Coffee at the Grand

Every so often, I like a taste of luxury. It was years since I'd last hidden in the Grand Hotel but I wanted a morning away from the office. Sometimes that's the only way to get things done. At the same time, I needed to keep in touch. The Grand wasn't far off my route. I checked the sign in the window: "free wi-fi." It would do.

Coffee at the Grand is good but expensive, even by the standards of frothy coffee bars. I usually make my own coffee or head for a small, independently-run coffee bar. There's an Italian coffee stall in Nottingham's Victoria Centre market which may just offer the best coffee in the East Midlands - and I can practise my Italian too. But I can't linger too long in an independent coffee shop - I know the manager needs my table and the profits from a continuous line of customers. The Grand Hotel is big and wealthy enough not to disturb me. It also has the benefits of comfortable sofas and piped music that is quiet enough not to disturb. The loos are luxurious too. And the woman who brings my cafetiere is quietly welcoming.

I used to be afraid of grand hotels. I thought they were meant only for the rich, that they had strange dress-codes and obscure rituals I wouldn't understand. I thought the well-dressed porters and waitresses would laugh, refuse to serve me and throw me out. Luckily, in my late teens, I encountered fellow teenagers who thought nothing of ordering coffee in a posh hotel - and it would have been more embarrassing to confess my fears than to join them.

I wouldn't want coffee at the Grand to be a regular experience. I like my luxuries to seem special. Perhaps I've already been too over-indulgent lately. As well as coffee in the Grand, I experienced another quiet luxury - first class rail travel.

I was booking on-line for a journey to see my parents. I was fairly flexible about times and looking for the best deal - a complex process that probably merits a higher-level GCSE. Then I saw that the cheapest single price on one train - the best deal going! - was the same for first or standard class. I booked it at once and then found a first class ticket back at only £5 more than the cheapest journey. It seemed worthwhile - even with a seat booked in advance, I've found myself standing for part of the journey lately and first class would surely guarantee a seat.

I was startled by the quiet spaciousness of first class travel. I think the thick carpets help. On the way back the carriage was full so there were the usual interruptions of mobile phone-calls and eager children. Neither were more interesting than fellow travellers in standard class and I didn't manage any more work or reading than usual. Instead I spent my time marvelling at the way the carriage seemed to soak up the sound and wondering whether the views were just slightly different from first class carriage windows. I didn't reach a conclusion. I was simply grateful for the quiet and the chance to rest my back. I think I could have gone to the buffet and collected a free coffee too, just by showing my ticket. But I fear that railway coffee doesn't reach the high standards achieved by the Grand Hotel. I did without.

Loving Paris

Arriving at the Gare du Nord, I was equipped with the carnet ticket that would take me to Montreuil. I like to keep fresh carnet tickets in my purse, telling myself that I have the tickets ready and therefore I must be back in Paris soon. I keep old tickets and use them as bookmarks so that every so often, when I pause in my reading, I'm reminded of journeys in the city I love.

This time I was over-confident. I didn't read the sign telling travellers to push their cases ahead of them. Instead I walked through the automatic gates pulling my suitcase behind me. They closed sharply and my case was trapped.

I was, of course, embarrassed. But a fellow-traveller, seeing my hopeless efforts to tug my case free, came to assist and quickly solved the problem. "You need a navigo," she told me (in French) and started asking other travellers whether they could help me by loaning one. Within a couple of minutes a young man realised what would work and laid his navigo on the panel that would recognize him as a legal traveller. The gates sprang open to admit him, the woman pushed my case through and went on when I'd hardly finishe stuttering my thanks.

It's hard to manage on the metro with a heavy case. The lines must have been built separately so the connections between them involve long tunnels, steep staircases and only occasional escalators or lifts. Sometimes I struggled alone but quite often people came to my help - smartly-dressed young people insisted on helping and so did one of the vendors of cheap toys and fluorescent Eiffel towers who left his pitch in the tunnel to run up a flight of stairs and help with my case.

Even with the help, my feet ached from the journey. Somehow they acquired small cuts and blisters which made walking difficult for the first part of the week. Perhaps the pain in my feet combined with my distaste for Versailles to make me less sympathetic than usual to the momuments to the French Republic.

