The Paris Dispatch

The city of lights lights up for Christmas

Suite 511, Hotel Raphael, Paris, Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Photo: Lee Tulloch

I’m writing this report on a rainy Sunday in Paris, from this desk in Suite 511 at one of Paris’ oldest grand hotels, the Hotel Raphael in the quiet 16th arrondissement.

The receptionist tells me Michael Douglas stayed in this suite and so did Mikhail Gorbachev, but not together, thankfully.

My life of moving between hotels every day or two has resumed. I’m trying to experience as many hotels as possible in a short time to review them. It means being incredibly resourceful with my luggage, so that I’m not completely packing and unpacking all the time. But inevitably, the one thing I need is always somewhere at the bottom of the suitcase.

Let’s hear it for train travel!

I boarded the train at Cannes station, which is one of those little stations with a cafe and not much else, very easy to negotiate. I was able to work out what part of the platform my carriage was on by map. The TGVs are double-decker these days, so I chose the lower level so I didn’t have to lug my bags up stairs.

The first class carriage (€95 one way) had sumptuous velvet seats and plenty of spaces to store luggage. It also had excellent free wifi, so I could work on my laptop for most of the five and a half hour journey.

The railway line hugged the coast to Marseilles and I remembered how beautiful this part of the world is. Despite the villas and pools nestled in the rocks, it can be quite sauvage, with rocky outcrops and squally seas.

It wasn’t until after Marseilles, where the majority of passengers boarded, that the conductor came around to scan my ticket and vaccination certificate. He was very jolly. I recall past histories of grumpy train conductors who always seemed to find a reason to fine us for some unexpected breach of the rules. But the general mood on board was upbeat. A couple brought their kitten along and it sat purring between them on the seat quite contentedly.

Why don’t we have trains like this in Australia? The possibility of a fast-speed train between Melbourne and Sydney comes up every election, as I suppose it will next year, and is promptly forgotten afterwards. Trains are better for the environment and an altogether more emotionally satisfying experience than flying. Whether it’s fast or slow, you watch the world go by and really feel as if you’re travelling, not just getting from A to B.

Despite many brewing anxieties in Europe about rising cases, in France a booster program is underway and those who have been vaccinated seem quietly confident they are safe. They’re anxious for the economy, for their children, about the environment, of course. No one feels they are out of the woods and winter is just beginning. But they are stoically getting on with it, with masks.

Whenever I talk about mask wearing on Twitter it creates a kind of hysteria. So many people in Australia (and the USA) are against it, can’t see the point of it if we have been vaccinated, find it unnecessary performative COVID theatre, or see it as taking away their liberties.

Here, many see it as a reinforcement of being kind to each other, as good manners.

Whatever anyone’s point of view, I wish all the energy that is going into arguing about the mask mandate would go into more productive causes, such as fighting for housing security for older women or making real progress with climate action. We could change the world!

Back to Paris - I don’t think the city has ever been more beautiful. But that probably is the result of not having been here —or anywhere - for a long time.

The station taxi took me from the Gare de Lyon along the quays to my hotel on the Champs-Élysées, Le Fouquet’s. It was late afternoon, the light was golden on the pale stone buildings along the right bank of the Seine. We crawled along the Left Bank, where I used to live, past the ruin of Notre Dame, Shakespeare & Co, the bouquinistes, and the rue du Bac, and my old haunting ground never looked more beguiling, removed as it is now from the day to day struggles of dealing with French bureaucracy and shopkeepers who were snobbish about my appalling French accent.

The Champs-Élysées was a riot of red lights twinkling in all the trees, crowded with people in a pre-Christmas frenzy. Lots of armed soldiers waiting ominously. Quite surreal were the hideous statues of giant bears and gorillas along the famous promenade, uglier even than those fibreglass cows that popped up around the world for a long time.

Most people don’t know but there’s a hotel atop the famous brasserie Le Fouquet’s and it has had a lavish revamp by my favourite hotel designer, Jacques Garcia.

My suite 520 had this view.

And this bed. It was very comfortable, but I’m finding it hard to sleep.

Jetlag has been a big problem this trip, probably because my circadian rhythms have been rolling along smoothly for two years without any different time zones to interrupt the pattern. Now it’s like they’re doing the cha-cha.

I have so many different sleeping pills by the side of the bed in case I need them, I’m sure the housekeepers think I’m a drug dealer. But nothing much works, so it’s hello 3 AM every morning. Maybe I’m just too excited to sleep.

Paris is dazzling, literally.

The best thing about a hit of the city of (many) lights before Christmas is the flamboyant decorations. I suppose people weren’t in a celebratory mood last Christmas so they’ve gone all-out this one. Not just every hotel lobby, but every shop window, every park, building facade and monument are strung with finery. The interiors of apartments, when you catch a glimpse of them, are warmed by candlelight and decked in swags of green and red. Fir trees for sale are stacked on almost every corner and sometimes it’s like walking through a forest just breathing in the scent of crushed pine needles as you go by.

I come from Sydney, where it’s summer, and the half-hearted street decorations are dispiriting. So this is a treat. I think Paris even outdoes New York as a Christmas wonderland. I might even believe in Santa Claus again.

I’m packing my bags again and moving on to review three more hotels this week, all of them new since the last time I was in Paris. One of them, Madame Reve, is only six weeks old. I’m also about to negotiate a French laboratory for my pre-flight COVID test, so more of that in the next dispatch.

Until then, here’s the Christmas tree from the lobby of the Hotel Raphael to get you in the spirit.

If you’ve eaten at Fouquet’s, stayed at the Raphael, taken the TGV, have any advice on jetlag cures or have stories about Paris, I’d love to hear about it.

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