Issue No. 607
Travel
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10 - 16 October 2002 Issue No. 607 Travel |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Paris in the fall
Photographer Sherif Sonbol spends a week in Paris, taking pictures and avoiding pickpockets
This was my first trip to Paris. All the way there my head was reeling with everything I had read about its beauty. Of all the European capitals it was supposedly rivalled only by Rome. But I had heard and read a lot about Rome's notorious crime levels, and the thought of going there scared me slightly.
Click to view captionParis Opera; sitting for a portrait; Degas disciple; one of the city's famous fountains; inside Notre Dame; magnificant Versailles; fairytale Disneyland Shirley Johnston, acclaimed author of picture books on architecture and longtime Paris resident had advised me to ride buses rather than the Metropolitan, or underground to see more of Paris. Another dear friend and my main contact in Paris, the pianist Ramzi Yassa, went a step further. He suggested I ride neither metro nor bus. Walking was the ultimate way to see the city, he said.
With all this advice in mind, my first day involved a long walk down Rue Richelieu from my hotel to the Louvre. The first thing that caught my attention was a beautiful fountain. I stopped to photograph it, admiring the architecture. A few minutes later another wonderful fountain stood before me. I stopped to photograph it. A few steps later, there was yet another fountain. I quickly learned my lesson, and saved the film.
In front of the Louvre there were dozens of artists willing to draw one's caricature for a few euros. We took one of them up on the offer, but were highly disappointed with the result. Judging from the number of arguments going on around us, we weren't the only ones.
"But it doesn't look like me," someone was saying.
"It's not supposed to. It's a caricature," the artist responded.
But in the end, the caricature adventure was useful after all. One of the artists turned out to be Egyptian, and while chatting he advised me to use my Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate card to get major discounts at museums.
Just then, the police showed up and berated the artists for not taking their obligatory noontime break. This scene was repeated later on in front of Notre Dame, as another artist painted a real portrait of my daughter with the River Seine in the background. Again, police came over to break up the party. I was told that all across the city the authorities were giving these street artists a hard time.
When we finally got to the Louvre we were ecstatic to discover that an Arabic brochure was available. They told us we needed two or three days to see the entire museum, but I think it would be more like two or three weeks. This is certainly the largest museum in the world.
Our prime goal was to see the Mona Lisa, but it took a whole day to reach it through the labyrinthine corridors. There were literally dozens of people crowded around the Giaconda, and all of them were trying to take a picture of her at the same time. But because, unlike the British for example, the French don't mind and actually encourage photography in museums, the sight was a real let down, because the museum organisers had placed the painting behind thick dark glass in order to protect it from the flash bulbs, rendering any photo of it highly unprofessional and uninspiring while ruining the view of the genuine article. To say the least, we were disappointed.
The guide books had scared us into thinking that the whole country was terribly expensive, and just one cafeteria meal would completely break our budget. It turned out, though, that there was actually quite a bit of affordable street food, and no reason to worry so much about prices.
Our favourite museum was the relatively low profile (compared with the Louvre) Quai D'Orsay, which houses an amazing collection of impressionist art in a renovated, disused train station. I was amazed at how easily the precious paintings could be touched, or harmed if someone had a mind to.
On our way back, on the metro, I found my feet stuck to the ground, and I was unable to move. Suddenly, a man appeared out of nowhere to help. "Don't worry, don't worry," he said. Just then, I felt a hand reach into my pocket, and two men quickly jumped out of the metro. Luckily -- because I had put my wallet in my front pocket for easy access -- they found nothing. But since I usually keep the wallet in the back pocket, the empty bulge there might have made them think they'd get a fine catch.
There were a lot of Arabs in Paris. I would venture to say I heard more Arabic than French. Nearly every store I went to, when people suspected, or found out, that I was Arab they began speaking in Arabic. Once when I was in a taxi the driver, an Algerian, said, "We're taking over." He appeared to be serious.
Later, on the metro, I saw a lady begging. The look of her -- with little children running around and a baby suckling at her breast -- reminded me more of Ataba than Paris, and I was very troubled by the sight. Another troubling incident took place one day on the Champs Elysées as I was eating pizza for lunch. A beggar came up to me speaking Arabic. Two Frenchmen sitting at the table next to me yelled at her, and soon enough, so did I.
We went to the Eiffel Tower one day at about 5pm. The building is stunning, and to tell the truth all the pictures in the world, even those taken by the best photographers in the world, were never able accurately to reveal its architectural delicacy and wonder. The lighting at night also adds to the stunning effect. The entire city is actually lit up at night in this elaborate, fantastic way.
Our biggest mistake, however, was to go to the top of the tower. This was certainly the longest line in all of France, and it turned out it was only the line to buy the tickets. There were also huge lines just to get on the elevator. The two hours we spent trying to get to the top were certainly not worth it, and I would recommend that everyone content themselves with the view from the bottom. Plus, by the time we got down, the gift shop was closed.
For my daughter's sake we spent a day at Asterix Park, an amusement park dedicated to the lovable adventurers Asterix and Obelix from ancient Gaul. We were really looking forward to reliving the pair's famous grand feasts of wild boar. We looked and looked for something equivalent but the closest thing we could find was pork sausages. Considering how frequently the characters eat boar in the stories, we were expecting this detail to be included in the park. There were also, to our disappointment, no Disney- style Asterix characters walking around the park shaking hands and clowning around with the visitors.
The next day we went to the Disney studios. When, during a car show, the actual Herbie the Love Bug was revealed, I am embarrassed to say that I actually shed a tear. However, when I tried to buy a video of the movie to show my daughter I discovered that they only sold the latest Disney movies.
We also got to see the way film-makers trick viewers into thinking car crashes are real. Visitors are allowed to "remote control" a car which, it turns out, is actually being driven by a man in a go-cart-like contraption attached to the side of the car. It was truly enlightening and now, whenever I see a car on the big screen careening through city streets in some big chase scene and smashing, I'll know exactly how it's done.
The second half of the day was spent at the actual Disneyland. When we saw how much was on offer there we were pretty upset that we had spent so much time at the Disney studios section. We packed as many sights and rides into the next five hours as possible. We were told that at 11pm Tinkerbell would fly through the sky and light up the fireworks for the whole park. Considering that we still had to get back to Paris, we were very upset to have to wait until 11:30 for the event to start. When it did, however, the sight was so lovely and stunning that I forgot all about my anger and just enjoyed the show.
On our way back we had to stop at the Les Halles station which, with its "endless corridors", the guide books had warned us, was not the safest place to go. Luckily we made it out unscathed.
The next day we wanted to go to Versailles, but the metro was closed due to a service breakdown. Since I don't speak French, it took a while to understand what the signs on the station describing alternative methods of transport were talking about. When we finally made out the directions and managed to get there we discovered, again, that like everything in Paris we needed a few days and not just a few hours to get the full picture. Considering the lines were even longer than the ones at the Eiffel Tower we did as much as we could.
Luckily, taking the guided tour was a way to avoid these lines. We spent a while in the fabulous gardens, but it was our bad luck that the fountain show only took place on Saturdays and Sundays.
On my way back to Paris on the train I felt a small hand in my front pocket. When I removed the hand, I found it belonged to a pretty girl of about 18. As I yelled at her for trying to rip me off, I also wanted to ask for her phone number.
In the end I concluded that the comparison with Rome was misleading. Both cities feature their fair share of crime, and gullible, disoriented tourists -- of which there are plenty in both beautiful cities -- are the easiest prey around. All in all I felt lucky to have managed to retain all my possessions, despite the two attempts to relieve me of them.
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