Catacombs and Coffee shops

By the time Meg-of-the-cursed-rail-travel turned up at Denfert-Rochereau (as I write this she is in the sixth hour of a journey from Durham, yet to reach Berwick, without her planned travelling companion), Jo Ann had enjoyed a Chinese lunch and we were ready to tackle the catacombs.

We located the queue, only to be informed, by a very forceful man with no other apparent function, that the last entry was an hour hence and there was little chance of us making it to the entrance in time. It was not entirely clear whether he was going to prevent our trying, so while Jo Ann distracted him with pouts and French tales of sadness (Mais c’est mon dernier jour à Paris!), the three of us sneaked in, followed by a group of Australian girls who had been walking all day. The next forty minutes were consumed with constant estimates of the number admitted per minute, and attempts to divide by this the equally indeterminate number of persons in front of us. We realised we were going to make it and spent the final five minutes making fun of the man who tried to dissuade us. I never said we were nice people.

Our catacomb visit began with ninety-three steps down a very disorientating and unevenly treaded spiral staircase (we all know how I love those, and naturally they all sent me down in front). It was a long way, but once down there we had the opportunity to read boards in English (you don’t take this for granted after a month in Paris) so we knew that the bones came from most of the old Parisian cemeteries in the central arrondissements and included many influential and notable, if not famous, Parisians. See, there’s no shame in being used as decor… though, later, when I told my companions that when I died I had no objection to my skeleton contributing to a chandelier, there was some choking and spitting out of drinks. Can’t think why. These people are so sensitive.

A long and slippery walk brought us to these carvings, made in near total darkness, from memory – the story was only slightly spoiled by the ending, where the unsung artist got killed in a cave-in. And may I say to the curators, when you have hundreds of tourists underground and would like to avoid panic, it is best to avoid phrases like “cave-in”.

We split into the sensitive and less-sensitive pairs; no one will be surprised to hear that Jo Ann and I were the ones who were third and fourth last out, having spent extra time bonding with the dead and exclaiming, “Cool!” when they made new patterns with femurs. Here’s an atypically well-lit corner.

There’s not a lot you can say about the catacombs, other than to note that for those with arthritis of any kind, it’s the kind of thing you want to do on a good day. There were eighty steps up, less than the down staircase, but as it was about a metre in radius, there were only two people behind us and one of them was jangling the keys and calling encouraging things like, “Don’t go too quickly!” while speeding up, it was a bit of a slog. However, the metro had done us good and we displayed a commendable recovery time, after which we decided that a coffee shop was better than taking on the rush hour.

Shortly staggering onto a boulevard, the task of choosing a coffee shop was hampered by Jo Ann’s unsuccessful attempt to buy churros from a stand where the proprietor was inexplicably but completely determined only to sell them in sixes. Her attempts to bargain he seemed to find hilarious, and suggested that maybe we all wanted to share. As Jo Ann turned to the rest of us hopefully, we noticed that the light was a convenient green and crossed the road in haste.

Jo Ann and Meg disappeared, briefly, in opposite directions seeking shoes and/or baby clothes, leaving the Burts in charge of the coffee shop choice. We had a traditional French café on one side and Starbucks on the other. Starbucks?, we thought. Pah - clearly we must select the French option. Five minutes later, put off by the price of an orange juice and the outdoor seating (outdoor, since the smoking ban, means squinting to discern your interlocutor through a nicotine haze), we marched collectively through the doors of Starbucks. As is my wont, I handled the transaction beautifully and fluently while ordering completely the wrong thing. But as “the wrong thing” was, in this case, a mango tea frappucino, it was a happy accident, as most of mine are (barring the car crash and the shoulder dislocation). Jo Ann ordered the same, but was very clear that she wanted it blended twice to rid the drink of nasty ice particles. Our inquiries were well-rewarded, as we were treated to an extremely entertaining and (after two hours with corpses) funny monologue about ice and Starbucks prices and the entitlement to good service. Here’s Jo Ann sipping critically to assess the quality of the blend.

The disadvantage of dragging parents round Paris with you is their availability to friends who relish such an opportunity for parental quizzing. Accordingly, the rest of our time at Starbucks was spent reliving my childhood activism to a decreasingly incredulous Meg, after she expressed doubt that I had always had such a defined sense of autonomy and political accountability.

The bus journey back to the 17^th included an unscheduled stop at the Seine, where we were all kicked off the bus so the driver could go home (it happens). We took the opportunity to wander over the river on the Pont Royal.

While we were taking pictures, we missed the next bus, and naively returned to await the next one. Let me tell you, this is a view we had for some time, as we peered at the number of every passing bus.

Some hours later, we stopped again to change buses on Avenue de l’Opéra, and this picture was taken, which is suitably representative of the street and made me realise that I hadn’t taken any pictures of the scene of my most frequent bus changes.

When we got back to Guy Môquet, we staggered into my local Chinese restaurant, having abandoned more ambitious plans in the sweaty 81 bus. It seemed sensible.