Paris: mixing the modern and the traditional

by Lucy Komisar

On a recent trip to Paris, I was passing the Place Saint-Germain on the Left Bank. At one corner, several musicians were playing Dixieland, then switched to World Music. It was part of the "Journées de Saint Germain-des-Prés," the Days of Saint German. Their backdrop was the imposing medieval Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

At curbside, you could see a street sign honoring two of France’s most prominent writers, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

It was fine weather, and people were hurrying or meandering along the boulevard, some pausing as I did to gather in a semi-circle around the horn players.

Then I continued on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, passing the sidewalk espresso drinkers at Les Deux Maggots. I stopped a block from the square at the corner of the Rue St. Benoit where I found a sidewalk seat at the Café de Flore. Both cafés, of course, were haunts of Sartre and de Beauvoir and their literary clan. Writers then came here with their notebooks. At the Flore, I could relax for a moment with a glass of wine, repress the urge to turn on my computer, but give in to the need to make some phone calls.

Turning into St. Benoit, I walked toward the Seine on this narrow side street that contributes to the neighborhood charm.  I passed a local gourmet favorite, Le Petit Zinc, and then walked into the low key elegant boutique Hotel Bel-Ami. It was once the site of an establishment that printed the documents of the National Assembly, and then it housed a famous jazz club. The building was recreated by Grace Leo Andrieu of GLA Hotels. A fascinating person in her own right, she was born in Hong Kong, did her university work at Cornell, and now lives in Paris. She wanted the Bel-Ami to continue the quarter’s literary tradition and named it after “Bel Ami,” written by Guy de Maupassant in 1885. It’s the story of another writer, a corrupt journalist, who becomes successful by using his powerful, intelligent, and wealthy mistresses.

The cool lobby was decorated in gray and purple, with couches and ottomans beckoning to loungers. Not far from the entrance to the salon Maupassant, a lobby café serving drinks and snacks, were two computers hooked to the internet, available free to guests.

I picked up the card-key, walked the few steps to two elevators, and slipped the card into an elevator cabin's security slot. I always feel safe in small hotels with lots of security. Moments later, I was gazing around a spacious room with a large bed, pillow-strewn couch, and a comfortable chair and desk for my laptop.

A large white and gray marble bathroom came complete with terry bathrobe and scale in pounds and kilos, necessary to keep one's caloric wits in a city as gastronomic as Paris.

I immediately set my computer up on the black marble desk with ample power supply for plugs and I accessed the internet via wi-fi, downloaded messages, and pulled out the Range Roamer to make some more calls.

Let me explain about the Range Roamer. You order it in the U.S. and you can use it with the same phone number in most countries of the world. The system is run by ChitChat Communications, Inc., a Chicago company, which started out selling calling cards and has been operating this service since 2006.

It uses the call-back system, which takes advantage of cheap phone rates in selected countries – in this case Estonia! You call a number and hang up after a ring. A written message  on the screen tells you to wait. Then you get called back from the system, you wait while it dials the number you called, and your party picks up, never knowing the process. You can do this anyplace in Europe, or in fact in 160 countries of the world.

Plus you get that number before you leave the U.S. – along with a stack of business cards – so you can give it out to friends and associates at home and abroad and put it on your answering machine or out-of-office email message. You also get a second battery as well as a charger with multiple sliding prongs that fit into any kind of outlet.

A major advantage of Range Roamer is that you are billed by credit card only for the calls you make; you don't have to buy prepaid minutes. I still have a receipt for 10 Euros of French Orange minutes I never used because when I returned for a few days the next year, my number had expired and it wasn't worth 30 euros to get a new one!

The only downside is that when people in France, for example, call you, they dial 00372, the country code for Estonia, not a local number. However, with the expanded European Union, people are used to dialing once-strange area codes. And if you're traveling among several countries, any "local" number you get becomes long-distance once you cross the border.

At the Bel-Ami, you get an individual phone number that rings directly in your room. So, I gave people in Paris both numbers, so they could reach me at the local hotel phone if I was there.

In the morning, I visited the Bel-Ami's ground-floor breakfast room, appointed with modern art on the walls and buffet tables with eggs and sausage, croissants and rolls, fresh fruits, yogurts, even mesclun salad with a personal bottle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. First time I was served salad for breakfast!

Somehow, I never got to the hotel's fitness center and spa. But I got a lot of exercise, nonetheless, the kind I like – wandering around a museum. When I finished my Paris interviews, I took a morning off to see an astonishing exhibit, "Picasso and the Masters" at the Grand Palais. It was a hot ticket; the wait for those without advance tickets was an hour or more.

Like the Bel-Ami and its technology on the Left Bank, it mixed the modern with homage to the traditional. A large exhibit of over 200 works from French and foreign museum and private collections placed Picasso's painting side-by-side with works of the great masters who had influenced him. A cubist or other very modern piece might be next to a work by Titian, Goya, Renoir or Manet. A stop-and-start audio guide in English (and other languages) was an excellent partner. Isn't Picasso's "L'Enfante Marguerite," 1957, quite an amazing copy of the Infanta Margarita in Velázquez's "Las Meninas," 1656, some three hundred years earlier. If Velázquez could see them now!

If you go

Bel-Ami Hotel
7-11 rue St-Benoît – 75006 Paris
Tél. 33 (0)1 42 61 53 53
Fax. 33 (0)1 49 27 09 33
115 rooms
contact@hotel-bel-ami.com
http://www.hotel-bel-ami.com/

Range Roamer
1-888-ROAM-FREE (762-6373)
http://www.rangeroamer.com/

The phone works in 160 countries. Sample cost: In France, incoming calls are free, outgoing  calls are 79 cents a minute. $29 basic fee if you provide your own phone.

The Grand Palais, daily, from 10am to 10pm, Thursday till 8pm Closes Tuesday except holidays. Entrance: 12 €. Reduced rate: 8 €. Metro Clemenceau. http://www.grandpalais.fr/.

Tourism information

http://www.franceguide.com/
http://en.parisinfo.com/

Getting there

If Paris is just one of your stops in Europe, as it was mine, a good way to move around is via train, and a money-saving device if you're going to several countries is the Eurailpass. Here's a tip I learned on this trip: If you're taking the high-speed TGV departing from or arriving in France, get a reservation as soon as you know your travel plans, because certain seats are put aside for passes, and others are reserved for customers paying cash.

If you’re planning to do multiple rail trips, RailEurope in the U.S. or Canada can sell you a Railpass for France, for several contiguous countries, or for Europe. http://www.raileurope.com.  (800) 438-RAIL (US) and (800) 361-RAIL (Canada).

by Lucy Komisar (except paintings).