Treat yourself to a week of painting taught by Tom Hughes May 20-27, 2017 while discovering the magical troglodyte village of Trôo. Perched above the river Loire in the northern Loire Valley this remarkable village features unique cave houses dug into the hillside that provide stunning views over the village, river and valley. Continuer la lecture de « Loire Plein Air Painting Workshop »
Vincent van Gogh Revisited in Auvers-sur-Oise
Auberge Ravoux © Miyazaki
Autumn is an ideal time to visit the town Auver Sur Oise where the artist Vincent van Gogh spent his final days. In this picturesque village located just a short train ride from Paris you can walk in van Gogh’s footsteps, from his attic room at the Auberge Ravoux to the places where he planted his easel: the church of Auvers, the house of the painter Daubigny, the house of his friend Doctor Gachet, and the field where he painted his last work, “Wheat Field With Crows” (1890).
The Auberge Ravoux The Auberge Ravoux, situated just next to the town hall, is the inn where van Gogh lived, ate, and painted. From his living quarters to his diet to his array of guests, the Auberge keeps van Gogh’s inspiration alive. Upstairs features his modest attic room, an extraordinary recreation of his creative, melancholy presence. Downstairs, the restaurant maintains the same spirit and decor as van Gogh’s days and is open for customers. Continuer la lecture de « Vincent van Gogh Revisited in Auvers-sur-Oise »
Cruising the Canal de l’Ourcq
La Ferte Milon© A Simms
The prettiest and least visited part of the Canal de l’Ourcq, which enters Paris at Porte de la Villette, is its beginning at Port aux Perches in the Aisne département, 70 km north east of the capital.
The River Ourcq has always been important to Paris, originally supplying the city with grain and wood from the rich duchy of the Valois and still supplying part of its drinking water. Part of the river was canalized in the 16th century and the meandering 10-km stretch from Port aux Perches to Mareuil-sur-Ourcq, passing through La Ferté-Milon, is the oldest part of the canal, which was completed under Napoleon. You will not meet many Parisians on the boat cruises here, nor in La Ferté-Milon itself, an attractive little town whose provincial appearance conceals a distinguished and sometimes violent past.
Its impressive hilltop castle was never completed. Work stopped abruptly in 1407 when the owner, Louis d’Orléans, younger brother of the mad king Charles VI, was assassinated on the orders of his cousin Jean Sans Peur, sparking a civil war and the subsequent invasion of the country by the English. Had it been finished, it would have been the grandest castle in France, a suitable monument to Louis’ aspirations. The magnificent façade which remains was spared by Henri IV, who ordered its demolition in 1594 during the Wars of Religion.
La Ferte Milon’s chateau DR
In 1639 Jean Racine, France’s greatest classical dramatist, was born in La Ferté-Milon and baptized in the Eglise Notre-Dame just below the castle. La Fontaine, author of the famous Fables, married Racine’s cousin here in 1647. The church’s 16th-century stained glass windows were destroyed by German artillery in 1918, when the town was at the heart of the Battle of the Marne. The elegant little iron footbridge across the canal at the old Port au Blé in the town center, where boats were once loaded with timber for Paris, was built in the 19th century by an obscure young engineer called Gustave Eiffel. The curious round tower next to it is a remnant of the medieval ramparts.
You could combine a visit to the town and lunch in the aptly named ivy-clad Café des Ruines next to the castle, or a picnic in this most dramatic of locations, with a pretty 7-km walk along the canal to Mareuil-sur-Ourcq, from where you can take a train back to the Gare de l’Est. You could even arrange to join the Croisière-Promenade at La Ferté-Milon lock in the town center at around 4:30pm and get off at Marolles half an hour and a kilometer later, turning part of the walk into a cruise. The towpath takes you along a winding thickly wooded stretch of the canal, where scarcely a boat passes to disturb the waterfowl. You pass the locks at Marolles and Queue d’Ham before coming to the church and lock at Mareuil. Cross the road to the other side of the canal here, and follow it as it curves left to become the rue de Meaux (D936). The station is just past the Mairie on the opposite side of the road.
If you decide on the Croisière-Déjeuner, you can arrange to be met at La Ferté-Milon station by car for the ten-minute drive to Port aux Perches, 2 km away from La Ferté-Milon by canal. The boat leaves at around midday and an aperitif is served almost immediately, followed by a classic three-course lunch including cheese, wine and coffee over which you can linger for the entire 3-hour trip. The boat is engagingly small, with space for about 50 people. There were only six couples on board when I went in September two years ago, but I have passed it on several other occasions in the summer when it was packed with French families and couples in infectious holiday mood. The loudspeaker commentary is mercifully limited to the outgoing cruise.
After winding along the river-like canal, brushing past waterfowl and riverside plants, the boat slows down to go through the lock in La Ferté-Milon. You get a close-up of the Eiffel footbridge and families of ducks and then long-distance views of the castle ruins at every turn until you come to Marolles, where you get off to stretch your legs for 20 minutes before the boat turns to go back. You could arrange to get off at La Ferté-Milon lock on the way back at around 3pm to give you a chance to explore the town, returning to the station on foot. It is less than a kilometer from the lock in the town center and you will pass the 15th-century Eglise St-Nicolas on the way. Although not as dramatically located as the Eglise Notre-Dame, it is of more interest, as the little door next to the locked main entrance is usually open. If not, ask for the key at the Pompes Funèbres opposite.
The walk in the other direction along rue de la La Chaussée (La Ferté-Milon is basically a one-street town) will take you past the Musée Jean Racine, the little house in which the poet grew up, and up the steep hill past the Eglise St-Nicolas to the magnificent ruins of the castle, from where there is a good view over the Ourcq valley.
Getting there
Choose a Sunday if you want to combine a visit to la Ferté-Milon by train with the lunchtime canal cruise. Trains to Reims leave the Gare de l’Est at 9:22 and 10:52 on Sunday mornings, arriving at La Ferté-Milon at 10:24 and noon respectively. The last train back is at 8:13, arriving at the Gare de l’Est at 9:15pm. On Saturdays the train leaves at 11:28am, with a change at Meaux, arriving at La Ferté-Milon at 12:50pm. The last train back is at 7:06pm, with a change at Meaux. Mareuil-sur-Ourcq is the station after La Ferté-Milon on the way back to Paris.
