September 2015
I’m back in Paris, and for a very specific reason. It’s their Car Free Day Sunday, and I’ve come to test run the Paris marathon, or at least parts thereof, to see if it might be my cup of tea (or verre de vin, as the case might be).
I get there early to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy that particular joie de vivre that is so uniquely Parisian. A freelance colleague has kindly offered me the use of a pied à terre in her possession; it’s in an old Hausmann building, made up of two chambres de bonne – maid’s rooms – where the wall has been opened up to create a bigger space. Bigger is a relative term, of course, as it is still minute, but it feels very authentic and even has the obligatory view of the Eiffel Tower that all rooms in Paris must have (according to movie laws, at least).
We make the most of the sunny weather on the Saturday and take the train out to Giverney, where Monet lived and painted his famous impressionist works (including the water lilies that adorned every other dorm room I ever set foot in as a student). I’m cautiously pessimistic, thinking that September might be the worst of time to visit, but I am soon proven wrong; the garden is overflowing with flowers, different Dahlias in their hundreds foremost amongst them, and the adjacent pond park (actually not a part of the gardens proper) is magical, all bluish-green hues, dappled sunlight, and of course the Japanese bridges (plural – I always thought it was just the one) serving as focal points. It’s only a shame Monet was too short-sighted to do it all justice in his paintings… 😉
Sunday is carefree if not exactly car free; Parisians don’t like to be without their cars much, it seems, so the car free zone is limited in space and time to the centre of town and is enacted only as of 11 AM. It’s a glorious day, however, and once we get out (using the claustrophobically closet-sized elevator) we make good use of the Promenade Plantée – a disused elevated railway that predates its New York cousin by a decade – to get downtown, where we continue running up and down Champs Élysées, along the Seine, through the Louvre and the royal gardens all the way to the Eiffel Tower and back. People are out and about everywhere, strolling, long boarding, skating, biking and generally enjoying the novelty of not being subjected to the bull run-like conditions that normally rule the streets of Paris.
For three hours we run at a leisurely pace, and even though we don’t quite manage to recreate the marathon it’s still a very special feeling to run here. My colleague, who is more Fighter than Lover (of running) does show real fighting spirit, and actually runs her first half marathon that day, before sending me off back home again (presumably with a sigh of relief and a groan of pain).
As for me, chances are I’ll be back for the real thing next spring, car Paris (car free or no) l’oblige.