Paris!

Tuesday:

Paris!

Well, first and foremost, Paris is a big city. Two million people in the official bounds of the city (20 arrondissements), more like maybe eight million if you count what is actually the city, outside those 20 (as London and LA do).

In 1853, Emperor Napoleon III (did you know that Napoleon's nephew ended up as Emperor of France?) hired Baron Georges Eugene Haussmann to "ventilate, unify and beautify the city"?  Very, very long (and interesting) story short:  he did it, in 17 years, and Paris was not only never the same crowded, unhealthy, chaotic city it was, but also looked a whole lot like it looks today (see above). Haussmann (and NIII, who played a big role in the work) is responsible for the unique look of Paris, still an 18th and 19th century city architecturally, but with broad, tree-lined avenues and buildings almost all the same height. This is immediately obvious if you're atop one of the towers of Notre Dame, or that big steel tower, but it's also evident on the ground. It's a city that's pleasant to the eye, architecturally.

Traffic is another story. The traffic raised our blood pressure just sitting on the bus (did I say we had an awesome driver?). The chaos at intersections is unreal. Haussmann, not foreseeing modern transport, laid the avenues out, not in a grid, but in radial patterns streaming out from major plazas or roundabouts. So – intersections are almost always at interesting angles, and turning becomes an art.

Right-of-way rules exist, I suppose, but are not in use. It's kind of like a food chain – survival of the fittest. There are a lot of (almost entirely small) cars, usually small trucks, normal-sized buses, bicycles, pedicabs and big boxes mounted on bicycles (resupply? maintenance? Uber Eats?), electric bicycles, scooters and skateboards, motorcycles and motor scooters, and that guy on a wheel about a foot high, with posts coming out of the hub that he stood on, and drove it right into and through traffic. Motorcycles seem to follow no predictable rules or patterns except “if there's room, I zoom,” and there's a lot of motorcycles. The rule of intersections is: you take what you can whenever you can. Lots of near-accidents, but no contact. And hardly any horns.

• Tuesday's fact: Right-of-way rules in roundabouts in France are just like those in Massachusetts – yield going in, signal going out. Except one. There is one roundabout in all of France where those rules are reversed – the biggest one. The roundabout that the Arc d'Triomphe is on has twelve (12!) roads feeding it, and you have the right-of-way going in, but then when you're in, you need to yield to everyone coming in from every one of the 12 roads. I had to avert my eyes.

 We made it to the hotel, checked in, and recovered; dinner was "on our own." One hour in one of the most complex cities in the world, and we had to find our way around well enough to feed ourselves. It didn't help that, when we went out to look around, it was immediately evident that we were in the high-rent district. Our hotel is a (long) block from the Champs Elysees, which we strolled along, gawping at the famous global fashion names, each with about three artfully placed items in the window, and restaurants which were priced on a different planet. There was, incredibly, a 5 Guys on the CE, and burgers started at 12 euros each, currently worth, at this moment, $13.03.

We found a trattoria on a side street, and had a really good meal; it didn't break the bank, but it wasn't Oneonta. I had a personal size pizza which, even though it was the simplest plain pizza (tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil, basil) it was really, really good. Abbey/Mom had the plat du jour (basically the special of the day) which was linguine with lots of shellfish and marinara – and no cheese. It was also outstanding. There was a lot of it, so she got a doggy bag and we brought the leftovers back to our refrigerator.

Tomorrow: the Rodin Museum and a Seine river cruise, capped off by our farewell dinner. Stay tuned -