Seine-Side Saunter: Retaking Paris’ Riverfront

by David Downie on

Before dawn the other day, I stole down to the Seine and waited in darkness until the security
guard at the construction worksite had walked upstream out of sight.

Vaulting with the agility of a middle-aged guy with bad knees, I strode down the newly laid cobbled walkway below the Pont de Sully. The site is part of an ambitious project to slow or banish cars from Paris, and welcome walkers to the Seine while revitalizing the river’s UNESCO World Heritage Site banks.

I danced a silent, gleeful jig of victory; the river would soon be ours again!

Soon: In September 2012 the one-mile stretch of walkway on the Right Bank between the Canal Saint Martin and city hall is slated to be finished. In spring 2013 an even longer stretch on the Left Bank near the Musée d’Orsay will be ours. Add them to the existing Seine-side pedestrian areas and by summer of 2013 we will be able to walk across town on either bank following the river almost entirely unmolested by automobiles.

Photo: Paris.fr

I made the victory sign, a flying “V.” I then lowered my index finger in a loving F-you salute to something directly across the Seine from where I stood: the billionaire’s townhouse on the Ile Saint Louis where for decades my arch-nemesis would hob and nob and chain-smoke with the other cigar-puffing plutocrats who ran France in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. They were the bankers, financiers, real estate developers and members of the construction lobby, the charming folks who practically destroyed old Paris, starting with the Seine.

My nemesis was and remains a certain Georges Pompidou, long a minister and then president of France. Dead now, he lived on the Ile Saint Louis overlooking the Seine’s Left Bank. But he grooved a few blocks away with the top 1 percent at the Hotel Lambert, the 17th-century townhouse currently under restoration and facing me across the river. For decades the mansion was owned by the Rothschild clan and frequented by a Who’s Who of malignant “modernizers.”

Before Pompidou… [Jongkind, 1874 (Musée Malraux, Le Havre)]

Granted, I was not in Paris in 1874 when the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind set up his easel by the Seine and painted his gorgeous view of the Quai des Céléstins and the old riverside port, plus the five-arched Pont Marie. I was not old enough to remember the quays before their transformation in the late ’60s to early ’70s. How could I suffer nostalgia for something I’d never known? Easy.

My first stay in Paris as an adult was back in 1976, a few years after Pompidou made the egregiously misguided statement that “It is not the car that must adapt to Paris, but Paris that must adapt to the car.” Among Pompidou’s many destructive projects – eyesore high-rises, shopping malls, the new Forum des Halles – he was bent on turning the Seine into an expressway. He succeeded. Thirty-six years ago I stood on the Pont de Sully in this very spot and wondered what madness had seized the Parisians, so well known for their love of the past. Now I am beaming with satisfaction: live long enough and you’ll see some things get set right.

The river had always been the lifeline of the city. Along its banks since before the Romans arrived were habitations, port facilities, bridges, taverns and towpaths. One of my favorite crime novels by Georges Simenon, “Maigret et le clochard (Maigret and the Bum),” was set on the Ile Saint Louis and in the Port des Céléstins. Having read it when young, I felt I had been here.
But Pompidou wanted American-style freeways to show New York and Chicago that Paris could be just as modern. He demolished nearly all the city’s ports and poured cement embankments in their place. He ran tunnels under historic buildings in some spots and built out into the river in others. The Seine morphed into a sewer flanked by raceways.


Now… a work in progress (Photo: www.alisonharris.com)

As I tooled that dawn along the sidewalks above the worksite, peering down, I dreamed the dream of current Mayor Bertrand Delanoë: cleaning up the Seine so that it’s swimmable again – to humans and fish. That’s a few more years down the road.

While the transformation continues despite Paris’s sweltering summer heat, thousands of hikers, walkers, joggers and cyclists are swarming to the already pedestrianized sections of the Seine. They run from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower (almost) on the Right Bank and from the city’s upstream limits to the Musée d’Orsay on the Left Bank. It’s a route I do several times a week in one direction. I can’t wait to be able to go downstream on the Right and upstream on the Left, or the other way around.