By car, take the A4 to Meaux, then the D405 and D936 to La Ferté-Milon.
Canal cruises
Le Port aux Perches 02460 Silly la Poterie, tel: 03 23 96 41 25 (English spoken). Reservations essential. Let them know if you want to be met at the station by car or to get off at La Ferté-Milon or Marolles.
La Croisière-Déjeunernoon to 3:30pm, Sat from Apr to Oct, Sun from Mar to Nov, 45€, children 22€.
La Croisière-Promenade 4-6pm, Sun from Mar to Nov, 7€, children 4.70€.
Useful information
Les Ruines cafe-restaurant 2 pl du Vieux Château, 02460 La Ferté-Milon, tel: 03 23 96 71 56. Open for lunch every day and on Friday and Saturday evenings. Weekend menus from 21€ and à la carte
Office du tourisme31 rue de la Chaussée, 02460 La Ferté-Milon, tel 03 23 96 77 42, closes at noon Sun
Musée Jean Racine2 rue des Bouchers, La Ferté-Milon, tel : 03 23 96 77 77, open on weekends during the summer 10 am to 12:30pm and 3-5:30pm
©Annabel Simms 2005, author of An Hour From Paris (Pallas Athene, £12.95) http://www.annabelsimms.com
Weekend Away: Avignon
Paris offers enough diversity to satisfy the most demanding tastes, but it is also the best starting point from which to explore the rest of France and, indeed, of Europe. Starting a new series of suggestions of places interesting enough to justify a weekend trip, Martin Hills finds Avignon
There are some ancient cities, like Carcassonne, that present themselves to the eye at a distance, making the observer feel part of some mediaeval dream. In fact, increasingly few of them, as urban sprawl shortens the vistas. One such is Avignon, which from most directions is first to be seen suddenly close up from the inner ring road, the abrupt appearance of ramparts dating from the 14th century always stunning, no matter how often you have already seen it.
Modern Avignon belies this mediaeval image. It is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department and so administrative centre for one of the most productive areas in the Provence-Côte d’Azur region. It is also the capital of an important agricultural area, the Comtat Venaissin. A little outside the centre is Agriparc, a vast and expanding permanent focus of research and development for all aspects of produce shared by government laboratories and many of the biggest names in the food industry. Adjacent to it is a new permanent exhibition, featuring interactive displays on all things agricultural, as well as cookery workshops and educational fun for the younger visitors. Finally, modern Avignon is active in the fields of chemicals, processed foods, ceramics and fertilisers.
Avignon’s vertical garden. Photo: Jil ZimmermannHowever, important as they may be, these are not what brings the tourists in. Even the annual drama festival , now in its 65th year has, with its lively street theatre, a discernible echo of the pageants that filled the same places with crowds six centuries ago. So, while greater Avignon is a practical powerhouse of the present day, it is within the mediaeval battlements that the city’s special magic is to be found.
The initial impression that the old city is circular is misleading. It is more nearly rhomboid, like the calisson almond cakes of Aix-en-Provence. This distortion makes the Palais des Papes, the extraordinary building that was the centre of Roman Catholicism during a century of exile from Rome, and the nearby place de l’Horloge appear to be at the centre. It also helps to explain why going from there to the English bookshop, called Shakespeare like its Parisian namesake, most of the way towards the eastern ramparts, is more of a trek than you’d expect. Actually, the Papal Palace, a late arrival on the Doms Rock which has been settled by man since 4000BC, is so off-centre as to be quite close to the northern boundary.
The Palais des Papes is, of course, the principal tourist attraction in Avignon. Externally it is impressive, as are the Cathedral and other associated buildings, but its interior is so under-furnished (as are many of France’s historic edifices) that it is hard to visualise the rooms when populated by other than tourists. There are guides, human and printed, which help somewhat, although the latter (unless it has recently been revised) is more notable as a masterpiece of unintentional humour in its English version. Normally the tour of the palace is quite restricted in scope but now there are periodic evenings when visitors can see more of the rooms that are usually off limits.
The second most obvious ‘sight’ is the bridge of St Bénézet: the one on which people danced, according to the nursery rhyme; in fact, there was not room to swing a cat, let alone a partner, on the original footbridge itself and the dancing must really have happened sous le pont. For many years, the city fathers were quite sniffy about the old rhyme, presumably thinking it beneath their dignity. Today, in a complete reversal, they have taken it to their hearts and the now welcoming bridge even boasts its own ultra-modern recording studio. Here you can listen via tiny speakers in the walls to many of the different versions of the song. You can even play on the mixing console to put together different rhythms, images (still or video) and special effects. There is also a webcam so that you an make your own karaoke-style unique souvenir DVD recording of the sing for a very modest price. If you’re going to both palace and bridge, there is a discount combined ticket available.
The bridge originally consisted of 22 arches, spanning two arms of the Rhône which passed either side of a small island (perhaps the dancing venue?) to a distance of 900m between two guarded gatehouses. According to legend, it was first built in 1188, following a divine command heard by a shepherd boy. It had to be rebuilt in both the 13th and 15th centuries but almost half of the north- western end was washed away by floods in 15th century.
The place de l’Horloge, built on the Roman forum, is a lively spot with a finely-decorated 18th century carousel and an array of bars and restaurants spreading themselves across the square from buildings on the periphery. An interesting feature towards the north, or palace, end is the municipal theatre and opera house. On its side walls are trompe l’oeuil painted windows out of which lean some famous French artists. Once this was strikingly singular, but in recent years the notion has caught on and you are likely to find yourself repeatedly making double-takes at false windows all over the place.
There’s plenty more to see in Avignon and the municipality has helpfully divided the old city between four walking tours, each of which is clearly marked on pavement and by signs along the routes, full of information. Any of these, depending on your enthusiasm, could take up to three or four hours. As with old towns everywhere, the best advice is to keep looking upwards to see the buildings as they looked before the ground floors were converted to shops, offices and places to eat or drink.