I can't love the Panthéon. It's fine from the outside and when I stook in rue Soufflot under a dark grey sky with thunder crashing and lightning streaking across the sky the building came into its own. But the vast interior with its huge sculptural representation of the Convention doesn't grip me as much as the colourful Gothic delights of the much smaller Sainte Chapelle. Nor do I enjoy the collection of great men in the crypt (one woman is honoured there - Marie Curie was added in 1995). There are aspects to enjoy. I was amused by notices explaining how several people initially honoured at the Panthéon had later been demoted and buried elsewhere - even in death, it seems, the great men and their supporters were jostling for distinction. But it was good to see a memorial to Toussaint l'Ouverture and I could remember watching part of the ceremony in which the elder Alexandre Dumas was finally moved there in 2002. But it's part of the assertion of national greatness on a monumental scale which fails to touch me. In the same way, when I look at the Arc du Triomphe, so vast on its traffic island that it diminishes its visitors into insignificance, I feel regret rather than admiration.

Among all this neo-classical monumentalism, the Eiffel Tower is striking because it's so plainly linked to a people's Paris. It's a work of craft as well as art - whenever I see it I think of the skill with which it was designed and the hard work which created it. I've been to the top of the Eiffel Tower only once, when my son urged me to conquer my fear of heights. (That fear left me a year or so later but I faced my fear and got to the top - I still have the ticket to remind me.) But there's nothing intimidating about the Tower - it doesn't celebrate great men or the power of kings or state but human achievement in a city.

My favourite places aren't the great Haussmann boulevards, so convenient for crowds or armies and tanks. I like the small streets like the rue Mouffetard where people wander and work and shop and worry. I like places where the workers of Paris sit and talk at café tables the moment there's the faintest gleam of sun. I enjoy the everyday life of the city which can be rough as any city but which also has space for casual kindness. I'll remember all the sightseeing from my visit - and there's much I haven't mentioned here. But I'll also remember a comfortable basement cinema where the staff made viewers welcome, a hospitable African shop in Montreuil which serves - for 1 euro - the best espresso I've experienced in Paris, and a friendly Belgian pub near the Panthéon where happy hour starts at 4.00 p.m. so that draught Leffe arrives in double quantities.

The champagne of teas

I'm just making my second pot of tea of the day. I want a lighter drink so it's Darjeeling, "the champagne of teas." That's what it says on the packet anyway.

I'm making the tea in a splendid teapot and cup set which was a gift from my daughter. Unusually, the teapot holds just the right amount for the cup and a half of tea I want.

A friend and I started wondering about teas and wines. If Darjeeling is "the champagne of teas." what does that make Earl Grey? The Gewuerztraminer, perhaps. And Assam might be a St. Emilion. We wondered if there was a good summer's job in France, drinking tea and wine and writing suitable descriptions. (If you are a French tea importer, I would really like that job.)

But good tea and coffee - not to mention teapots, coffeepots, cups and associated devices - seem to be the latest victim of the financial crisis. I went into Whittard's yesterday - it is one of the few shops I like - and walked into a sense of almost-tangible gloom. It's not so unusual these days. Sometimes the gloom is marked by an excess of cheeriness with shop staff smiling as broadly as they can and asking with determined enthusiasm, "Can I help you with anything?" But that draws attention to the vast empty spaces between the elegant displays where large red signs advertise price-cuts. Elsewhere the staff can't conceal the creeping misery and their worries for the future, though they remain polite and helpful, slipping into familiar shop-assistant mode as if it were a familiar coat. I used to think it was the crowds I hated, and that sales with space to move were fun - not any more. Sometimes I even shun the free samples of food and drink that are pressed upon me, though I almost always accept the hot coffee served by smiling teenagers with trays on traffic islands and in doorways. Behind them I can see empty chairs and tables where once customers lurked waiting for a seat.

Everyone has been waiting for price-cuts so the streets are crowded. There was a short queue of parents and grandparents taking children to meet Father Christmas (no charge and no purchase necessary) and a female elf in red and green managed the queue with a stern frown. The children were quiet and less excited than my two were in their Father Christmas days.

