Bold beautiful Paris For the first-time visitor, Paris is full of surprises, adventure

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Springtime in Paris and the city is breathing. Clutches of daffodils are blooming, crocuses are popping, dogs are romping in the Tuileries, people are sunning themselves along the low, cobbled banks of the Ile de la Cite.

It’s mid-March and the streets are teeming. It’s 72 degrees and the sun, after the long winter back home, is just right – bright, welcoming, warm. At a cafe, any cafe, just try finding a sidewalk table for lunch – suddenly, all of them are filled, with everyone behind dark glasses subtly following you.

On the Seine River near Notre Dame, a handful of artists paint brisk, serviceable landscapes for the thousands of tourists soon to arrive en masse. On one work in progress – a painting turned away from the cathedral and facing the neighboring Ile St. Louis – an elderly gentleman with a Van Dyke beard paints a diagonal blur of muted green across the block of white before him. He does so with a quick shot of his arm that creates his version of the Seine. On the surface, the mark is just an upward-sloping stripe, but in that brush stroke are the reasons one comes to Paris – the boldness of it, the beauty of it, the life thrumming through it.

When we arrived in Paris in early March, it wasn’t so warm. On that day, the city was still shrugging off winter, which had made an unwelcomed final appearance with a blast of snow that blanketed the city.

When we arrived at our apartment in the 7th arrondissement on Avenue Duquesne, steps from the Ecole Militaire, the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides, the snow from the previous week was gone, but it was still cool, still cloudy, the city streets filled more with bundled purpose than with the growing relief that greeted us during the rest of our stay as the weather improved.

On our first trip to Paris, we wanted to assimilate – to see how the French live, to get a sense of their daily lives, to immerse ourselves in the ebb and flow of daily Parisian life. So we saved up to rent a furnished apartment and searched for one in a thriving neighborhood that had a good market street for daily food shopping. We wanted to miss as much of the looming tourist season as possible, yet be there on the fringes of good weather.

If you plan correctly, this is possible, even affordable, though there is only a brief window in which to fit such a trip.

Tourist season in Paris lasts from April through October; the off-season months are November to March. Indeed, when it comes to lodging and airfare, bargains abound in mid-March.

This was my second trip to France, my first to Paris, and it was a knockout. We were there 10 days, just long enough to feel at ease with the language (sort of), just brief enough to wish for another 10 days. Or maybe a year.

The first trip was in 1993, when a friend of mine and I traveled to Nice and then to Monte Carlo after spending three weeks in Spain. After running with the bulls in Pamplona, and surviving that, we moved northeast out of Spain and into the south of France, where the beaches were a boon considering the blistering July heat, and the people-watching was over the top, to say the least, since most were without a top.

It may not have been Paris, but it was France and the food was as unforgettable as the people. Returning was a given, but next time it would need to be in the heart of the action – Paris.

Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport in the northeast fringes of the city, the driver we had hired from Paris Shuttle (www.parishuttle.com) was there as promised. He was terrific, a warm contrast to the sketchy neighborhoods of the 19th arrondissement, through which we traveled to get to our area.

As we neared the city center, the architecture became more impressive. A right turn onto Avenue de l’Opera, for instance, produced the Palais Garnier, Paris’ famous opera house, which was financed by Napoleon III, a man who apparently embraced understatement in all that he did. A monument to imperialist showmanship, the Garnier is a lavish, baroque example of neoclassicism. Later in the week, when we visited it, it would prove a highlight.

Upon passing it and the Louvre, the d’Orsay and finally Les Invalides, with the Eiffel Tower just behind it, our energy spiked from our overnight flight. By the time we arrived at our apartment at noon, unpacked, took showers and hit the streets, it was a new day and yet we had been awake 36 hours. No doubt we looked it. One glance in the mirror suggested that some of our bags were determined to travel with us.

Two things reinvigorated us – the views from our living room window, which overlooked Invalides, the Ecole Militaire and, just 500 meters away, the Eiffel Tower. Another kick came from the much-needed espresso we purchased at La Brasserie on our street corner.

Large and bustling, with gleaming brass fixtures, a friendly staff and a mix of French and American music playing in the background, it was here that we began almost every day. We’d choose a table at a window facing the street,

order a traditional French breakfast of cafe creme and bread, and absorb the flurry of conversations around us, thinking how swell it was that as long as we kept our mouths shut, we’d fit right in.

Sure we did.

As iconic as Paris and its landmarks are – and as well as you think you know them from books, articles, television and film – the city somehow has retained its ability to surprise. It still has an air of mystery about it, which is unusual, even curious, given that for so long, Paris has been befriended by fame.

That element of surprise isn’t true of other major cities we’d visited – Los Angeles, for instance, is just as sprawling and as industrial as you’d expect. New York, Toronto and Chicago – big, gray, masculine cities – have their moments when they surpass already high expectations, but mirroring London, Madrid and Lisbon, they still feel familiar, offering more or less what you expect.

Paris, like Barcelona, differs in that it keeps revealing itself with the unexpected. There are too many highlights to explore here, but a few are worth noting, such as a metro trip to the Marais, in which our train, the No. 6 from La Motte Picquet Grenelle to Charles de Gaulle Etoile, roared out of its tunnel and into the downside of twilight.

We entered the train below ground, unaware that it would become elevated over the Seine. When it did, the view was startling.

