Written by:
Gretchen Lee
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this Issue of Curve:
10.6
Parisians will tell you that café culture is dying — by virtue of the fact that more people these days prefer to stay at home with their television sets to keep them company than venture out and socialize.
But to the American tourist alone in the city, the café is a lifesaver. Not only does it offer the solo woman traveler an inexpensive and relatively safe place to linger of an evening, but, with their signature rattan chairs crowded closely together, cafés also allow for the vicarious enjoyment of other people’s conversation.
On a lemonade break during a walking tour of the Left Bank, my guide Marc Soleranski, a serious but knowledgeable graduate student with a heavy-footed gait, told me how the manager at Café de Flore, a gathering spot for expatriates since before the 1920s, ensures the privacy of his more famous clientele.
First, unlike the cafés nearby, Café de Flore never calls the gossip columnists when people like Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp or Robert DeNiro stroll in to take their coffee under the green-and-white awnings. Second, the staff enforces a laissez-faire attitude among the other patrons so that the place isn’t overrun by autograph-seekers.
“One day, a man approached the head waiter and said, ‘I would like to send a drink to the beautiful woman sitting at that table over there,’” Soleranski said, pointing discreetly with his elbow toward an empty corner table. The waiter reportedly feigned shock at the man’s brazen behavior, and proceeded to scold him. “Not only would I refuse to participate in the seduction of a fine, upstanding woman,” he said, “but that woman in particular is the Miss Sharon Stone.”
This is not to say that café-goers in Paris don’t ever succeed in their attempts to actually speak with one another. Especially in the summer, when visitors exploring the city can easily outnumber the natives. Spy a single girl at the table next to you, and she just may be a fellow traveler, eager to share with you what she’s learned about the local hot spots.
Though Paris is a city best enjoyed “a deux,” there are distinct pleasures to be had walking alone through the narrow alleys and along the broad avenues.
From Café de Flore, it’s an easy walk to 27 Rue de Fleurus, where writers Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas held court for many years with their famous salons, which attracted writers and artists of the “Lost Generation.”
Around the corner, the Hotel Saint Germain des Prés is where the American journalist Janet Flanner lived for a time. Flanner, who once claimed to want to be Hemingway, became instead his drinking buddy. Hemingway, for his part, is said to have disliked Flanner’s girlfriend to such a degree that he modeled a character after her in The Sun Also Rises, calling her “a prostitute with bad teeth.” (Ah well, the relationship was short-lived anyway.)
Across town lies the Marais, a stylish gay neighborhood that grew up around one of the oldest surviving Jewish settlements in Europe. In the 1600s and 1700s, wealthy Parisians built their country homes here among the much older monasteries.
Now the narrow cobblestone streets are lined with chic shops. Stop by 7H10 at 22 rue des Ecouffes for charming home furnishings. The shop is run by girlfriends Emmanuelle and Sandrina, and takes its name from the hour and minute of their shared birthdays. Or visit L’Artisan Parfumeur at 32 rue du Bourg Tibourg for a consultation with Iris Stipanovich, who hand-mixes a small but exquisite collection of delicate perfumes. (The fig-based line is especially delightful.)
Before you finally head for home, find time for a brisk stroll through the cemetery at Père Lachaise to visit the graves of such free spirits as Isadora Duncan, Sarah Bernhardt, Edith Piaf and, of course, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.
The women’s grave markers are quite tame, but as you stroll through the grounds, you may eventually come upon a most impressive tomb — for the famous English homophile, Oscar Wilde.
The tomb, with its immense height and smooth walls adorned only by a sculpted angel, is noteworthy more for what it lacks than anything else. Look carefully at the angel and you’ll see that his, ahem, fig leaf has been lopped off — a casualty of a visiting Englishwoman’s cane.
You have to wonder what she did with it. And perhaps over a coffee, you’ll concoct your own story to tell the folks waiting back at home all about it.
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