I met a friend to drink gluehwein in the Old Market Square. At first that too was fairly empty but at about 6.00 the queues lengthened. Soon I could barely hear the singing reindeer's head (bilingual in English and German) introduce itself for the third time (as "lustiger Rudolf", I think). It seemed slightly hesitant but nonetheless it stretched its neck and blinked hopefully as it began its rendition of "Tannenbaum" and "Silver Bells."

I stayed for more gluehwein than I'd intended and, as I made my way to the station, noticed that many shops were open long past their closing time though most of the customers had gone. At home I turned on the news. The second item told me that Whittard's is about to go into administration. I wonder how many of the shops I passed will still be open next Christmas.

Taking the tram

There's a point at which a new place ceases to be strange and foreign without becoming quite familiar. That's particularly true of places I love. There are places in Northumberland which I could explore with confidence. I might even swim in the North Sea off Bamburgh Beach without being particularly aware of the louring castle. I could direct a tourist to Grace Darling's grave or Barter Books in Alnwick, though it's years since I've been there. And, although I couldn't give directions, if I were in Edinburgh I would confidently find my way to the Grassmarket and negotiate the different levels, sloping streets and bridges.

I'm not quite so familiar with Paris, but I no longer feel exactly like a tourist. Going to the boulangerie remains a pleasure but the word "tabac" no longer produces a frisson of excitement. I haven't "done" all the tourist sites but I no longer feel so touristy that I need to do more. Instead of looking at galleries, I want to see exhibitions - Mantegna at the Louvre seems particularly tempting but probably not possible. Instead I want to absorb Parisien life. I may not be able to pass for a Frenchwoman, but I like to think I might become a temporary Parisienne.

I was restless and decided to spend an afternoon wandering. At Porte d'Italie I took the tram with no particular destination in mind. The Indispensible showed that there was an exhibition centre at Porte de Versailles so I decided I would get off there. Then I could walk or get a bus and perhaps head for the centre. One possibility seemed a Metro to Solferino and the Musee d'Orsay, but it was a little late and I wasn't sure I had the patience or concentration for art.

So far as I could tell, there were no tourists on the tram. I was the only passenger consulting a map. I gazed out of the window for places to visit on my return journey. The park at Cité Universitaire seemed a possibility. I admired the shiny exterior of the stade Charléty, with its elegant curves, and briefly wondered whether to stay on the tram till the end of the line.

The tramway, circling central Paris, took me through areas of wealth, student quarters, places where people work hard for low wages and check the prices if everything they buy. I suppose people who ride the tram daily get used to those contrasts. I was being a tourist of everyday Paris and this struck me as much as the patience of people in queues and the tired helpfulness of drivers and shop assistants.

There was no exhibition at the Porte de Versailles. I hadn't expected one and headed in the direction of central Paris. I contemplated the Metro, which would take me quickly to the museums, the Ile de la Cite and the Seine, and decided to walk. I thought I might stop in a cafe for an espresso but many cafes were shut for the holiday season. Instead, I entered a Monoprix and browsed among the household implements before sitting down for a coffee. I lingered a while before walking further and devised plans involving buses towards the centre. Then I saw the bookshop.

I wasn't looking for books - and was trying to avoid stationery, which lures me into extravagance. But I stayed for a long while, buying a postcard, a book bag, a slim anthology of well-known French poems and a copy of Phedre. It took me back to a production by the Glasgow Citizens, some time in the 1980s - the last time I saw Glenda Jackson on the stage. But what I remember most is the voice of Robert Eddison outlining the tragedy and horror in the messenger's speech. That voice seemed to link back to the theatre of the past and conjured a link to the era of greasepaint, footlights and shattering emotion. No other voice in theatre has affected me quite so much, though Ralph Fiennes came close when he played Henry VI for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

I came out of the shop and emerged from my reflections to find it had rained. It was later than I'd intended - time to move on.

Instead of heading to the centre, I cut along another road, then another and bought olive bread in a boulangerie. Then I started to look at bus stops and found a route to connect with the tramway. (I was pleased with myself for remembering that a stop was called "George Brassens.")

Back on the tram, I had to stand. Two minutes after I boarded, the rain fell, torrentially, and I gave up my plan of walking in the park. Perhaps a beer at Porte d'Italie, I thought. But the rain continued and, when I left the tram, I was thankful that tram stops had places to shelter. I stood for a while, coatless, waiting for the rain to lessen, trying to be patient like a real Parisienne.