Asleep On The Seine

Paris Day 2

Woke up to be confronted by a decisive moment, this woman leaning out her window in the hotel opposite ours. She is smoking of course; many (perhaps most) people smoke here. A pleasant sense of freedom or irresponsibility? Seems like the former to me, though it may be just my holiday mood. I like her sense of self-absorption and containment, the ashtray a natural part of it, like a saucer for a cup.

Breakfast at the top of a big department store that reminded me of the old Brown Thomas in Dublin, except for the breath-taking, massive stained glass dome, erected in the 20s.

Wandered over to the Louvre. We didn't bother trying to queue, just hung out in the square with its fountains and glass pyramids. Sam read for awhile and I took my telephoto and photographed the other photographer tourtists, or the people like Sam, minding their own business. Immense heat. I kept my wide-brimmed leather hat on, the first real opportunity I've had to make use of it.

Passed under St-Germain-l'Auxerrois with its jutting gargoyles, then a lovely lunch in a little corner café on the Seine, opposite the book and bric-a-brac-sellers. Saw some cops on skates; add to the list of things foreign, along with smokers in hotels and cafés.

Then we went for a boat tour of the Seine. Great to be on the water, away from the hot pavements. The guide gave us the history lesson, not too invasive. It drifted through my head like someone else's cigarette smoke. Bridge after bridge floated over us, accompanied by little impulsive bleats of greeting from people (tourists?) waving from the balustrades.

The history lesson continued: the building with the peaked, fairytale towers, where Marie-Antoinette was held prisoner for a couple of months, before the chop (I could well believe it, the place still looking grim enough); the fancy bridge with two crests on it commerating Franco-Prussian alliance (or was it Franco Russian?); the bridge where, if it's your first time going under, you must close your eyes and make a wish then kiss your neighbour (so I did); the Pont Neuf (where we boarded), decorated with all the faces of some king's courtiers and friends, reminding me of the faces under O'Connell Bridge.

The Eiffel Tower looked much squatter and sturdier than the pictures I remembered, hazed out in the blue-grey heat. I liked the look of the bank-life, a leafy world of strollers, readers/writers, lovers, dawdlers, dog-walkers, sun-bathers and sleepers (like the guy above), the whole microcosm of beach-life.

Heat sapped our energy, so we didn't really do much else. Dinner in a Chinese place near the hotel, which was okay.