Paris Without

I've recently realized that the places I'd seen exclusively with students (either as a student or as a teacher) are not necessarily the same, experientially speaking, if I visit them withOUT a group of students.

Well, duh, you might respond. Don't be so hasty. I should clarify what I mean.

I have a long history of traveling with students to different places in Europe.  A lot of people thought I was nuts for *liking* the practice.  But I really did like it. 

Being a witness to travelers' first exposures to different locales has been, quite simply, a joy.

But this comes with some caveats.

Group travel requires patience. It requires that you be 'on' even when you may be feeling 'off.'

For lots of individuals who do what I have done, there is a series of gambles:  employing the right entities to assist with arranging the actual travel and the sight-seeing, hoping that you've planned properly for a schedule that has some balance between scheduled activities and down-time, and keeping fingers crossed that the chemistry of the group stays generally pleasant.

I have fortunately always had the right person (shown above, speaking to my group in Antwerp) to lead my student tours. 

And as for down-time, I'm confident that I've worked that out pretty well for most trips.  Rather than attempt the impossible (which entails dragging a group of mixed disciplines/majors through the gigantic Louvre Museum for a guided tour to see a tiny handful of things they may or may not care about) I instead just get them in the door and allow them to wander so that they - and I - can find what's interesting. A number of readers of this blog will probably recognize the painting I'm pointing to, here, and why it matters.

And this is the the second-most interesting thing I encountered on my Louvre wanderings, that day.  Everyone jockeying for a photo.  No one really looking at that small painting.

The idea of her matters far more than she does, it seems (which is not altogether arguable, actually, but that's another post for another day).

Group travel requires you to do things that you might otherwise not elect to do - like jamming yourself into tourist-crammed elevators and passageways to scale the heights of the Eiffel Tower.

And yet, you still get some pretty nice views.

And if you've gone with a group to Paris, then you *have* to see the Palace at Versailles, just outside the city....so you can jam yourself into tourist-crowded corridors and wish that the throngs would all just disappear. The experience can be just this side of unpleasant to such an extent that you really don't SEE the place or its details. You just want to get out on the other side without too much bruising.

On the other hand, my kind of group travel has always entailed excursions with students who are adults.  So this comes with some benefits....

Almost everyone in this shot was happy to be drinking a good Belgian beer.  There were a couple of cocktail outliers, but they're still smiling.

On a number of levels, when someone asks me if I've been to a particular place, I could (and sometimes do) say: oh yes, I have...conveying that I've 'been there, done that.'

So when the Spouse asked if I wanted to come along on his work trip to Paris, I said yes, but questioned whether I would be able to glean anything out of the city that I hadn't already gleaned from a few previous group trips. 

Enter the Cluny museum, for starters, with its great collection of Romanesque and Medieval works of art and craft.

And let's not forget the Roman bath excavations underneath the space.

If this is a reliquary, what a strange place to locate the actual relic.

Most people consider this tapestry series to be the jewel of the Cluny collection.

Fancy interiors.

Altarpieces

Statuary...on wheels

Armor

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And out to walk the streets of Paris.

On our own time.  No schedule to think about.  No heads to count.

This affords mental room for observations:

For one thing, I had stopped thinking of Paris as a HUGE city.  Stupid me.

With impressive architecture

And Roman ruins.  This panorama is of kids playing soccer in a space that abides by the original shape of an...ancient Roman amphitheater.

The mansard roof style is everywhere.

April is a good month for visiting this city.  Temps are good but still cool, and the place is abloom.  There is no way I could have ever brought students here in April.  The semester hasn't ended yet.

By yourself - or just with your one traveling companion - you can turn a corner and not be concerned about whether you've strayed from a course between two destinations.

Wherever you are is your destination, for that moment anyway.

On your own, you can go have Thai food - in Paris - and not sweat the fact that you are not contriving to serve visitors to Paris some French food. 

(But the chilis used in the dish might make you sweat...happily)

You can get up for your next day's sojourn, eat a leisurely breakfast, and hop on the Metro....and not worry about whether you will make a navigation mistake. Without 15 people in tow, that potential mistake can be an opportunity, or it can simply be reversible - without much impact.

You can go to the Les Halles district, not because it's got a bunch of museums or other touristy sites.  In fact, you're there because you want to shop for a brioche pan, and Les Halles is the district for....FOODIES.

Let's just regard that case of fromage, shall we?

You can cruise the restaurants.

Find your supplier for said brioche pan.

Have a croque monsieur - and not watch the clock.

stroll the streets

Past the fishmonger

And the flower vendor

And the purveyor of sculpted chocolate (it is, let's remember, April)

See the tangible reminder that it is the height of asparagus season.

Find a shop that sells hotel-caliber antique silver and buy a dozen coffee spoons.

And you can start to see that a place like Paris has a lot more to offer.

And so you invite your friends to come along on the next short trip.

For Thanksgiving.

The Christmas lights are already up.

There are new wall murals to discover

Coffee eclairs to sample

The Pompidou - to literally stumble upon on an evening stroll.

and even more Thai food (don't worry - there was a dinner with heaping amounts of foie gras, so French food was indeed consumed <but not the foie gras, by me, because non>)

An interesting Gauguin show, featuring his paintings and prints alongside his ceramics and wood sculptures. 

Perhaps the most iconic of all of the paintings featured here

And a fun, bustling restaurant that specialized in trotters. 

The guys in our party of four got moules et frites, and the girls got what they thought looked like andouille sausage on the menu.

The guys were STOKED.  They had a great meal.

I will not be featuring an image of the outcome of the girls' order.  Let's just say that one of the last things I learned about French cuisine on this journey is that sausage casing is not the exclusive culinary use for pork intestines. Sausages can, in fact, be stuffed with chopped bits too.

That's alright, though, because the evening concluded with the acquisition of these exquisite eclairs.

So the working trip with a group of students affords me some benefits, and the trip with just friends affords me others. 

This much is clear:  the cities deserve repeat visits.

Unless the place is extremely small or you spent a looooong time excavating it, there's more to do.  More to see.  

More to savor.