Tour Saint-Jacques and a Mischief of Rats!

Since the moment we moved in, I've been itching to go up the Tour Saint-Jacques, a Gothic tower near our apartment.

I knew back in October that I would have to wait at least until the spring since you can only go into it on a guided tour and there were none scheduled during the winter. I always liked walking through its little park, or if the park was closed like it is at night, alongside the fence so I could see the plants and the greenery within.

One evening in November, walking home after a writing group meeting, I took the route along the railings on the eastern side of the park. Ahead, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what I thought to be a flock of pigeons scavenging a bag of French fries (well, of course, they're French fries - I am in Paris!) As I drew closer, I realized they were not pigeons at all but lovely plump, happily feeding rats! About a dozen, maybe more, some sat up on their hind legs and chowed on their grub, like baldy-tailed squirrels!

I stood mesmerized - I'm not particularly phased by rats; wouldn't want them attacking me, but then wouldn't want even the cutest of cuddly animals attacking me either. I speak from a position of experience having suffered the trauma of a bunny rabbit attack in Australia. The short version of the story: Cute family-pet bunny on a leash in the backyard hopped over and sank its buck-teeth into my ankle as I innocently stood on its lawn minding my own beeswax! It actually drew blood, but I digress...

Back to the Parisian rats and their very French fries...

I toyed with the idea of taking some photos, but there was a man watching me from the doorway of a nearby restaurant and I figured I'd look like a right weirdo if I went all David Attenborough with the mischief of rats. (What a great collective noun!) I stood for a second more thinking about how a few months ago I had been watching "proper" wildlife in California, listening to the coyotes call at night, hearing the gurgle of the wild turkeys from the hills if the breeze was just right and even skipping out of the way at the hissing jangle of a disgruntled rattle snake after a grass fire in the nearby hills. And now here I was, watching a mischief of Parisian rats snack on French fries.

Before I left the scene, I gave the man watching me a nod and a shrug, which he returned. In Paris that's as good as a full-on conversation - "Did you see?" "Sure." "Wow!" "Well, what can you do?" "Nothing, I guess!"

But I guessed wrong.

A few days later, the gates to the park were locked, bamboo screening erected all the way along the fence and a sign posted. The words "Dératisation" jumped out at me. I didn't need google translate to figure out what that meant!

So that was back in November. The park and access to the Tour Saint-Jacques remained closed all through the winter, spring and into the summer.

It wasn't until July that we noticed the park had reopened and the tours of the Tour Saint-Jaques were back on - happily in time for My Sister and Nephew's visit.

The 50-minute tours leave every hour from 10 am to 5 pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and sell out quickly. We had to go down in person to get the day we wanted. No problem there since it's practically on the doorstep. You can book a Friday visit in advance through this website.

Unfortunately, the tours are only in French, so there was a bit of waiting around inside the tower looking up at the ceiling - which was pretty amazing - with me grappling to understand the tour guide then whispering the key points to My Husband, Sister and Nephews - Facts such as the tower is all that is left of the Eglise Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, the rest of which was destroyed during the French revolution.

In all honesty, I got most of my information, not from the French tour guide, but from good ole Wikipedia! 

So that part of the tour was a bust for us English speakers, but we got to climb the 300 steps to the very top, and oh boy, was the view worth it.

If you only had one day in Paris, go here. You get to see everything from this central high-point! It's better than the Montparnasse Tower because you are closer to most of the major sights, like the Eiffel Tower...

 The Sacré-Cœur...

 The Pompidou Centre...

 Our apartment - okay so it's technically not a major sight, but we got excited. Hard to pick out, it's in the middle of the picture. However, you can easily see our favourite ice-cream shop, N2, where they make ice-cream right in front of you using liquid nitrogen! It's under the black awning at the end of the street with the red awnings in the foreground of the picture below.

 

There's a great view of the Conciergerie, nicknamed the Disney Prison by visiting friends because it used to be a prison - Maire Antoinette was held there before she was executed - and it looks like something from Disney.

We've speculated over many a glass of wine as to which Disney characters should be incarcerated there. When Cruella de Ville was suggested, my friends wondered did she own the Hotel de Ville?

There's a birdseye view of the rooftop bar, Le Perchoir, above the BHV Marais.

The Panthéon sits proudly in The Latin Quarter across the river from us.

In the distance, the golden roof of Les Invalides glints in the sunshine.