As we moved toward our destination, the train rocked above a clutch of narrow streets, where several stories below neon signs burned amid a mix of bars, restaurants and apartments. People were either returning home from work or stopping to have a drink. It was just a snapshot, there for an instant before it was replaced by the Seine, but remaining a vivid memory.

We also weren’t prepared for the final lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Hoping to avoid the long lines that are a mainstay during daylight hours, we visited the tower late one night, approaching it from the Trocadero, which boasts the best panoramas and is also where Hitler stood in 1940 while plotting his demise of Europe.

Our hearts were a bit lighter, first because we knew the French had cut the cables to the tower’s elevators so Hitler would have to climb the 1,665 steps to the top if he wanted a better view (he didn’t). Second, we could see just beyond the small carnival at the base of the tower that there were no waiting lines to enter. It gave us flight.

Unlike the ride to the tower’s first and second levels, which is slightly rowdy, chatty, abuzz with excitement, the mood changes the moment you switch elevators for the ride to the top. There, in the hypnotic grinding of gears, the rustle of clothing, the click, click, clack of metal locking into metal, conversation dies. Expectation mounts. It’s a much longer haul to the top than you expect, and the experience is marvelous. As much as we thought we knew about the tower – its history, its dimensions, its creator, Gustave Eiffel – the charged atmosphere was beyond our expectations. We wrongly assumed the tower was too well-known to surprise.

Some surprises weren’t so positive. For instance, does the Champs-Elysees really need a Quick Burger? A McDonald’s? A Gap? America is putting up wallpaper all over these roomy boulevards, and it’s a disappointment.

Also, you enter Paris thinking there is no way the Louvre can live up to all those dirty rumors that it’s a downer. It’s the Louvre, for God’s sake – how bad can it be? But while it is impressive architecturally and it does feature its share of crowd-pleasers, from “The Winged Victory” to the Apollo Gallery to the ever-patient “Mona Lisa,” it’s so large and crowded – with art, commerce, people – intimacy becomes impossible there.

Unlike the d’Orsay, the Rodin, the Picasso or Invalides, for instance, which are specific, superior museums, the Louvre feels heavy and claustrophobic, with push coming to shove more often than not. With its deep corridors packed with tourists – most of whose faces are lifted to the stunning frescoes as they rush toward the next major work – parts of it feel like a cattle run. The bustle around the “Mona Lisa,” for instance, was akin to a riot, with the painting demanding a certain amount of aggression in order to be viewed.

If you know a few key phrases and make an effort to leave your culture behind, Parisian dining can be one of the city’s best, most relaxing pleasures.

It is expensive, it can be extravagant, though it doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be. If you’re on a budget or in a hurry, you can always grab a croque-monsieur (a ham sandwich smothered in gruyere cheese and a rich bechamel sauce) or a croque-madame (the same sandwich, topped with a fried egg) at a local cafe or boulangerie for a few dollars.

You also can choose a crepe at one of the sidewalk creperies around the city, a gyro in the Latin Quarter or visit the Rue Mouffetard near the Pantheon for a seemingly endless array of lively, reasonably priced restaurants frequented by students and heightened by an almost carnival-like atmosphere. It’s here, after all, where wait staff smash white plates on the sidewalks outside their restaurant to get your attention and your business. It’s meant to be fun – and it is fun – but the first time a plate shatters near your shoe, you’ll get a shock.

If weather permits, it’s well worth it to collect items for a picnic in, say, the Tuileries, the steps of Sacre Coeur (go at sundown), or maybe even the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Seine and connects the Louvre to the Institut de France. You can’t beat any of these locations for their views.

One of the city’s best market streets to assemble such a picnic is the Rue Cler, a short, cobblestoned oasis in the 7th arrondissement that is lined with essentials.

Just around the corner from our apartment, it was here that we shopped daily for cheese at one of the street’s two fromageries (try the eppoise, a soft, pungent cheese that is not homogenized and thus not available in the United States), wine at Bacchus or Nicholas, fresh fruits and vegetables at Top Halles, bread at the local boulangerie, and especially for dessert at Lenotre, one of Paris’ jewels, right up there with the famous ice cream house, Berthillion, on the Ile St. Louis, in quality and reputation.

If you’re short on time, you could splurge on a gourmet picnic basket at L’Epicerie Fine, just behind the popular Cafe du Marche, which offers a wide array of outstanding salads, breads, wines and cheeses. Pascal, the owner, will encourage you to sample before buying and provide assistance. It can be pricey, and admittedly it isn’t as adventurous as creating your picnic from store to store, but the food is good, Pascal is fun and as such, it’s worth it.

Those in the mood to splurge will be happy to find such restaurants as Chez Michel in the 10th arrondissement near the Gard du Nord, L’Ambroisie in the Marais, Bistro B in the 7th, L’Ilot Vache on the Ile St. Louis, and especially Bofinger near the Bastille, which surpasses its formidable hype with an excellent menu and a marvelous, attentive staff not without a sense of humor.

A Paris institution, Bofinger is known for its intricate, stained-glass ceiling in the main dining room (reserve well ahead if you want to dine beneath it) and for seafood, particularly oysters, which are delivered fresh daily and shucked streetside. Get them to start. Their pot-au-feu, or beef stew, is very good, filled with large chunks of tender meat and firm root vegetables, with a depth of flavor that surprises considering the dish’s simplicity. With wine, a three-course lunch for two at Bofinger costs around 150 euro, a bargain considering the same meal ordered at dinner will cost you double.

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.