So what’s the downside?

Critics argue that traffic will be nightmarish – precisely what the mayor wants in order to get Parisians to give up using their cars. Other naysayers are closer to the mark when they foresee noise problems for riverside neighbors, round-the-clock partying, and more work for Paris cleanup crews. The gentrification and de-naturing of what was a real, working city continues. Paris is party central, a place for tourists.

Photo: APUR/JC Choblet

True: We’ll probably never get the rough-and-ready freight facilities and riverboats back. We may never see people and horses braving the Seine’s brisk waters alongside trout and salmon. But you never know. And walkways, bars and open markets for yuppies surely have got to beat the asphalt jungle. My big question is, how well will the mayor’s yellow-brick road stand up to the ravages of climate change and ferocious flooding? Tune in next summer for an update once the job is complete.

Author and private walking-tour guide David Downie’s latest book is the critically acclaimed “Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light,” soon to be an audiobook. His next memoir, to be published in April 2013, is “Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James.” His websites are www.davidddownie.com, www.parisparistours.com, http://wanderingfrance.com/blog/paris and http://wanderingliguria.com, dedicated to the
Italian Riviera.

Under These Circumstances: Traveling For A Funeral

by Elizabeth Seward on

The twisting highways that cut through West Virginia and lead to my hometown, which is on the border of West Virginia and Ohio, are terrifying at night. The last time I made the drive, the fog was thick and low – a meteorological manifestation of my cloudy, burdened mind. Because the hills are steep and street lights are rare, the dim headlights were the only aid my vision had. I couldn’t plug in and listen to my own music because I didn’t have an auxiliary cable and there was nothing on the radio. The hum of the highway was the only sound accompanying us for the ride. My childhood friend, Karin, was sitting at a spine-straight 90 degree angle in the passenger seat and scanning the blackness for shining pairs of deer eyes. My husband was doing his best to stretch across the tiny car’s back seat and rhapsodizing about beauty, undoubtedly in an effort to help unload some of the weight Karin and I were carrying. But we were on the way to the funeral of one of our close childhood friends and our availability for consolation was erratic.

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Just 48 hours earlier, my husband and I were departing DC and on our way up to New York for a five day vacation when I received the news that she had died. She died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 28. The misfortune of her passing was paired with the serendipitous fortune of having arranged to stay with Karin in New York. She was a good friend to both of us and as I slumped down on Karin’s futon in her dark Bushwick apartment, I was grateful that, if nothing else, we had each other. We spooned, ordered in food and reserved a rental car.

We had made plans to stay with our friend, Liz, at her parents’ house. Their house was our safe place growing up, a home with both a revolving front and refrigerator door. Her parents have known me since I was 6 years old, but I hadn’t seen them in a decade. Our little car slid quietly into a space in front of their house, which looked exactly as I’d remembered, around 1am. Liz and her boyfriend were waiting for us with Karin’s younger brother on the front porch, illuminated beneath the overhead light. Liz and her boyfriend had just arrived a few hours earlier themselves after a long drive from Milwaukee. We embraced and then discovered that we were gripped by manic exhaustion, the kind that makes your stomach turn while your brain still races. We tip-toed down into her basement, which was still littered with the toys from our childhood, and hung out on the worn-down couches we always hung out on, this time as adults. Contagious, unstoppable laughter erupted every ten minutes or so between the six of us as we recounted hilarious stories of the friend we’d lost. We were childishly frightened of waking Liz’s dad, which meant that our bursts of laughter were followed by a swarm of shushing, which triggered more laughter.

She would have wanted it that way, she was a funny girl, we said.

