4595. Chef Iñaki Aizpitarte is said to be the latest thing. Expect the likes of foie gras in miso soup and mackerel with lychees. Booking essential.
Café de Flore (172 Boulevard St Germain, 00-33-1-45485526, www.cafe-de-flore.com) and Les Deux Magots (6 Place St Germain-des-Prés, 00-33-1- 45485525, www.lesdeux magots.fr) are side by side. Both are crowded with people sitting where Wilde, Joyce and Hemingway once sat (Deux Magots) or where Sartre and de Beauvoir discussed philosophy (Flore). Parisians go there, too – mainly to Flore, and always to sit inside, never on the terrace. For subtle and invisible French reasons, Flore is fashionable, Deux Magots not.
5 places to go
Sainte-Chapelle. 4 Boulevard du Palais, 00-33-1-53406080, http://sainte-chapelle. monuments-nationaux.fr. Gloriously Gothic chapel, likened to a gateway to heaven; built to house the Crown of Thorns.
Bateaux-Mouches. Pont de l’Alama, 00-33-1-42259610, www.bateaux-mouches.fr. Cruises along the Seine. Sightseeing bliss for tired feet.
Eiffel Tower. 5 Avenue Anatole France, Champs de Mars, 00-33-1-44112323, www.tour-eiffel.fr. Climb the stairs or take the lift to the top, 276m up, for shiver-inducing views of the city.
Louvre. Group tours 00-33-1-40205177, www.louvre.fr. Enormous museum with enough to keep you well away from the crowds around the Mona Lisa.
Point Ephémère. 200 Quai de Valmy, 00-33-1-40340248, www.pointephemere.org. Cargo warehouse turned arts venue, with gallery, concert hall and studios, plus restaurant.
Hot spot
Batofar. 11 Quai François Mauriac, www.batofar.org. This old lightship used to sit in Dún Laoghaire harbour. Go for experimental and electronic music, plus four bars. Easy to get to by metro (Ligne 14, Bibliothèque François Mitterrand; Ligne 6, Quai de la Gare). April events include Connected on April 18th (world music) and Ram di Boat (Reggae) on April 21st.
Where to shop
Galeries Lafayette. 40 Boulevard Hausmann, 00-33-1-42823456, www.galerieslafayette.com. More bourgeois than Bohemian, but you can’t go wrong with this old-reliable department store.