JEP editor Andy Sibcy and his wife recently spent a long weekend in Paris, staying at the four-star Pullman Paris Montparnasse, and eschewing well-known landmarks in favour of the Foundation Louis Vuitton and the old Jewish quarter
I AM sure I am not alone in finding that time seems to speed up at an alarming rate as I get older. The summer holiday always seemed like a lifetime when I was at school, but now six weeks goes by in a flash. Weeks roll in more weeks and, suddenly, it’s 2024. Where did that come from?
But sometimes something magical happens, and time seems to slow down. As if someone has pressed “pause” long enough for you to jump off the incessant wheel of life and take it all in like you once had time to.
That’s exactly what happened in Paris, where I spent a long weekend with my wife (sans children) last month. I have driven around the city a few times, catching a glimpse of the Tour Eiffel from the périphérique, and we spent a night in the capital on the way to a cycling holiday in the Dordogne many years ago. But apart from that – and that really amounts to nothing at all – it was my first real experience of this amazing city.
We flew out of Jersey on BA via London after work on Thursday evening, arriving in Paris at around 11pm, opting to stay at an Ibis at Charles de Gaulle Airport, which was surprisingly easy.
Having quickly got to grips with the train/metro system, we were in the heart of Paris early on Friday morning and enjoyed a leisurely walk to our hotel, the four-star Pullman Paris Montparnasse. The 32-storey hotel is right next to the famous train station of the same name and sits in the heart of the Rive Gauche, about a 20-to-30-minute walk from the Seine.
I am a big fan of Accor and often enthuse about their Ibis Styles hotels, which are great value, clean and do a pretty decent breakfast. We always stay at one in France if the journey requires an overnight stop.
The Pullman is from the same stable, but more of a thoroughbred. This is Accor’s luxury offering and it is certainly a step up, both in comfort, interior fit-out, service and breakfast. It’s a massive hotel, with over 900 rooms, three restaurants and a sky bar/small nightclub on the 32nd floor with a vertigo-inducing terrace which looks out over Paris.
Clever design with small break-out areas away from the traffic of check-in and very helpful staff mean that it really doesn’t feel that big. And even less so as we made use of the VIP service, which includes a separate check-in area with free drinks (anything you want) and pastries, and the help and advice of the staff assigned to that area.
We were looked after by the amazing Erica, an American, who has customer service down to a very fine T. She gave us a little tour and a few pointers about getting around the city.
Our privileged status also meant that we had priority at breakfast, which seemed a bit odd when she said it. It became much less so the next morning, the one time of the day when the hotel does feel its size. To be fair, it wasn’t a problem, but it was amazing how many people funnel through the hotel.
Our room was on the 30th floor, and we had a superb view. I have rarely been in a building this tall, and thought I might hate it, but it was great to sit there and spot landmarks and watch a city that never sleeps. The Pullman is also one of the highest high-rises on the Paris skyline, which makes finding your way home to the hotel much easier when you go out for a wander.
When you say you’re going to Paris, people seem to like to tell you that “you’ll do a lot of walking”. And, as it happens, we did, not least because a friend leant us a walking guide of the city. It was quite an old edition of the Time Out Book of Paris Walks and is written in beautiful prose, with different authors telling the story of the routes they have chosen. I expect there is a newer version, and I’d recommend getting a copy.
Eschewing the well-known landmarks of the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the other attractions which peppered my Tricolore school textbook, we opted for walks entitled In Search of Simone, a chance to retrace the footsteps of one of my wife’s heroes, the philosopher, writer, theorist and feminist Simone de Beauvoir, and The Writing on the Wall, a stroll around the fascinating streets of the old Jewish quarter where we ate the best falafels I have ever tasted.
Our third walk was called My Latin Quarter, a mosey past the Closerie des Lilas, a symbol of French free thinking and radicalism (the guidebook said: “Within its walls and on its terrace met all the great minds of the twentieth century. Here various artistic movements locked horns, political factions forged alliances, revolutionaries hatched plots.”) and through the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg.
