Wild Writing Women Magazine | Lisa Alpine's Getaways

Paris, Paris. There is something silken and elegant about that word, something carefree, something made for a dance, something brilliant and festive like champagne.”
--Nina Berberova

I felt so French on my last trip to Paris... shopping for designer clothes (albeit, unknown designers), sitting at cafés on quiet chestnut lined squares, dancing at late night clubs filled with haughty model-types displaying prominent cheek bones, savoring wine and meals stretched over hours, learning to look pouty while saying bouff alors (the French way of saying “whatever”).

I'd wander in the morning light along the Seine and cross Pont Neuf to the Ile de la Cite. Pick a table in the sun at a café on the quiet, chestnut tree-lined Place Dauphine and savor a black coffee and flaky croissant. Then walk a few blocks over to visit the magnificent Gothic chapel at Ste. Chapelle which has the most ethereal stained glass windows. I always try to get there before noon so that the sunlight slanting through the colored glass splashed rainbow light over the floors and colonnades. Next stop - the Marais district across the Seine for lunch, shopping, and maybe a museum or two.

Delisa Heiman getting fitted by a Marais fashion designer

I have gravitated to the Marais ever since I lived in Paris in 1972. Back then it was a mixture of the Hasidic Jewish section and rundown aristocratic mansions. I was fascinated by the Hasidic men’s long curls, felt hats and somber attitudes. I would buy pickles and rugulach (traditional poppyseed pastry) from dark, barrel-lined, hole-in-the-wall delis and then take steam saunas in the public bathhouse on women’s day (two days a week were for women-only.) I was the only skinny blond in the place. Large Jewish women lounged on pillows in-between steam room forays. They plied me with dates and pastries, convinced I was malnourished.

I still love to wander through the Marais and enjoy the eye feast of fashion and liveliness set in one of the oldest sections of Paris. Marais means swamp and it was a swamp until it was cleared in the 13th century. Still filled with ancient lanes and buildings, the area is more characteristic than touristy (unlike the Latin Quarter). It is Paris at its medieval best. This is how much of the city looked until, in the mid-1800's, Napoleon III had Baron Haussmann blast through the boulevards (open and wide enough for the guns and marching ranks of the army, too wide for revolutionary barricades), creating modern Paris.

Over the last decade, the Marais has been transformed into a hip area with small shops and chef-owned bistros. The boutique trend has led to affordable fun fashion by young designers who have worked for the big fashion houses but want their own store. The district exudes vitality and there are few tourists crowding the narrow, pre-Revolutionary sidewalks.

After a full day exploring the magic of Paris’s back streets, I like to wander back to the Latin Quarter and our hotel. But Paris is never through mesmerizing me, an apricot-hued sunset might catch my eye, signalling time for the indulgence of a bottle of fine wine, some unusual cheeses and bread. With a companion or alone, this is the time to saunter down the steps to the riverbank on the Ile Saint-Louis as dusk turns the Seine into a flowing copper ribbon.

Beauty and light, that is Paris. I always leave Paris sated. Instead of chasing Paris around trying to see everything, I let the City of Light guide me gently toward her ageless grace and beauty.