She was one of the only people I went out of my way to see during the handful of visits home I had made since high school graduation. I hated Marietta when I lived there and I couldn’t wait to move away. But during one of the last visits in Marietta I had with her, she showed me where to find love for the town. We sat side by side in Muskingum Park during the late afternoon, ripping up handfuls of grass as we talked. The meticulously green park hugs the Muskingum River and in the late afternoon, everything glows with the warmth of over-saturation and shimmers with the river’s reflections. A golden beam of light was cast over her face. She looked so unmistakably beautiful.

Her family had asked me to learn and sing a song that was special to her at the funeral. Without hesitation, I agreed. As I removed the tags from the new black clothes I’d purchased in New York with trembling hands, I choked. I didn’t know where or how to find the strength to use my vocal cords in front of a room filled with people I hadn’t seen since high school under such bewildering circumstances when I hadn’t even yet processed the news enough to cry. I bit my tongue and looked out the bedroom window and onto that flawlessly paved, wide street on which I’d learned to ride a bike, on which I’d regularly parked my first car. I went downstairs.

It was weird to see us all dressed up. I didn’t even wear heels at my wedding and yet, here we all were, balancing and clicking in unison. The three of us held hands and walked slowly into the funeral home. We’d given all the hugs and condolences we could give and we still had 45 minutes before the beginning of the ceremony. We walked like a pack of wolves who’d grown up in the wild together down the main street in town and into a bar, one of the few. With urgency, we ordered shots, ciders and beers. Tucked into the wooden booth only briefly, we left as quickly as we came. We walked back in the direction of the funeral home although we were unwilling to reenter a minute earlier than we needed to. Instead, we crossed the street and entered the park, the same park I’d sat in with her not that long ago. We walked down to the river and we sat on the stairs, chewing on our cheeks from the inside out, trying to calm our racing hearts. The sky glowed with that amber hue and I looked over at Liz and Karin, both of their faces washed over with a beauty I now know I’ll never forget.

Unusual Event: Uganda’s Royal Ascot Goat Races

by Jessica Festa on




This weekend, Uganda will be hosting their Royal Ascot Goat Races. Held at the Speke Resort on the shores of Lake Victoria, this annual tradition has been going on since 1993. According to BBC Travel, it came to be when a local sailing club decided to put on a quirky fundraiser, borrowing inspiration from a Zimbabwe horse breeder who held a pig race in his garden for his birthday. The club swapped pigs for goats, creating a successful event that draws people from all around the world. As the races grew, the club began to model the event after England‘s Royal Ascot horse races, complete with over-the-top outfits and awards for the best-dressed man and woman and most elaborate hat.

On September 1, 2012, the race will mark its eighth year. Although goats may not be the fastest animals in the world, the prize awarded to the winner is 30 million shillings (about $356,379). Additionally, spectators can bet on the races to win money of their own. And even if someone bets on a losing goat, they’ll still “win,” as proceeds are donated to a local charities.

For a more visual idea of the Royal Ascot Goat Races, check out the video above.

Freak Shows, Fried Snickers In Bacon And Other Delights At The New York State Fair

by Dave Seminara on

Where can you eat a triple bypass, get a 25 cent foot massage, count mullets, see the head of a beautiful girl on the body of an ugly snake, mingle with filthy swine and pick up a novelty license plate emblazoned with the Confederate flag? That would be the New York State Fair in Syracuse, New York, which runs through Labor Day. Most Americans hear the words “New York” and conjure up images of an urban jungle filled with sophisticated people who drink fair trade coffee and don’t own television sets. But New York isn’t all about the Big Apple – it’s a huge state with plenty of rural, pastoral beauty and there’s no better place to get a flavor of the state’s small town charms than the New York State Fair, held every summer since 1841.

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I started my fair experience on Wednesday with a freak show. The cavernous fairgrounds are filled with farm animals, every type of fried food imaginable, midway rides and games, psychics, and hordes of people in all shapes and sizes. It’s sensory overload but a tinny voice coming out of a loudspeaker caught our attention.

STOP! WAIT! How could this ever come to be? She has traveled throughout the world telling her strange story of how her body transformed into an ugly snake to thousands of people. See Angel, the snake girl, with the head of a lovely girl on the body of an ugly, scaly, 200-pound snake.

