Postcard from Paris

Indira Kannan explores the City of Light away from the tourist rush

Get into the Louvre without spending hours in long queues and get yourself photographed with La Joconde without sharing her enigmatic smile with anyone else in the frame; duck into a bistro and sip an espresso or vin chaud — if you want to be a tourist in Paris and savour the City of Light without being jostled by throngs of other tourists, then do as I did. Go now, during the “off-season”.

Airfares are discounted and rooms in the city’s central arrondissements, which are impossibly priced or simply impossible to get in the spring, are within reach. I stayed in decidedly mid-range lodgings, but walking up two floors in a 19th-century building to a modest room in which the closet was part of the window — so passersby could check out my wardrobe — was part of the bargain for an unbeatable location in the Latin Quarter, and a 5-minute walk to the Notre Dame.

Any itinerary for a first-time trip would include the famous landmarks and the obligatory cruise on the Seine. But give yourself an extra day or two and you may make some surprise discoveries. For me, it was the Rodin Museum where an entrance fee of just 1 Euro took me into a tranquil garden housing the sculptor’s famous works including ‘The Thinker’.

One of the must-sees, of course, is the Eiffel Tower. One of the tower’s four pillars is now closed for renovation, but you can still ride up to the top for a breathtaking view of Paris. A winter bonus: an ice skating rink that will be open until February 9. A word of caution — don’t feed the pigeons on the ground; I can safely describe some of them as the most aggressive pigeons I’ve seen!

I missed the greenery on the perfectly-trimmed trees along the Champs Elysees, but the famous avenue was even more beautiful by night during the holiday season, when the trees are lit up by thousands of twinkling lights until mid-January. For visiting the grand Louvre museum, I took advantage of reduced price tickets on Wednesdays and Fridays after 6 pm — that way I could use the shorter winter daylight hours outdoors and spend the evening at the museum, staying warm.

I couldn’t leave Paris without seeing Notre Dame cathedral, a 12th-century Gothic masterpiece, and the Sacré-Coeur basilica atop Mont Martre. Sacré-Coeur came with a couple of extras — the ride to the top of the hill on the funiculaire or cable car, and a panoramic view of Paris. On my way back, I stopped at the famous Moulin Rouge for a photo op. Did I watch a show? I ain’t telling.

Set aside at least half a day to visit the royal chateau in Versailles, a 30-minute train ride from Paris. If you visit in the spring, the tourist throng might tempt you to make a break for the door used by Marie Antoinette to escape the mob at the start of the French Revolution, but I was able to walk through the palace leisurely, taking in its opulence.

Paris has a lot to offer — the Faubourg Saint Honore or the Marais for shoppers, the Pompidou Center for lovers of modern art, and a stroll along the banks of the Seine for those who like to get really cold — okay, that’s one activity best done in the spring.

Parisians insist their food is a tourist attraction in itself. And so it is, especially for those adventurous enough to try delicacies like frog legs and snails. Being a vegetarian, I headed to the Sorbonne and Marais neighbourhoods where several restaurants offer the food of former French colonies in North Africa and Indo-China.