One ‘sight’ that was still not highlighted during my most recent visit is the covered market on place Pie. This is, like most of its kind, an undistinguished building surmounted by a multi-storey car park. The mayor, hoping to cheer the place up, approached an eminent horticulturist for ideas. His proposal was remarkable: to erect a vertical garden covering almost the whole of the north face. Surprisingly enough, this proved feasible thanks to an ingenious method of plant-mounting combined with automatic fertilising and watering from reservoirs in the basement. The result is a wonderful living display whose colourful patterns keep changing from day to day throughout the year, Subsequently. other buildings, notably the new ethnicity museum on the quai Branly in Paris, have copied the idea, but Avignon’s market remains the first.
Avignon has a great variety of restaurants, from fast-food to gourmet, to choose from but, if the weather is kind during your stay, the outdoor tables on the place d’Horloge are worth trying, if only for the ambience created as the sun sets and the clear air shows the deep blue southern skies spangled with stars.
Bon voyage!
Sunday by the Seine
Guinguette Auvergnate ©Annabel Simms
You don’t need a car or a fat bank balance to experience the pleasure of lunch by the river within an hour of Paris. But you do need a sense of adventure. I’m talking about modest places where you can sit for hours over lunch surrounded by local families, and the bill is around 20E per person including wine. Here are three such establishments, all family-owned, that I discovered by chance while exploring the train network around Paris.
Le Bord de Seine, Issy-les-Moulineaux 20 minutes from St-Michel to the RER C station Issy Val de Seine, plus a 15-minute walk
A humble-looking café/restaurant, it is opposite the Ile-St-Germain, but you would not guess this from the outside. I discovered its enviable location by going through an unobtrusive door at the back marked Toilettes. It leads to a terrasse complete with cane-backed chairs and tables, overlooking the boats moored on a narrow stretch of the river and the park on the island opposite, framed by pots of geranium and ivy. The little green bridge with red crisscross iron railings on the right is actually the side road, which leads to the island.
Along the Seine © Annabel Simms
The café is Algerian-owned but seems to be the restaurant du quartier for the neighboring French families. The decor is restfully out of date, with blue, gray and white floor tiles and a vintage table football machine in good working order. The couscous is excellent, homemade and generous. You can have more conventional French dishes, but nothing fancy. The bill for a couscous merguez, a bottle of their best Algerian wine and coffee came to 40E for two, but would have been half that had we contented ourselves with a 50 cl carafe of Côtes du Rhône.
Getting there
From the station at Issy Val de Seine take the rue Rouget de l’Isle, which leads to the Pont d’Issy. Do not cross this bridge. Instead, follow the river south along the Quai de Stalingrad with the park of the Ile-St-Germain on your right for about 600 meters until you come to the restaurant at the corner of another small bridge.
This bridge is a good starting point from which to explore the Ile-St-Germain. Looking over its railings to the right you can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. The park, full of families with prams on Sunday afternoons, contains a tall fiberglass sculpture, La Tour aux Figures, by Jean Dubuffet. West of the bridge, the island is mainly residential with an interesting mixed legacy of styles: older housing originally built for the Portuguese and North African workers at the Renault factory (closed down in 1989) on the neighboring Ile St Séguin, and modern housing for the recent wave of French yuppies. The CLM-BBDO advertising agency has its headquarters here, designed by Jean Nouvel. The short riverside walk from the western tip of the island to the Pont de Billancourt, overlooking the barges moored along the Issy side, has been carefully signposted, complete with orientation tables.
A good free RATP map of the area is available – ask at the ticket-office for no. 5, Ouest Parisien.
The Guinguette Auvergnate, Villeneuve-St-Georges (Triage), 15 minutes from Gare de Lyon to the RER D station at Villeneuve Triage, plus a two-minute walk
It is a traditional guinguette, that is, a restaurant where working people used to go to eat or dance to the sound of the accordion, a Parisian tradition, which has been enjoying a revival since the 1990s. I have been back several times because I love the relaxed family atmosphere and the view of the Seine from the geranium-framed windows of the narrow boat-shaped dining room or the terrasse in fine weather. The decor, the food, the clientele and the prices seem to be in a 1950s time warp. The adjoining room is reserved for private parties where the guests usually end up dancing, looking like something out of a Renoir painting.
The food is traditional family cooking with some Auvergnat specialties such as saucisson sauce Aligot, a sausage served with a cheese-pungent potato purée and lots of garlic. The three-course menu at 17E is good value and there is a wide choice of dishes à la carte. The plats du jour at around 12E might include tête de veau sauce gribiche (calf’s head with caper sauce, President Chirac’s favorite dish) or civet de biche (stewed doe) in season. A bottle of St Pourçain, the house wine is 9.50E. I recommend starting with a kir Birlou, an aperitif made with white wine delicately flavored with chestnut and apple, an Auvergnat specialty.
Getting there
The restaurant is on the river just opposite the train station, a great advantage if you don’t want to walk much.
If you do, there is a pretty 3-km walk north along the river to another station at Choisy-le-Roi. Turn left as you leave the restaurant and follow the Avenue de Choisy for 150 meters before turning onto the towpath. Continue, past the railway bridge, until you come to the next bridge, the Pont de Choisy. Take the steps up from the towpath to cross the bridge to Choisy-le-Roi station on the RER C line, 15 minutes from St-Michel. The RATP map of the area is no.13, Sud Parisien.
La Terrasse de la Plage, Samoreau, 50 minutes from Gare de Lyon to the SNCF station at Vulaines-Samoreau sur Seine, plus a 20-minute walk along the river
The Terrasse is the poor man’s answer to the Riviera, a kilometer south of the riverside cottage of the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who retired there in 1893. It is picturesquely situated on a rustic stretch of the Seine facing the forest of Fontainebleau and a sailing club, beside a path leading from the river to the old village of Samoreau. The « plage » is a grassy stretch of towpath, and the « terrasse » is a circular wooden stand surrounded by shaded tables and chairs. You can sit here for hours facing the river, listening to the peaceful murmur of local families lingering over traditional snacks such as salade de lentilles avec saucisse Montbéliard (a bargain at 7E), merguez/frites with salad, or gauffres (waffles). The plats du jour, such as chicken or steak, are around 10E. A 50 cl pichet of a good vin de pays from Perpignan will set you back 6E.