My older son Leo, 5, and I couldn’t resist, so we plunked down $1.50 and headed inside. The “beautiful girl” was a haggard, middle-aged woman whose “story” seemed to consist of nothing more than her maniacal cackling, and we were kicked out after trying to shoot video (see above). But getting ripped off is an important part of any state fair experience, as is sampling all of the incredibly unhealthy food options.

I saw stands selling corn dogs, fried dough, dough nuggets, funnel cakes, and wild hog wings before I finally came upon a stand selling vegetables and thought that perhaps I needed a new prescription. Mushrooms, zucchini and cauliflower? But upon closer inspection, it turned out they were all fried. Phew. And then I came across Jim Hasbrook’s Fried Specialties, a kind of Shangri-La for people unconcerned by clogged arteries.

Jim sells just about anything you can imagine deep-fried: pop tarts, PB & J, lasagna, pizza, jellybeans, cheese curds, and a host of other delicacies.

“Last year we tried selling deep fried butter too,” Hasbrook said. “But it melts too quick and the truth is, it doesn’t taste that good.”

So Hasbrook dropped the deep-fried butter but brought back two other hugely popular specialties – deep-fried snickers wrapped in bacon, and a treat he calls the “triple bypass,” which is PB & J, two Oreos and two chocolate chip cookies, all fried, of course. When I asked Jim and one of his employees, Matt, if they felt bad about serving such decidedly unhealthy treats they were unapologetic.

“It’s no worse than French fries or chicken wings,” said Matt, a rail thin 20-something who said he eats the fried treats all day long. “People put a bad name on fried food because they think it’s so bad for you, but it’s really not because everything gets stuck inside your gut anyways.”

After spending roughly the gross national product of Namibia on rides and games for my two little boys, we almost bit on another freak show – a 29-inch tall woman on display for $1 a peak, billed as a “West Indies Cultural Exhibit.” Instead, we hit some of the farm animal exhibits – cows, sheep, goats, lamas, horses and, my favorite: pigs! In the Dairy Cattle Barn, I got to meet a few farmers, but felt like I needed to keep my voice down, as a host of others that had been up during the night tending to their animals were fast asleep on cots (see photo).

I bumped into Eli Stoltman, from Georgetown, New York, just as he was gently kicking one of his prize swines, trying to rouse him from a nap.

“I’m due to show him in the next round but the little rascal won’t wake up,” he said.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Well, he doesn’t really have a name because he’s going to be eaten,” he said, as the swine rolled back over and went back to sleep.

Visiting a state fair is like getting a snapshot of life in rural, red-state America. The food is plentiful, the people are open, honest and approachable, and you see plenty of not-very politically correct things, like Confederate flag license plates, mullet count boards and Captain Porkin’ T-shirts. Every urbanite should go at least once to see how the other half lives.

On my way out, I paid $3 to let a carnie guess my age.

“Take your sunglasses off,” he commanded.

I did as I was told, and he said, “There we go, I can see your age right there in your eyes.”

And sure enough, he nailed my age, guessing that I was two months older than I actually am. I had been hoping for an ego boost but left with a reminder to lay off the deep-fried snickers wrapped in bacon.

(Photos and videos by Dave Seminara)

Video Of The Day: Rio De Janeiro Time-Lapse

by Elizabeth Seward on

“A day in Rio de Janeiro” from Joe Simon Films on Vimeo.

I love going through Vimeo slowly, looking for diamonds in the rough of time-lapse videos. I found one today. Created by Joe Simon, this time-lapse explores Rio de Janeiro. Featuring the simplistic beauty found in the subtle swaying of anchored boats, the coming and going of beach-goers, the overwhelmingly perfect sunshine and the gorgeous curves of the landscape, this video is worth the few minutes it takes to view it. So sit back, relax and enjoy Rio de Janeiro from afar.