The other afternoon as I was getting tea ready, I saw a news item flash up on my phone, fire at Notre Dame, and, in spite of what I have just said in the first paragraph I did know that it meant Notre Dame, Paris. I didn't bother to look or read further. But it still looks like the school name.
Later in the evening, because my phone had a constant news item of fire pictures and smoke coming out of a roof, and some blogs mentioned it, I turned Sky News on for a look (I had been watching Air Crash Investigation all night) but they were talking about something else, so I turned to France 24 News Channel and saw the fire live, by this time it was about 9.30pm. It was supposedly just about under control. Because I could see the towers it didn't look much different to me. Then Macron came on to do a live broadcast, all the usual sort of things you would expect. (I thought he looked older, less of the young, fresh faced boy he was when he started the job a couple of years ago. The stresses and strains of being all things to everybody and the EU and having the yellow jackets on his back at home are taking its toll. He will soon be catching up his wife, they say couples start to look like each other).
Anyway, to get to the point, I actually don't give a toss about the fire. It will recover, be rebuilt, be better and fuller and God will still not save us. I see many foreigners from distant lands lamenting and weeping about it. We nearer at home foreigners despair not so much about such things, we are surrounded by all things good and all things bad everyday, lots of old and lots of new, and what's an accidental fire in Notre Dame on a daily rating where nobody was hurt? Not much. The relics were already out before the workmen started and relics to me are always a bit dubious in origin and meaning and relevance in any case and at school I thought relics were mad in my innocence of the time and thought our matchboxes at home with dead beetles were far more interesting. Sorry if I disappoint.I have visited Notre Dame many times and it was best many many years ago when I first started visiting Paris around about 1969 when it was not frequented by thousands of tourists and it was not thronging with street vendors on the forecourt and was not an area full of non-native pickpockets.
On my last visit to Paris in 2010 I didn't bother to visit.
My preference on a visit to Paris is always to spend a day in Beaubourg (Centre Georges-Pompidou) a day in the vicinity of the rear of the Gare du Nord taking in the Sacre-Coeur, a most interesting area, and then meandering south on foot to the Seine from there through lesser known streets of commerce, specialists shops and everyday Parisian life.
If you wander far enough out at the Bastille area you can see elderly Parisians messing about in canal boats and negotiating a lock and no tourists around, within minutes. All within walking distance of Notre Dame.
Then a day in the museums around the Louvre, the Louvre itself, the Orangerie and the Petit Palais. Finally a day around the Sorbonne and the South Bank.
My favourite area for staying is in the 7th Arrondissement bordering 15th Arrondissement particularly one street where I have stayed in several different small hotels or restaurants with rooms, Rue St Dominique
My visit in 2010 was at the beginning of February and visiting the Louvre early in the morning, waiting for the doors to open, I had many rooms to myself, the majority of visitors heading straight to the Mona Lisa and not straying far beyond. I remember sitting to write postcards in a room of Egyptian antiquities, mid morning, and having it to myself.That visit I stayed in a big old hotel that had seen better days but just how I like it, beside the Gare de l'Est, another perfect location for setting out from each morning.
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