Getting there
From the Gare de Lyon take the SNCF line to Melun and change there for the train to Montereau (6-min wait), getting off at Vulaines-Samoreau. Cross to the other side of the tracks via a little underpass and follow a side road, the Voie de la Liberté, across the D39 to the roundabout, which leads to a bridge across the river. The pretty towpath walk to the Terrasse starts just under the bridge.
If you also want to visit Mallarmé’s house, which has been restored as a small museum, turn right at the roundabout onto the road instead of left onto the towpath, and continue for about 100 meters. The little landing stage where Mallarmé kept his boat is opposite the house, which contains the original furniture. It has a restful, not too tidy garden, with green slatted chairs shaded by old fruit trees.
Le Bord de Seine, 9 km SW of Paris 172 Quai de Stalingrad, 92130 Issy les Moulineaux, tel 01 40 93 02 11 Open every day except Saturday until late, as it is also a hotel.
La Guinguette Auvergnate, 16 km SE of Paris 19 Avenue de Choisy, 94190 Villeneuve-St-Georges (Triage), tel 01 43 89 04 64
Open every day except Monday in the summer until late, as it is also a hotel. Dancing in the evening on the second and last Friday of the month, and after lunch on the second Sunday of the month all year round; admission at these times 31E including menu and wine.
La Terrasse de la Plage, 54 km SE of Paris 77210 Samoreau, tel 01 64 23 95 51 Open until 11pm seven days a week from May to September
Musée Stéphane Mallarmé 4 Quai Stéphane Mallarmé, 77870 Vulaines, tel 01 64 23 73 27 Open 10 am to noon and 2-5pm every day except Mon. Admission 3E
© Annabel Simms 2005, author of An Hour From Paris, (Pallas Athene) http://www.annabelsimms.com
Discovering Fougères…a town with nine lives
Fougères, a town of « art and history » at the confines of Brittany and Normandy, has been reinventing itself for over a thousand years. From Celtic settlement to medieval stronghold, from artisanal marketplace to industrial powerhouse, imprints from the past – along with signs of its current revival – are visible throughout this lovely little Gallo-Breton city.
An exceptional geographical location – nestled near the borders of both Normandy and the Anjou, not far from the English Channel – inspired the founding of « Felger » more than a thousand years ago. The original wooden château built on the Nançon River to guard Brittany’s eastern border evolved over the centuries into the largest medieval fortress in Europe and a model of military architecture through the ages. The novel parcours scénographique makes for a fascinating visit.
Fougères is one of those rare places where the work of Nature meets the work of Man to the betterment of both. Schist cliffs hover over the Nançon river valley, setting the town on two levels, with the old medieval quarter built around the castle below and the town center up above, the two being connected by breathtakingly beautiful walkways: the circuit découverte departs in front of the château and traverses the Val Nançon park, the Rue de la Pinterie climbs along the vestiges of the ramparts to the heart of the upper town, and a lovely paved path winds its way from the medieval quarter up through manicured woodlands into the panoramic Jardin Public, offering fabulous views of the castle and the half-timbered houses below.
Both sections of town boast impressive churches, the intricately-decorated Saint-Sulpice for the medieval quarter and the grandiose Saint-Léonard for the upper town. The bell tower of the latter is open to visitors on certain occasions (Journées du Patrimoine, for example), providing a sweeping view of Fougères and the surrounding countryside. The two churches regularly serve as concert venues, to exquisite acoustic effect.
The upper « Romantic » quarter (referring to the influx of famous Romantic-era authors inspired by the town, including Chateaubriand, Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo) radiates around the Place Aristide Briand, with its sidewalk cafés, gurgling water fountains and 19th-century architecture. Two charming museums in the Rue Nationale display impressionist paintings and watch-making techniques. Not to be missed, the Saturday morning market, with its abundance of locally-grown fruits and vegetables, fresh seafood from the nearby coast, and the irresistible smell of galettes-saucisses smoking on the grill. The town also offers many enticing eateries, be it the traditional crêperie, the Michelin-recommended Le Haute-Sève, or any number of intimate little bistros.
A delightful meal calls for a pleasant promenade. A sign of Fougères’ evolution from production site to leisure destination is the recent footpath around the Rocher Coupé, the turquoise- colored quarry lake across the boulevard from the castle, where schist was mined until the late twentieth century. Another option is the voie verte that departs from the Jardin des Fêtes and merges with the GR34 hiking trail, heading northwest in the direction of the Mont St. Michel. Not to mention the legendary Forêt de Fougères with its swimming lake, beach, horseback riding, and walking paths, among which the Cordon des Druides dotted with megaliths.
Fougères also offers an intense cultural life: theater, art exhibitions, a multiplex cinema (with at least one film in VO), concerts, festivals – notably the annual Voix des Pays music festival on the Château grounds in early July and the Scènes Déménagent street-theater festival in late August. The Tourist Office** provides an overview of activities and events, along with other useful information. Guided walking tours of the town are proposed throughout the summer season. In more leisurely fashion, the little tourist train cheerily chugs visitors through both the medieval quarter and the upper town.
Fans of industrial history will want to stroll through the Bonabry section of town for a glimpse of the shoe-manufacturing heyday and insight into the local integration of social classes, with the elaborate granite houses of management juxtaposing the simpler abodes of the ouvriers. Even the factories in Fougères were works of art. Le must is the former Morel & Gâté facility in the Rue des Près, sporting its famous Odorico mosaic of the coq gaulois. The site is now a retirement home.
Last but not least of the evidence of Fougères’ latest revival as an up-and-coming leisure center are the brand new Médiathèque and Aquatis, the state-of-the-art waterpark complete with indoor/outdoor pools, river current, massage benches, toboggans, scuba-diving tank, sauna, hammam, jacuzzi and fitness center.
Like a cat that always manages to land on its feet, Fougères has crossed the centuries with grace.
* http://www.chateau-fougeres.com/index.php?langue=en
Getting to Fougères: TGV to Laval, then connecting SNCF coach (2 hours 35 minutes total travel time). By car, take the A11 to Laval, exit 4, then follow the signs to Fougères (326 kms).
