Chapter Two

Paris

The train gently glided into the Gare du Nord (The Station of the North)  and my mind went back almost 50 years previously when I first visited this city as an undergraduate student in my early 20’s. Back then I had noticed the street cafes with their closely knit tables spilling out onto the footpaths. The narrow streets choking with myriad shops, cafes and restaurants, continually thronged with people passing through. The wide boulevards boasting their splendid ornate buildings reaching majestically up into the Paris sky. Their equally magnificent names which would forever be implanted in my memory, the Boulevard St. Germaine with its myriad array of bookshops, cafes and restaurants, the Boulevard St. Michel close by boasting an ornate fountain that gushed out of a gable wall spewing out endless water in constant cascades, its splendid façade standing proudly and defiantly as it had done so for years.

The metro with its great labryrinth of tunnels that transported the population of Paris here and there to their various destinations. Standing on the platform there would be a momentary silence where the tunnel would reveal its empty darkness. Then in the distance a rumbling sound could be heard which became louder and louder and suddenly like an angry serpent, the train would hurtle its way into the platform, its beaming lights shining ferociously, the sound of the wheels on the tracks and the rumbling of the carriages, followed by the screeching of the brakes as it slowly ground to a halt. The metro was where I performed as a busker all those years ago. Over the next couple of years I would return to Paris and make my living playing my music in those cavernous tunnels.

The Paris that I got to know through its ordinary people, in its nooks and crannies, and hidden corners. This could not be described in some guide book. It could only be found in the way that the buildings spoke to me, by embracing their sombre silence and taking in the magic of the atmosphere which would strengthen in its tone the more I came back there where a new door would open and I would push it eagerly and inquisitively to gain a fresh sense of what this place entailed for me.

And now I was back once again. I had booked a hotel in Nation which is in the Eastern part of the city. I headed straight there from the Gare du Nord. As I ascended the steps of the metro out into the cool September evening air, I was greeted by a large bronze statue called the Triumph of the Republic depicting the personification of France, Marianne, whose statues and busts have been the national personification of the Republic since the French Revolution representing liberty, equality, fraternity and reason. During the French Revolution there had been more executions using the guillotine than any other area of Paris.

I resorted to my trusty Google Maps on my phone to find my hotel. Yet after walking in various fruitless circles I once again resorted to the tried and tested,

“Excusez moi monsieur. Ou est L’hotel de L’Etoile ?  (Excuse me sir. Where is the Hotel L’Etoile?)”

After settling in to my hotel I ventured out and found a restaurant nearby. I sat in a table outside soaking in the bohemian atmosphere that only Paris restaurants can provide. The sky was a glowing red. All around me echoed the constant chatter of the diners. Lovers holding hands, colleagues discussing the day behind them, friends in excited discourse. I was back in Paris and savouring every moment!

I had visited the city almost exactly a year earlier when I made a trip by train from Gdansk in Poland via Berlin to Paris on my way home. Then I had revisited all the places I wanted to see again in the city, St.Michel, the Luxembourg Gardens, my old busking spot Etoile metro, as well as visiting the Post Impressionist exhibition at the Gare d’Orsay. This magnificent building was a former railway station, which like its counterpart St. Pancras in London, was due to be demolished but it was saved in 1980 through the personal intervention of the then President Gisgard d’Estaing where the building was transformed into an art museum.

During my time as a busker, I made a journey to a little village to the north of Paris called Auvers sur Oise. I went there to visit the grave of Vincent van Gogh, one of the most well known Post Impressionist painters who is buried beside his beloved brother Theo. I had long been an admirer of this tortured soul for many years. When I first saw one of his paintings, Sunflowers, at first hand it was in the British Art Museum in London with Phil, my then girlfriend. As we stood in awe in front of the painting, I tenderly squeezed her hand and in that moment we were lost in the beauty of this magnificent  work.

All these years later, I was making that journey to Auvers once more. I arrived at the Gare du Nord and caught the train to a little village called Pontoise. From there I caught a connection to Auvers. As I left the little train station, the familiar sights greeted me like an old friend I hadn’t seen for some time. My last visit was with my wife Carmel and my then 3 year old daughter Grainne. I wanted to share this experience with them as Carmel also admired the work of Van Gogh. We passed the crooked church made famous through one of his most well known paintings. Now I ascended that hill alone. I called in to light a candle for Carmel. The church is called “L’Eglise Notre Dame de L’Assumption (The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption). The painter’s portrayal of the building became an embodiment of his inner turmoil with his interpretation of its stark angular lines. Soon after he took his own life in a field nearby where he painted.

I left the church and made my way further up the hill to the cemetery. There were two simple gravestones:

Ici Repose (Here lies)

Vincent van Gogh

1853-1890

 

Ici Repose

Theodore van Gogh

1857-1891

 

Their graves were covered in ivy to represent a binding together that they will never be apart a symbol of their love and devotion to each other as brothers. Theo provided financial and emotional support when Vincent needed it. After their deaths Theo’s wife Johanna van Gogh Bonger became the unsung hero of what was to become Vincent’s fame as a painter, something which eluded him in his lifetime. She translated the hundreds of letters of correspondence between the two brothers. She tirelessly played a key role in promoting Vincent’s work. Unfortunately she has remained largely forgotten in the story of Vincent van Gogh.

I stood over the graves and in silence. The long shadows from the evening sun were shimmering and dancing on the road as I made my way down the hill towards the train station. How glad I was to have made this solemn journey.

The next day I was ready to embark on the next stage of my trip which would take me to Milan via Strasbourg, Basel and Lugano.