Montparnasse tower looms over everything including the spires of Saint Sulpice.

For €10, this was a tour worth doing even though it was in French, and especially on a nice sunny day. An added bonus - we didn't see a single rat!

Byddi Lee

Get High in Paris!

For the ultimate birds-eye view many think that the Eiffel Tower is the place to go. However, when you are actually on the Eiffel Tower, you don't get to view it, and that's a shame as it is one of the most interesting things about the Paris skyline. Instead, for €15 take a trip to the top of the Montparnasse Tower Observation Deck.

The Montparnasse Tower is the only skyscraper in central Paris. My understanding of it is that as soon as it was built the people of Paris took one look at it (it's hard to miss!) and said, "Hell no!" (or the French equivalent, which I haven't gotten to yet in my lessons!) They banned anyone else from building anymore such buildings nearby. A stroke of genius I think, because now you have a perfect viewing platform with an epic 360degress view of the city. I've "wasted" hours playing with the photos we took that day.

I loved the black and whites and even used photoshopping software to preserve the gold roof on Les Invalides. Here's a close up of it - in color.

 

The Montparnasse Tower is a wonderful spot to take a zoom lens.

If you are so unfortunate as to only have one day in Paris (quelle horreur!) you could actually tick off all the sights in one swoop!

Arc de Triomphe

Centre Georges Pompidou - hard to miss with its bright colors. The Tour St. Jacques in also in this shot as is the roof of our apartment building!

The Notre Dame Cathedral

The Place de la Concorde
 

With it being the dead of winter (we went up mid December) the light was interesting.

We had timed it to take in sunset. The sun cast light from its daily-death throes in hues of gold through bronze over the landscape.

The Scare Coeur

 In the changing light...

From our vantage point we could even see the French sister to the Statue of Liberty... can you make it out center picture?

I wondered what lucky sod got a balloon ride in a golden sky. Looks so romantic!

The moon over Paris, above candy floss clouds!

There is a restaurant at the top called Ciel de Paris (the Ceiling of Paris) pricey, but the food is excellent. However we didn't have a table by the window - my fault - I messed up the date on the booking and we rocked up two weeks early! They had room for us anyways, but it felt like we had been placed at the naughty table, way at the back. So for full effect, you might want to request a table by the window and actually turn up on the correct day!

But the view at night was equally spectacular.

The streets below a maze of buttery lights.

On the ground looking up at Mountparnasse Tower - It's pretty impressive but I'm glad it is just one of a kind.

Byddi Lee

Dining up the Eiffel Tower

Originally built as a temporary structure at the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, the Eiffel Tower still stands and has become an iconic representation of all things Paris. For me, it defies reason, this lattice of wrought iron that should be ugly, but which, no matter when I see it takes my breath away with it's beauty. It glows with spectacular golden light at night.

The tower is equally magnificent in the cold light of day.

My Sister gifted us a voucher for a meal for two in 58 Eiffel Tower, the restaurant on the first "floor" (that large platform atop the 'legs' of the tower.)

It was a great present, not least because it was the kind of thing we may never have actually splurged on for ourselves. So we got ourselves dolled up and headed out for an evening of getting up close and personal with this gigantic mechano set!

You can pay extra to have a seat at the window, which is exactly what my generous sister did. This was the view from our seat, overlooking the seine and the Trocadero.

The meal is a set dinner and you get to choose from four or five options for starter, main course and  desert as you sip on the glass of champers that's included.

You also get two glasses of wine per person - your choice of red or white. The white was a sauvignon blanc which I actually liked. The red was a Bordeaux and My Husband chose that. There didn't seem to be a choice other than that and we were happy with their selection. More discerning wine buffs might have an issue here.

The menu had what I would describe as "safe" options. The food was fresh and cooked to perfection. The portions were small but satisfying. There were two sittings an evening 6.30pm and a later one at 9pm. Possibly because everyone was seated at the same time, there was a sense of mass catering.  Everything was nice but nothing spectacular when compared to the meal we'd had almost a year ago in Singapore at the top of the  Marina Bay Sands, in the restaurant called (ironically) Ce La Vi.

But really, we weren't there solely for the food, and the staff were nice, giving my husband a lovely fruit salad for desert when he couldn't find a menu option without cream. 

After dinner we took in the views, climbing up the stairs (even though the lift ticket was included in the price) to the second "floor" which, as My Husband kept pointing out, was more than one floor in a conventional building up.