Guinguette Auvergnate…just like a Renoir painting
The Guinguette Auvergnate — located in Villeneuve Triage—is the perfect place to take visitors to Paris, who never fail to be charmed by its friendly relaxed atmosphere, the view of the Seine from its windows framed by potted geraniums and the unpretentious cooking from the Auvergne, the home region of the patron. If they are lucky, they will see their fellow-diners waltzing to the strains of the accordion, ‘just like a Renoir painting', as a friend once whispered to me. I have arrived as late as 3 pm and still been fed, as Sunday lunch here can last up to 5 pm.
Guinguette Auvergnate ©Annabel Simms
It is a short train ride from Paris practically to the door of the Guinguette, but if you want to show your visitors an under-appreciated aspect of the Paris suburbs, you could start from another station at Choisy-le-Roi, even closer to Paris. From there, you can take them on a pretty 3-kilometre walk along the river, ending with lunch at the Guinguette.
The Guinguette Auvergnate is smaller and less well-known than the ones on the River Marne and attracts a mainly local clientèle. The reason for its survival is probably the geographical isolation of this part of the town of Villeneuve-St-Georges, with the Seine on one side and the huge gare de triage, the largest in Europe, on the other. (A gare de triage is a railway station specialising in the redistribution of freight wagons.) They don't hold dances here every Sunday, but the convivial family atmosphere is truly part of the esprit guinguette. It is standard etiquette to nod and smile at fellow-diners, murmuring ‘Bonjour/Au revoir, messieurs et dames' as you arrive or leave.
I discovered the Guinguette by a lucky accident. I went inside what looked like a simple rather old-fashioned café to ask for directions after taking a wrong turn along the river one Sunday afternoon. The long dark interior was surprisingly full of couples and families lingering over coffee and a game of backgammon and immediately reminded me of a boat, a quietly buzzing, happy, laid-back sort of boat. Light poured in from the windows overlooking the river and I glimpsed people dancing at the far end of the room, which led to a terrasse where more people were sitting outside in the sunshine. Charmed, I complimented the patron on his establishment. ‘Ici, c'est un petit coin du Paradis,' came the reply. Pause, swelling of chest. ‘Et moi, je m'appelle Dieu.' (‘This is a little corner of Paradise. I'm called God.')
I have been back many times since and can confirm that the Guinguette Auvergnate is indeed a little corner of paradise, if your idea of paradise is a French 1950s timewarp. The menu offers traditional family dishes, varying with the season. I have tried the souris d'agneau au thym (roast knuckle of lamb with thyme) and the saucisse d'Auvergne Aligot (Auvergne sausage with a purée of potatoes, cheese and garlic) and they were good value. It is worth asking for the kir Birlou, an aperitif made with white wine delicately flavoured with a mixture of apple and chestnut, an Auvergnat speciality that avoids the over-sweetness of most kirs.
Suggested 3.3 km walk from Choisy-le-Roi station to the Guinguette Auvergnate
Take the steps down from the platform to the main station exit, marked ‘Sortie Centre Ville'.. There are red and white GR and red and yellow GRP signs (see p. 239) all along the route to the Guinguette, starting from the station. Turn right into a little road which follows the railway track until you come to a pedestrian crossing just before a bridge. Cross the road here and take the steps up to the old station building surmounted by a clock, still bearing the words ‘Chemin de Fer d'Orléans' above a pretty decoration of coloured tiles. It is now a ‘Maison de la Jeunesse'.
Turn right onto the main road across the Seine, the Pont de Choisy, and stay on the right-hand footpath. Then take the steps down to the right, which lead to the Quai des Gondoles, the riverside footpath. It continues past modern flats and then the gardens of 19th-century houses. However, you may find, as I did, that the route is closed for half a kilometre because of building work being carried out on the river bank. It may be open again by the time you read this. If not, follow the detour left, marked ‘Piétons,' at the Rue des Fusillés and turn right at the Boulodrome onto the Avenue de Villeneuve St Georges, a secondary road with not much traffic. When the road becomes a little bridge, crossing water on the left-hand side, turn right, back to the riverside path, which now continues through a small park.
From this point onwards, and especially after the railway bridge, the walk becomes surprisingly rural and peaceful. There are benches at strategic intervals and people picnic here at the weekends but it does not attract crowds. Weeping willows grow by the water's edge and tiny shingle beaches shelter waterfowl and the occasional silent fisherman. I have seen violets in spring and wild blue and purple convolvulus in autumn. From time to time a huge working barge slides past, but the only sound is likely to be the planes from nearby Orly or a water-skier from the Port de Plaisance further along the river.
Eventually the path goes past a football ground with a church rising behind it, and then passes a boules pitch. It comes to an end in a little road which leads to the Avenue de Choisy. Stay on the right-hand side of the Avenue, continuing past the defunct ‘Hotel de la Gare' and the ski nautique at the Port de Plaisance. You will see the blue and green sign for the RER station at Villeneuve Triage just ahead of you on the left. The Guinguette Auvergnate is the café-restaurant on the right, almost opposite the station.
Distance from Paris: 16 km (9½ miles)
Depart: Châtelet-les-Halles/Gare de Lyon
Arrive: Villeneuve Triage
Journey time : 15 minutes from Gare de Lyon
Length of visit: Half day
Carte Orange Zone: 4
Single ticket: 2.80€
Alternative depart: St Michel-Notre Dame
Arrive : Choisy-le-Roi
Return from : Villeneuve Triage
Journey time: 14 minutes
Carte Orange Zone: 3
Single ticket : 2.10€
Distance from Choisy-le-Roi
to Villeneuve Triage: 3.3 km (2 miles)
Population (Villeneuve St Georges): 30 687
Getting there
RER D trains from Châtelet-les-Halles or the Gare de Lyon to Malesherbes or Melun, stopping at Villeneuve Triage, leave every 15 minutes, at up to 25-minute intervals on Sundays, and return every 15 minutes on weekdays, every 20 minutes or less on Sundays. The last train back to Paris is at 12.19 am.
RER C trains to Massy-Palaiseau, Dourdan-la-Forêt and St Martin d'Etampes, stopping at Choisy-le-Roi, leave St Michel-Notre Dame every 10 minutes.
Car: Porte de Choisy, then N305 to Choisy-le-Roi, and cross the Pont de Choisy onto the Avenue Villeneuve St Georges towards Villeneuve St Georges.
