Guest writer: Anna Nilsson Spets
Remember the word 'housewife holiday'? A housewife's holiday was a way for overworked women to get some time off and was common in the 50s and 60s.
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I decided pretty quickly to take a housewife's holiday, but not at some rest home in the countryside, I did the opposite, out of the frying pan into the fire and went to Paris. Believe it or not, I've never actually been there.
The Eurostar train from Brussels takes 1.20 minutes, once there I start with the most typical thing for Parisians; a coffee at an outdoor café.
Then I look for the nearest stop for a hop on hop off bus, the adventure can begin.
It's good to have these buses, you get a good overview of the city even if it feels a bit too touristy to sit on a bus roof.
I pass the Opera House, I skip the Louvre when I see the queues, hu vale, standing for an hour in line to see a smiling certainly world-famous woman, I can skip that.
At Notre Dame I get off. After the tragic fire, the cathedral is surrounded by high fences and scaffolding, sadly.
The cathedral will only open in December with a big bang.
Today's street theatre with very dusty puppets shows the lion and the mouse. An elderly tired uncle begs for food for his dog.
And there's no doubt that the Olympics are about to begin. For better or worse, all of Paris has an Olympic flavour.
Along the Seine, the legendary lettering has been repainted; the proposal was to remove it completely for the Olympics, but there was an outcry and it remained.
At Hallarna there is a lot of movement, the drug trade is in full swing and I would probably not go here late at night.
It's a blissful mix of different nationalities, a colourful choir entertains.
The bus then stops at Montmartre, where I will spend two nights in a small hotel, in the middle of nowhere.
After checking in, I throw my back over my shoulders and trudge up all the (damn) stairs to Sacré-Coeur.
It was worth it, every step, a breathtaking view of the city.
Inside the basilica there is a mass with communion, praying people sit in a separate part and we infidels can watch and follow it all from a distance.
A nun sings so beautifully that the angels of heaven weep, from the organ loft come muffled notes and I send a thought to my father the cantor, he would surely have wanted to play there.
My first day of my housewife holiday ends with a three-course meal, rounded off with a mega-sized crème brûlée that wraps itself around my heart like cotton wool.
Paris never seems to sleep, the rubbish collectors rattle the bins in the morning, a new day can begin.
The three-star hotel definitely has no air conditioning, luckily it's not that hot. The hotel breakfast was ok, but I'm not a big fan of the small single portion pies with butter and cheese.
The coffee tastes like shit, so I walk through the small cobbled streets of Montmartre, a real coffee and another croissant slips down.
And in the middle of Montmartre is a vineyard! Unfortunately not open to visitors.
In the Place du Tertre, the artists' square, the caricaturists have still not woken up.
But there is so much more to look at; beautiful murals, colourful doors soon to be thrown open for today's rush of tourists.
The African neighbourhoods show a completely different side of Paris, it's like coming to Dakar or Dar es Salaam.
It's cluttered, messy and an endless jumble of shops. You can get a new hairdo, have a tailor make you a colourful boubou, shop for typical root vegetables like taro, kasawa and yams.
The smells of fish and meat mingle with the scents of ripe mangoes and papaya.
Africa, my Africa, I long to go there.
I type in Père Lachaise on my google maps, hey presto, 5 kilometres to see a cemetery?
I walk and walk, my feet ache and I refuel with more caffeine, at Bellevue a sengales thinks I have a nice African dress and wants to buy me a coffee.
In the cemetery, time seems to have stopped decades ago. The graves are almost stacked on top of each other and don't seem to be cared for at all, but even moss-covered gravestones with dusty plastic decorations have their charm.
It is leafy and cool, the noise of the city does not reach in. Père Lachaise is extremely large and is divided into sections and streets. 70,000 have their final resting place in columbariums or earth tombs.
The cemetery is a major tourist attraction as many famous people are laid to rest here; Jim Morrison, Edit Piaf and Oscar Wilde are some of the most visited.
No, I'm not going to walk 5 km back, I take the metro and start by going the wrong way. I get off at Havre and buy a ticket for a trip on the Seine.
My bag is checked for at least the tenth time, security is high now before the Olympics.
The big boat chugs out on the river, passing various sights, new constructions for the Olympics.
Occasional tents and sleeping places cling under bridges and along the quay. After 45 minutes we turn round and head in the other direction, passing the Eiffel Tower, which has also been decorated for the upcoming Games.
There is a lot of instagramming and tick-tocking, I am wetting my feet and wondering how I will be able to walk several kilometres back.
At the Montmartre metro station, Hare Krishna rattles along, a reunion of two street performers of a completely different genre offering a delightful mix.