We arrived there just in time to see the moon pop out from behind cloud.

Hidden...

And there it is!

Despite the chilly night the views were amazing! Above on the left, you can see the big wheel at Place de  la Concorde (where Marie Antoinette lost her head)  and the Pantheon on the right.

Below, that's the Pantheon to the left and the building with the blue lights at the top Mountparnasse Tower.

The Seine, with Sacre Coeur on the horizon just right of center.

The top of the Eiffel Tower was closed. I'm not sure if it was because it was night time or if it is closed right now.

The most magical moment was when the lights all sparkled in the on-the-hour light show!

Back inside for a warm up and a nosy through the shops. The Parisians love their Eiffel Tower and their macaroons so this was a double whammy of their amour!

A great evening out - thanks to My Sister. Next time we go up the Eiffel tower hopefully she'll be with us.

 
Byddi Lee

The Search for Chez Lee

Moving to another country has it's complications, even if you have a passport that allows you to work and live there. In Paris, legislation strongly supports the tenant's rights, so landlords are justifiably nervous about leasing their property. It can take a year or in some cases even longer to evict a non-paying tenant, so you must prove that you have an income that will finance your rent. You need excellent references.

You also need a French bank account.

To get a French bank account, you must have an address in France...chicken and egg kind of problem here. How do you get the one without first having the other?

My Husband's work recommended a couple of relocation agents to us. Their services are not cheap, typically costing around €2200-€2500 but we'd really no other option. Basically, they can somehow circumnavigate the "chicken and egg - bank and address" thing and help you to open an account, help you find an apartment and act as translator while all the paperwork is processed. And, oh boy, is there paperwork!

We chose to go with a company called Sofime, headed up by the lovely Sophie Girault. She was simply brilliant. Her English was perfect, she was super organized, and really knowledgeable of the process we'd be facing. She had Skyped us while we were still in California. After listening to us describe our situation, our location and style of housing preferences, and hearing My Husband's employment set up and salary, she was able to tell us that we'd only qualify for furnished apartments.

This suited us. "Furnished" in Paris means that practically everything is provided - even bed linens and towels. Less stuff for us to ship to or buy in France.

She also told us that here was a cap on the price you were allowed to spend on rent based on your monthly salary! Your rent could not be more than a third of your income. A sensible law in my opinion but it still felt very constrictive. 

With all this thrashed out ahead of time, Sophie had us primed to hit the ground running. On our second day in Paris, (yep - after that one nights sleep-of-the-dead) she met us at the bank at 8.45 am.

By 10.30am we had a French bank account and were on our way to meet Sophie's associate, whom I'll refer to as our Belle Nouvelle Amie (since her name doesn't appear on Sophie's website, and I haven't checked with her if I can use her real name - plus I liked the sound of her pseudo-name!)

Our Belle Nouvelle Amie had scoured the rental companies at the beginning of the week and set up 9 appointments for us to view . She told us that  places go fast and that we'd probably have to make the decision that same day. I was glad on one hand - we'd have it sported all the sooner and be out of the "Les Mis" style AirBnB, but what if we didn't see one we liked? 

The first apartment was nice, quite modern and spacious, but it was in the 16th Arrondisment, too far away from My Husbands work and the center of Paris. When we first decided to move we promised ourselves we'd live right in the city center, no more suburbia for us.

The next four apartments were extremely disheartening. Despite costing a fortune, they reminded me of the student flats that I'd seen in Belfast when I went to university there. Many of them were in gracious old building that had been chopped up and subdivided so badly that the flow of the rooms often made no sense. There was one that might have been okay, over looking the Seine...of you stood on tiptoes to peer past the huge construction site just below the window...

I tried not to think of the view from our our house in the way that one pokes around the edges of a scabby wound to test if it is healing or not. I'd tried to prepare myself for these moments, yet images of the rolling golden hills lingered in my minds eye. 

Deep breath... 1... 2... 3...

We had a break for lunch in a charming brasserie. Our Belle Nouvelle Ami was surprised when I recognized an item on the menu - Black pudding! It's made from pigs blood and is one of my favorite foods, despite how gross it sounds. I had that on a big pile of buttery mash potatoes, and it put my world back to rights! We were jet lagged, tired and weary with huge gaping holes in our view of the immediate future. But we'd get through it. 

