“Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.”
There's a word that’s found in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. Sonder is the recognition that every person that ever passes you by is living a life that is as rich and complicated as your own. It is the profound realisation that everybody has their own dreams, daily routines, plans and passions; their own triumphs and defeats, and their own joys and sadnesses; they each have their own complex and colourful story that, in turn, is linked to a thousand more. And every day, you flit in and out of these lives and stories - caught on camera in the background of somebody else’s photograph, tiny snippets of your conversations overheard by strangers in coffee shops, or my favourite example of Koenig’s, a lit window at dusk.
My brain buckles a little bit when I think about it, but at the same time, it humbles me. The fact that my little life is so incredibly small and insignificant should be unsettling but, instead, is strangely freeing. And so, when I found myself sat sipping coffee and people-watching in a Parisian sidewalk cafe a couple of weeks ago - after what might have been the most difficult few months of my life - I allowed myself to get lost in a thousand strangers’ stories.
There was the cafe owner, whose flustered boyfriend tumbled out of the kitchen, whistling out of tune to the stereo, glasses askew and a tray of steaming brioche puffs in his hands. There were the customers sitting at tables outside cafes, bistros and brasseries catching up, cigarettes dangling from their slender fingers. There was the metro, filled to the brim with young couples, commuters and buskers playing accordions, filling the carriages with La vie en rose. There were les flâneurs: impossibly chic local women walking down the boulevards, with their perfectly dishevelled hair; and men wearing hats and carrying umbrellas, apparently completely untroubled by the realities of life. There were the artists, beggars, greengrocers, shopkeepers and bakers too; the students, the hawkers and the hipsters.
And so, we lived in the city like one of them. Like the locals we could have been had I come here to study ten years ago, before life decided it had other plans for me. We explored and experienced it with our senses, rather than a to-do list of tourist spots, and these were the best sights, sounds and tastes we stumbled upon whilst we wandered.
Funnily enough, this is the sister location of a New York-based Parisian restaurant, owned by the American chef, Jody Williams; but you could have fooled me. It has all the comforting charm and intimacy of an old fashioned French cafe, with the easy-going elegance of a neighbourhood wine bar, making it the perfect spot for eggs in the morning or an early-evening glass of wine. We came here for our first breakfast, straight off an early flight, and a combination of croque monsieurs and bluesy background music gave us the second wind we desperately needed. Buvette pride themselves on their use of local produce - baskets of which you’ll notice in abundance, along with an elegant marble bar lined with plates piled high with flaky croissants and freshly-baked madeleines, and a mirrored wall of wine and books. Whether it’s breakfast, lunch, dinner or just a drink, make sure you go.
We strolled slowly from the 9th arrondissement, past Les Halles and Hôtel de Ville to Rue du Pont Louis-Philippe, locally known as Rue du Papier. Our plan was to go to Shakespeare & Co but we skipped the crowd of selfie sticks outside and opted for this pretty little street of papeteries instead. If you like well-designed stationery, this tiny two-hundred yard stretch has some of the loveliest I’ve seen. Go for the minimalist own-brand notebooks in Papier Plus, the trove of writing treasures and vintage calligraphy supplies that is Mélodies Graphiques, and the contemporary and exquisite greeting cards and paper collections at Calligrane.
From here we walked across the river to the Notre-Dame then to Places des Vosges (one of many recommendations from the lovely Esther, @lattesandlayers, whose Instagram feed is one of my favourites) and Jardin du Luxembourg via the Sorbonne and Rue Dante, a colourful little street in the Latin Quarter, full of comic book shops and an art house cinema called Studio Galande. We headed back across the Seine to Le Palais Royal and the Tuileries, ducking between the pyramids at the Louvre towards the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro, because, well, it has to be done.
Finally, we took the metro to Montmartre to find our hotel, stopping briefly at a bistro for steak frites and a boulangerie to pick up a baguette to eat slathered with butter and cheese in bed later.
With seized-up knees and sore feet from the day before, we took the second day a little slower, starting off on a metro to Chemin Vert and on from there to Fragments for their simple but delicious breakfast menu, complemented by the best cup of coffee we’d had in the city so far. We spent a good couple of hours strolling through the sunny streets of Le Marais, wandering out to these hidden little spots across different arrondissements:
A cool little concept store that I’m sure you’ll recognise from photos of its storefront, complete with that cute red fiat out front. The store is unlike anywhere I’ve really been before, bringing together the best of fashion, interiors and design with three eateries: La Cantine, the Used Book Café and Le Ciné Café. I was mildly intimidated by the crowd of cool twenty-somethings who swarmed inside before us so we didn’t stay too long, but I will absolutely be back, mostly for the linen and all that lovely homeware.
Rue Crémieux
Quite possibly one of the most charming and colourful streets in Paris. Cobbled and lined with picture-perfect houses, shops and studios. I’m not usually drawn to so much colour but the soft pastels and whimsical trompes l’œil - paintings that create the illusion of real scenes - that adorn the houses on Rue Crémieux make it a welcome escape from the tourist-filled streets not too far away.
Passage L’homme
Again, a concealed street so serene and secluded you could easily miss it if you didn’t know what you were looking for. Although it’s only one or two rows back from a very busy main road, the only sounds I could hear here were birdsong, the clatter of cutlery from a cafe, and the deep grumbles of two old boys sipping espresso in the street.
We finished our second day with a walk up to the Sacré Cœur, which was worth running the gauntlet of the hawkers for the view alone. Work your way back down via those iconic Montmartre steps on Rue Foyatier towards La Maison Rose on Rue de l’Abreuvoir. We stopped here for a cup of tea at dusk before grabbing a second baguette on the way back for our new tradition of a midnight feast.
The details:
After cancelling the first attempt at this trip earlier in the year and losing our money, we were travelling on a fairly small budget, but to our surprise, we managed to stay in the most beautiful hostel in Montmartre, just down the road from the Moulin Rouge. In a cool, quiet and perfectly comfortable private room with a Juliet balcony overlooking a typical Haussmannian apartment block (above), Le Regent was an absolute steal at only £70 a night.
On the first day, we walked absolutely everywhere but quickly learnt from our mistake. The second day we mostly used the metro, which at €1.60 for a single journey (you can transfer between lines, and between RER and Metro stations, on the same ticket) was a no-brainer. You can save on tickets by buying a carnet of ten at any ticket machines, or you can buy a Paris Visite ticket for unlimited travel on one, two, three or five days. We took the RER B from Charles de Gaulle to Gare du Nord for €10.20 when we arrived - which was so much easier and quicker than I was expecting - but somehow, maybe by magic, managed to get back to the airport on a single metro ticket. We wound up getting so tired walking around that we finally gave in and signed up to use one of the thousands of app-controlled e-scooters that line the pavements, which were equal parts fast, fun and completely ridiculous.
On my list for next time:
Telescope, Neighbours & Boot Cafe for coffee, and Ob La Di for tea; Du Pain et Des Idees for more bread and pastries, because I didn’t eat anywhere near enough; Holybelly for pancakes and Frenchie To Go for out-of-this-world looking hot dogs; Musee D’Orsay again, because Degas is my favourite; Marché D’Aligre - a combination of a flea market and farmer’s market for when I have a bigger baggage allowance; back to Le Marais to spend a whole day wandering down all those beautiful little streets; and last but not least, day trips to the Palace of Versailles and Monet’s gardens at Giverny.
After this year’s first failed trip to Paris, and a second to Oslo, I’ve decided that we will fill next year with flying visits to European cities. We’ve already booked Sorrento in March but where else do we need to go?