The last meal, well, it was a ridiculously tasty Neapolitan pizza and disappearingly good and expensive macaron-topped ice cream.
On the morning of my departure, I head for the Gare de Nord to catch the train home, where the morning has just begun and the homeless are shaking their tired limbs and washing the night away in a public tap.
A hard life on the streets for undocumented migrants, addicts and beggars.
In northern Paris there is a camp where more than a thousand homeless people have been living since the city was cleaned up for the Olympics, but there are also many addicts in the city centre, frozen in a state of flux after taking crack or ICE.
Two full days in Paris are over, I have seen the front of the medal and many parts of its back too.
I have scratched the surface, seen and done a lot and realise that I could probably have spent a few more days as a housewife.
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Eddy says:
Nice and interesting story Anna
Love your pics
16 July 2024 - 7:38
Anna Nilsson Spets says:
Thanks Tiit, hope to see you and talk about you latest amazing trip.
16 July 2024 - 12:27
Cari says:
Paris is a favourite for me. But it's been a long time since we were there.
Regarding the Louvre, there used to be more entrances. From the side. Guess they are no longer there due to security requirements.
16 July 2024 - 9:05
Monica says:
That was certainly a different view of Paris! If I could, my first piece of advice would be: don't think you can walk your way through Paris! The distances are endless and you just get exhausted. The metro is no fun either, you can't see anything. Bus, or for that matter taxi which is cheap or tourist bus and boat the first time is a good option. Of course, you should see the most important things and it automatically becomes tourist traps like Place du Tertre. But that is not the "real" Paris! Neither are African neighbourhoods and backstreets with homeless people, drug dealing and beggars. French breakfasts also consist only of coffee, croissant or baguette with a little butter and possibly some marmalade, no cheese. That is eaten in another way and in that case in a cheese and ham baguette. Overall, I think the portrayal had too much focus on "misery" and backgrounds - Paris is an extremely beautiful city with a cultural offer far beyond the ordinary and of course it takes a little more time to discover everything that is offered.
16 July 2024 - 11:13
Anna Nilsson Spets says:
Thanks for reading, you are right about distance...
Now I only sniffed the surface and am not so interested in the big tourist attractions, I went past them. I had some things I wanted to see, I did. As for breakfast, well, it was just what was portioned, marmalade, butter and soft cheese. Yes, I often depict the downside when I write, in this case as a counter-image to all the money spent on the Olympics.
16 July 2024 - 12:36
Monica says:
I myself lived in Paris in my younger years and have a daughter and her family who were educated there and have lived there for many years and whom we visit regularly. You don't have to be hooked on tourist attractions to get a completely different - and actually more nuanced picture - of this world metropolis, that was really what I wanted to say. It is possible, without "wikipedia descriptions", to give a more neutral description of the city. But interesting anyway, seen through your eyes, as I wrote. We always have our own judgements and values with us, even when we travel! You're not far away - why don't you go back sometime after the Olympics and experience a different everyday life in other places? You live in Belgium, a neighbouring country, but perhaps you don't speak French? That always helps!
16 July 2024 - 14:20
Anna Nilsson Spets says:
Thanks for reading, no it only takes about an hour by train there, but the train is quite expensive, even Paris was expensive. Neutral description, yes I write what I see, pros and cons and we experience things in different ways. Much was stunningly beautiful but see how much money you put into the Olympics while those who live on the street are put into camps or remain on the streets.
16 July 2024 - 16:10
Anna Nilsson Spets says:
Thanks for reading, no idea if multiple entrances exist, what I saw from the bus fence, the queues, was enough.
16 July 2024 - 12:29
Solan says:
Thanks for a tour of Paris without the usual wikipedia harangues about all the sights.
You write so well and visually.
My favourite of Freedom's occasional guest writers....😊⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
16 July 2024 - 9:18
Anna Nilsson Spets says:
Thanks Solan, those were nice words. Nah, I don't care about those harangues.
16 July 2024 - 12:37
BP says:
Well, I really like such housewife holidays: -) Absolutely wonderful pictures from Paris. Studied in Paris in the late 1960s and was there last in 1998 when I followed the World Cup in football on site. A lot I recognised, especially Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. I did not take the stairs but the funicular next door; -)
I had never heard of the cemetery, so now I have seen it too.
A lovely report from Paris. Many thanks:-)
16 July 2024 - 20:59
Anna Nilsson Spets says:
Thanks for your nice comments. My plan was to visit the big animal cemetery, but it was closed so it had to be the one for humans instead.
17 July 2024 - 6:37