As our Belle Nouvelle Ami took us to the sixth apartment, I saw what looked like a man standing at the top of a high tower. It seemed to be a statue, but was odd because it was not balanced-out by a  figure on the other side. Where was the symmetry? With that fuzzy head you get with jet lag, I wondered was I seeing things? My hear rate accelerated as I remembered first a story my sister told me about seeing ghosts in Prague, then a story my Mum had told me about being first on the scene of someone who'd jumped/fallen from a high building.

"Can you see a man at the top of that tower?" I asked our Belle Nouvelle Ami.

"Mais, non," she said. 

My heart stopped. I was sure I could see it.

"Really?" There may have been a edge of panic in my voice.

"I see a statue, but no man..."

Phew! She'd been taking me literally. I later learned that it was Saint-Jacques Tower - a Gothic tower and the only remaining part of a 16th-century church that was destroyed during the French Revolution.

Jacques Tower

Equilibrium restored, we looked at the sixth apartment just around the corner from this tower. We were nearly late for the appointment, but the rental company guy was very patient and waited for us. 

It was on the fourth floor, but had a glass elevator (very Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!) As soon as I  walked in, I loved it. When My Husband stood in front of the mantelpiece and said with great enthusiasm and gesturing with his arms, "The speakers could go right here!" I knew he wanted it too!

It was spacious and bright, with understated decor. It just felt right. We had two more places to look at, but they weren't a patch on this one. I was terrified we'd lose it to the next couple about to view it.

Having viewed all nine, we confidently told our Belle Nouvelle Ami we'd made our decision. She agreed it was a good spot and she called the Rental Agency right away. 

That was on a Thursday evening. 

On Friday she got back to us and said that the Rental Agency would know by Monday. We spent the weekend praying! Monday wasn't too long a wait considering that nothing happens fast in France. I'm working on being okay with that. I mean, why rush when  there's all those delicious croissants to eat and cheeses to sample, not to mention the vin to drink while you're waiting? Patience is not a virtue I possess, so this is just something I have to suck up and get through.

We caught up on much needed sleep that first weekend, knowing that we'd have lots of time and opportunities to explore Paris. We even grew used to the cramped conditions of our "Les Mis" AirBnB. Even so, we were overjoyed when Sophie from Sofime called to tell us that we'd been accepted for the apartment we wanted.

We were so relieved. Yes, it is less than half the size of our house in California. It has no garden - though it does have a nice balcony. I wasn't sure if I'd cope with the noise from a busy street below us... but a year is not so very long...

We moved in the following Friday. The traffic from below us sounded loud but reminded me of listening to waves on the seashore. There were lots of people on the streets too. Were we 20 years too old for this place? Had we made a mistake? By Saturday morning I knew it would be find. Sure we'd heard people partying on the street below in the wee hours, but it had not kept me awake. In fact the noise of the traffic had lulled me to sleep. I'd even enjoyed hearing the revelers - happy noises of people having fun and me tucking up in a cozy bed sharing a sliver of the experience, yet glad not to be down there. Like when you're all cozy in bed and listening to the rain outside. I might at some stage miss the yipping of the coyotes or the gobbles of the wild turkeys we'd listened to in the past, but for now I liked this change. We could do this.

The very next evening we had our first visitors. What joy it is to host friends (and family) here. A short walk to the end of the street and I found my favorite night-time spot in Paris.

To the right, you can see the Eiffel Tower twinkling over the streets of Paris.

And to the left, Notre Dame Cathedral peeks out.

In the days that followed, I had to buy some things for the apartment even though it was furnished. I discovered that a shop I was familiar with from home - "Habitat" - was on the Rue Boucher which made me smile because they used to have one on the Boucher Road in Belfast too.

 

It was a slow process finding the right shops to get those last few bits and pieces. My Mum asked me at that point did I miss anything from the USA.

"I'd do anything for a Bed, Bath and Beyond right now," I told her. But I only half meant it. When I first landed in the USA, I'd had the exact same problem. In time my explorations will lead me to the shops I need and more. I was confident of that.

I'd  like to thank Sophie Girault and the team at Sofime, especially our Belle Nouvelle Ami who has been a wonderful help and continues to follow up every detail to help with our relocation. I honestly don't know what we'd have done without them.... 

Maybe without them, I'd be sitting at that 5th floor window in the AirBnB singing "I dreamed a dream..."





Byddi Lee