When to go
A day with some sunshine at any time of the year is the ideal weather in which to enjoy the play of light on the river. The Guinguette is at its most relaxed on Sunday afternoon. Go on the second or fourth Sunday of the month if you want to see people dancing.
Restaurant/guinguette
La Guinguette Auvergnate, 19 Avenue de Choisy, 94190 Villeneuve St Georges Triage, tel 01 43 89 04 64, www.guinguette-auvergnate.fr Open for lunch every day except Monday and for dinner on Friday and Saturday all year round, and on Thursday evening in the summer. Dancing on the second and fourth Friday of every month from around 8 pm and on the second and fourth Sunday of every month from around 2 pm. See the website for the latest programme.
Weekday menus from 12€, 18€ at weekends, or à la carte. Plats du jour around 12€, wine from 12€ a bottle, 50cl pichet 4€. Admission to the dance floor without eating but including a drink is 10€.
Excerpted from "An Hour From Paris." Buy the book.
Aveyron travel notes
Excerpted from Thirza Vallois new book "Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia"
To buy the book directly from the author: http://www.thirzavallois.com
I was surprised to discover that people in Aveyron resent the expression la France profonde. They interpret it as condescending, implying a backwater inhabited by country bumpkins. No matter how hard you insist you meant it as a compliment to a rural area that has preserved its authenticity, the Aveyronnais will look at you suspiciously, or at best dubiously, and understandably so, since not so long ago the Aveyron was precisely this, backward and underdeveloped. Today, still, the keen observer will detect remnants of those times here and there, even in its main towns (the largest of which, Rodez, has only 53,785 inhabitants, and that's including the suburbs).
The phrase sounds particularly offensive when uttered by the 'cousins' who have made it in Paris, les Parisiens – not a very popular lot down here who, I've been told, behave as if they own the place when they come down for their holidays. Some 320,000 of them live in the Paris area, sometimes going back several generations. There are many more who have by now been diluted into the general population and no longer identify with the homeland. This is the largest French community living in the capital, outnumbering the Bretons and the 263,000 who reside in the Aveyron, over half of whom are actually outsiders. That's without counting their compatriots who moved further afield and left us no statistics, and whose success stories reach as far as California and the Argentinean Pampa.
No matter where they have settled, the Aveyronnais diaspora has always been dynamic, enterprising, hard working and intelligent – the perfect combination of ingredients for success. Added to this is a shrewd business sense inherited from their peasant ancestors, which in Paris, helped them conquer the entire café industry. All the legendary cafés once frequented by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simon de Beauvoir and other Ernest Hemingways, belonged to Aveyronnais. Many still do. In California, some of them were equally successful in the laundry business, which later shifted into Chinese hands. I am yet to find out whether Thomas Keller's famous restaurant The French Laundry in Napa Valley was not initially a French laundry owned by an Aveyronnais.
Life was no bed of roses back home, a hilly, rugged land, spreading over 873,512 hectares ( 3386 sq. m). on the southern edge of the Massif Central. Winters were harsh, hillsides were steep, the soil was poor and the road network was inadequate, leaving its mosaic of miniature regions cut off from one another, and the area as a whole isolated from the outside world. Other than in Roman times, highways always shunned it in favour of the more convenient basin of the Rhône to the east and the Garonne Valley to the west. Even today, when technology can defy natural obstacles, the high-speed TGV has chosen to skirt it, simply because it would not have paid off to bring it over. Guidebooks followed suit, inexcusably, brushing over one of the country's most compelling areas with impunity. No wonder most foreigners have never heard of the Aveyron. Those who think they have are often embarrassed to find out they had confused it with the town of Avignon, the capital of the Vaucluse in the southeast. When guidebooks do mention some of its sites, rather than situate them in the Aveyron, where they belong, they incorporate them into overlapping geographical or historical regions – the Quercy for instance, which takes in Western Aveyron, thus adding to the confusion.
To clarify matters, the Aveyron was one of the 83 départements (administrative districts) created during the French Revolution, when the nationalised territory was redistributed (today there are 95 départements in metropolitan France). By and large, it replaced the old province of Rouergue and was renamed after the most central of its three main rivers, the other two being the Lot and the Tarn, to the north and to the south respectively. All three rivers are tributaries of the Garonne, but the Aveyron alone takes its source in the département, by Séverac-le-Château. Owing to its isolation, the Rouergue remained a distinct entity and developed a strong individual character and a unique identity, at once quintessentially French yet mysteriously different, going back to the ancient Celts for sure, perhaps to dawns unknown. This is la France profonde at its deepest, as tenaciously rooted in its identity as it was in its struggle to survive in an inhospitable environment. It was that tenacity that enabled the Aveyronnais of Paris to pile up small fortunes of francs behind their café counters, when given half a chance. But the homeland offered no such opportunities and lagged behind. It was archaic, remote, and deserted en masse by its natives.
But France was changing, putting aside the unpleasant parenthesis of the Occupation and shaking off the dust of the past. Optimism reigned supreme in the 1960s, striding towards prosperity to the delight of French households, and also towards the advent of the consumer age, which was not to everyone's liking. Following the legacy of the May 1968 'événements', many young people turned their backs on the alienating city and wandered through the French countryside in search of Arcadia. Some found it in the Aveyron where they settled under the newly coined label of néo-Aveyronnais, often in old, deserted farmhouses they bought and did up for a song. The natives eyed them with suspicion and overall did not welcome their arrival, but it's a good thing they came, because they injected young blood and breathed new vitality into an area that was in danger of dying out.
Imbued with the energy of 1968, the politically-minded among these néo-Aveyronnais headed south, towards the vast uplands of the Larzac, where they joined forces with some natives under the umbrella of the Confédération Paysanne. Led by the high media profile José Bové, they fought a ten-year, nationwide battle from 1971 to 1981 against the extension of a military camp at a place called La Cavalerie. Since then the Larzac has remained a hotbed of political activism, taking on all the planet's ideological struggles. focusing at present on the ecological repercussions of globalisation. Hence their fight against malbouffe (junk food), which led to the dismantling of the McDonald in nearby Millau and to the destruction of genetically modified crops, of which more later. How extraordinary that this remote, empty corner of France was picked out in August 2003 to host a gigantic protest with international coverage against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Driving through the empty Larzac, the Confédération Paysanne's giant graffitis stand out against the vast horizons, yet the majority of Aveyronnais are hardly sympathetic to the movement. On the other hand, they often do share their dislike for Brussels whose agricultural legislation is threatening to destroy that very rural France the néo-Aveyronnais came seeking.