I could have gazed in the window of the Closerie for hours, imagining the people who had passed through.
We stopped for a drink at Brasserie Balzar, an old-world establishment loved by former president François Mitterand, journalists, writers and academics.
At every turn, there were sights, smells and history to enjoy, a much-needed and refreshing work-out for the mind and soul.
We did walk past Notre-Dame on our way north to the Jewish Quarter as I was keen to see how the rebuilding was going having been so moved when it burned down. I have seen many castles stunningly rebuilt in Aquitaine and knew that the French are the masters of this sort of historical restoration. They are dong a fine job with this too and it was an awesome site.
The highlight, we agreed, was a visit to The Fondation Louis Vuitton for the first retrospective in France dedicated to Mark Rothko. The show brought together 115 works from the largest international institutional collections, including the National Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection in Washington DC and the Tate, as well as many international private collections, including the artist’s family collection.
It was a stunning experience which we managed to fit in on the Sunday morning before flying home.
And, of course, we ate. Lots. The highlight was a fine-dining experience at Hotel San Regis, just off the ChampsElysées. It’s in the Knightsbridge of Paris (and some), sharing a road with a very upmarket Aston Martin showroom in the heart of Paris’s Golden Triangle in the 8th arrondissement.
If the newly refurbished Pullman is characterised by the transience of the people who flow through it in such volume, the San Regis has a majestic sense of permanence and exclusivity. It oozes sumptuous luxury and Versailles opulence, a portal into a world of sophisticated wealth. For years, it has been acclaimed by leading travel specialists including Travel+Leisure, Forbes Travel Guide, and Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report, and promotes itself as “among the finest hotels in the world”.
The food was pretty good too. We ate in the Restaurant Les Confidences (I had Choux rave – Crabe – Cèleri du Pomme to start, followed by Bar rôti – gambas – Choux-Oignon – Sauce beurre nouisette for mains, and Paris-Brest noisettes à partager for pud). It was delicious.
I am always struck by how much better waiters are in France, where it is a profession to be proud of, and rightly so. Well our maître d’ had landed himself a job at one of the finest hotels and it showed. He was funny as well as expert in food and wine. As we walked the hour or so back to our hotel, we passed a group of around 80 early-20-somethings who had got a small sound system and were dancing 1920’s-style on the promenade next to the Seine. It was a magical scene, made even more special after a lovely meal and a few glasses of fantastic French wine. Our flight back to Jersey departed at around 4pm and we were home by 9.30pm. Three days felt like two weeks. And we have vowed to do a lot more time travelling in the future.
If the newly refurbished Pullman is characterised by the transience of the people who flow through it in such volume, the San Regis has a majestic sense of permanence and exclusivity. It oozes sumptuous luxury and Versailles opulence, a portal into a world of sophisticated wealth. For years, it has been acclaimed by leading travel specialists including Travel+Leisure, Forbes Travel Guide, and Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report, and promotes itself as “among the finest hotels in the world”.
The food was pretty good too. We ate in the Restaurant Les Confidences (I had Choux rave – Crabe – Cèleri du Pomme to start, followed by Bar rôti – gambas – Choux-Oignon – Sauce beurre nouisette for mains, and Paris-Brest noisettes à partager for pud). It was delicious.
I am always struck by how much better waiters are in France, where it is a profession to be proud of, and rightly so. Well our maître d’ had landed himself a job at one of the finest hotels and it showed. He was funny as well as expert in food and wine.
As we walked the hour or so back to our hotel, we passed a group of around 80 early-20-somethings who had got a small sound system and were dancing 1920’s-style on the promenade next to the Seine. It was a magical scene, made even more special after a lovely meal and a few glasses of fantastic French wine.
Our flight back to Jersey departed at around 4pm and we were home by 9.30pm. Three days felt like two weeks. And we have vowed to do a lot more time travelling in the future.