Your average Aveyronnais is no revolutionary. He is hard working and wished to enjoy some of the windfalls of the post-war national prosperity, which he converted into boring modern bungalows that scarred the landscape but had running water and bathrooms. This was only a gesture towards progress, however. Big-scale development could only be hoped for by breaking through the area's isolation. It took twenty years of Aveyronnais tenacity to persuade the authorities in Paris to bring over a north-south axis of the motorway, but it still needed to be joined to the strip lying south of the Tarn Valley. The Millau Viaduct now provides the hitherto missing link that will eventually bring together northern and southern Europe. It is a twist of history that faraway Aveyron may one day become a major pivot of international communications. No less paradoxical is the fact that the world's tallest and most spectacularly contemporary bridge should stand like an emblematic spearhead towards the future in an area where the most ancient past of France has been recorded.
While we visitors meander through the countryside in search of a quaint, perched village, the local inhabitants of the Aveyron get wired to the internet. Today's Aveyron has become the breeding ground of a new creative, forward-looking generation, a mix of natives, néos, and an increasing number of foreigners, who are no less miffed by the old picture-postcard image of the Aveyron than others are by the phrase la France Profonde. But somehow they have managed to update the picture-postcard rather than do away with it – and this is the key to their unique achievement. My journey to the Aveyron allowed me to see and hear several of their success stories. Thanks to this new breed of inhabitants, the Aveyron is undergoing a stupendous transformation which is turning it into the up-and-coming département of contemporary France. This was confirmed by a survey conducted by the French magazine l'Express which examined quality of life in metropolitan France by départements. Amazingly, the one-time destitute, backward Aveyron came out the winner!
Until recently the direct day train ride between Paris Gare d'Austerlitz and Aveyron's capital Rodez took 7 hours, a lovely slow-pace journey from Figeac on, stopping on its way at every little town. Despite petitions, the train was cancelled in December 2006 because the line wasn't deemed profitable enough, so now it takes even longer to get here by train. Distances in the Aveyron are still measured in time rather than in mileage. Modernity has stepped in, but tactfully. The slow-paced traveller will rejoice. To buy the book directly from the author: http://www.thirzavallois.com
Ile-du-Martin-Pêcheur
Step into the timeless world of guinguettes
Rafting to the Isle DR
Take part in one of the most enjoyable of French popular traditions – eating, drinking and dancing at a guinguette, in the open air, by the river… This one is on a tiny island, reached by a raft.
When you step off the raft onto this particular island on the Marne, less than half an hour away from Paris, you step into the timeless world of guinguettes.
Guinguettes are so called because "le petit blanc" – the modest but lively white wine of the Paris region they used to serve, made people giguet (ready to dance a jig). Scores of open-air restaurants serving this wine and its traditional accompaniment, petite friture (fried whitebait), opened along the banks of the Seine and the Marne during the 19th century, attracting the working people of Paris, who continued to go there right up to the second world war. They would spend Sunday afternoons beside the river, eating, drinking and listening to traditional French songs sung to the accordion, until they felt ready to get up and dance. Popular with artists as well as with artisans, the guinguettes evoke the music of Jacques Brel, the films of Marcel Carné and the novels of Georges Simenon, all of whom came under their spell, and they've never entirely "disappeared from the affection" of Parisians.
River life ©Annabel Simms
In the last ten years or so there has been a revival of this tradition, with old-established guinguettes such as Chez Gégène at Joinville now featuring in the guidebooks and the bal musette waltz being taught at dance classes. The guinguette on the Ile du Martin-Pêcheur (Kingfisher Island) dates from 1991 and is less well-known. However, it's already so popular that you will have to book your table and when you get there, you'll see why! The few yards separating the island from the mainland make all the difference. As you make the "crossing" (it's ridiculously easy) you're instantly drawn into a sense of happy complicity with your fellow passengers – you're all escapees from the mainland and the rhythm of everyday life. Seated at long tables outside, people of all ages exchange smiles of enjoyment. Everyone is relaxed, savoring the pleasure of the moment, whether they intend to dance or not!
I have danced there once – a breathless rock'n'roll – but the first time I went, the service was so slow that we had to leave without dancing, to catch the midnight train back to Paris. We were overtaken on the towpath by the young couple from the next table, who insisted on giving all four of us a lift back to Paris in their tiny car, with two of us illegally perched on our partners' knees. It was their first visit too, and we all agreed that we would be going back.
It's a three-quarter kilometer walk from the station to the guingette…
Turn left from the station into the place de la Gare. Turn right into the boulevard de Champigny and continue across the bridge, the Pont de Champigny. Take the steps down from the bridge on the left and follow the Quai Victor-Hugo for about ten minutes until you see the raft. Five adults can easily be pulled across by a child.
Getting there
RER A2 trains to Boissy St-Léger, stopping at Champigny St-Maur, leave Paris every 10 minutes. The last back is at 12:25am.
Car: A4 from Porte de Bercy to Joinville, then cross the bridge onto avenue Gallieni, which becomes avenue Roger Salengro. Just before the railway viaduct, take the rue de la Plage on the right, then turn left onto the Quai Victor-Hugo.
When to go
A Sunday afternoon in summer is best if you want to enjoy the dancing without having to leave, like Cinderella, at midnight to catch the last train. Saturday evenings tend to be so popular that you may have to book several weeks in advance.
NB: You could easily combine a Sunday afternoon at the guinguette with a morning stroll and lunch at the Domaine Sainte Catherine in Créteil, two stops away on the same RER line. See feature on Créteil in May issue of Paris Voice.
Restaurant/guinguette
L'Ile du Martin-Pêcheur, 41 Quai Victor-Hugo, 94500 Champigny, tel: 01 49 83 03 02 (restaurant reservation advisable). Open in summer, for lunch (noon to 5pm at weekends) and for dinner (8pm to 2am, Wed to Sat). In winter, open Sat evening & Sun lunch only. (Closed Dec-Mar)
You'll hear traditional French chansons played on the accordion at the tables and can dance to the same style of music at the bal musette held on Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Admission to the bar/dancefloor without eating is free, unless a live band is playing (usually rock'n'roll), in which case admission is 11E. This happens one Sun per month – ring to check.
The traditional petite friture is available, as well as more standard fare, (menus 24 & 28E). The food and wine is acceptable, for the price. That is, some of it is "a mild rip-off." But, not a "tourist rip-off," as there are, in fact, no tourists… The service is good-natured, yet can be extremely slow. However, no one seems to mind!
Copyright Annabel Simms 2003, text adapted from her book "An Hour From Paris" (Pallas Athene 2003), available from http://www.pallasathene.co.uk as well as at WH Smith, Brentano's, The Red Wheelbarrow and other Paris bookshops. Can be contacted at http://www.annabelsimms.com
Créteil island hopping
Creteil DR
If you are looking for a day out in the country you can find it, astonishingly enough, at the end of the Metro line to Créteil. Créteil, characterized by charmless 1960s architecture, is the last place on earth where you would expect to find four small islands, linked to each other by footbridges, containing only old houses and country villas hidden by trees and encircled by riverside walks and weeping willows. Apart from a moribund swimming pool, a park and a farmhouse converted into a restaurant, the islands are exclusively residential. The roads feel like footpaths, with scarcely a car in sight.
In the Middle Ages the islands were owned by the canons of Notre-Dame in Paris, who leased the land to the local villagers to ensure the maintenance of the weeping willows, necessary to protect the fertile soil from the incursions of the River Marne. The neglected state of the land after the Second World War made it a cheap and attractive proposition to some of the disaffected 1968 generation who were looking for a rural alternative to the new town created by '60s planners in Créteil. In 1978, these new residents formed an association to preserve the islands from urban development and succeeded in getting the site listed in 1982. Today it is an unexpected survival of the country at the edge of the city, a favorite place for the residents of Créteil to take their Sunday walks, but still relatively unknown to Parisians.
Suggested visit to the islands
From the Metro station at Créteil-Université take the left exit for the rue des Mèches, following signs for St Maur Eglise. Cross the road at the church, go past the little playground and take the rue Dr Plichon on the right, which becomes rue du Moulin. It leads down to the river and the main footbridge to the islands. Turn right into the chemin du Bras du Chapitre and follow the riverside path until you come to no. 11 at the corner of the rue Robert Legeay.
Victor Hugo lived upstairs here in the days when it used to be an inn and wrote about it in La Lavandière (The Washerwoman), a poem published in 1865. Until quite recently, it was a restaurant, the Cochon de Lait, an unpretentious, old-fashioned place, with high-backed chairs and lace curtains, unhurried service and a modest clientele, with prices to match. The owners had been there since the 1950s and I suppose they must have retired, ending the history of an establishment largely unchanged since Victor Hugo's day.
Continue along the quiet Bras du Chapitre, past the occasional fisherman, until you reach the rue du Moulin Berson. This road leads to a bridge which links the Ile Ste Catherine to St Maur on the other side of the Marne. Take the footpath at the Impasse du Moulin Berson past a farmhouse with ducks and hens outside, which seems to be in the depths of the country. The gate on the left leads to a footbridge to the park on the Ile des Ravageurs, which in itself is not particularly remarkable, but which seems to exercise a great attraction on children. Go back across the footbridge to the avenue des Peupliers through the center of the island, a delightfully quiet walk past secluded houses, each of which is built in a different style, from 1960s modern to traditional French rustic. The river can sometimes be glimpsed through the trees. The avenue de la Ferme, reached via the avenue des Uzelles on the left, is even more rural and it's difficult to believe that you are not far from Paris.
Cross onto the Ile Brise-Pain via the footbridge and follow the allée Centrale to the Domaine Sainte Catherine, a 19th-century farmhouse hidden by trees which has been converted into a restaurant and tea room. It's bigger than it looks and the shady garden extends to the river. The menu isn't particularly imaginative but you can stop here just for a drink at the friendly bar or for tea in the garden overlooking the Marne. I have tried the moules/frites and they were delicious, especially in the garden setting.
Follow the allée Centrale past the swimming pool and turn left across a series of footbridges which will bring you to your starting point at the Chemin du Bras du Chapitre, a favorite place for ducks and people to congregate. It was from here that I briefly glimpsed what I took to be an otter on two separate occasions, its little muzzle just visible above the water. I have since learned that the islands have been colonized by the coypu (ragondin in French) a beaver-like rodent originally introduced to France from South America and bred for its fur. Take the Chemin de Halage (towpath) to the right, past weeping willows, swans, ducks, benches and fishermen. At the bridge take the steps up to the busy Pont de Créteil and follow the road to the right, across the Marne to St Maur. A ten-minute walk along this main road will bring you to the RER station at St Maur Créteil. This is slightly shorter than the walk back to the Metro at Créteil-Université, although the traffic presents a disconcerting contrast to the oasis of calm you have just left.
Distance from Paris 11 km (7 miles)Depart Métro BastilleArrive Métro Créteil-UniversitéJourney time 20 minutes approxLength of visit Half a dayAlternative return fromRER St Maur CréteilCarte Orange Zone3Single ticket (RER) 1.80 €Distance from Métro to islands 1 and a half km (1 mile)Distance from islands to St Maur1 km (half mile)
Getting thereMetro line 8 to Créteil-Université.RER A2 trains to Boissy St Leger, stopping at St Maur Créteil, leave Châtelet every 10 minutes. The last train back to Paris is at 12:29am. Car: A4 from Porte de Bercy, then A86 to Créteil. N19, then N186 to the Pont de Créteil or Chemin Bras du Chapitre.
Copyright Annabel Simms 2003, text adapted from her book "An Hour From Paris" (Pallas Athene 2003), available from www.pallasathene.co.uk as well as at WH Smith, Brentano's, The Red Wheelbarrow and other Paris bookshops. Can be contacted at http://www.annabelsimms.com