Tuesday, 10 September 2024, The rest of the way to Paris (the Ibis Paris Opéra Bastille), La Régalade

Written 11 September 2024

We got to Paris without incident to find that, although once again CDG airport had been reconfigured, it was easier to navigate because signage and traffic patterns had been revamped for the Olympics. Passport control was quick and easy, customs almost invisible, and the taxi queue extremely short.

The flat-fee taxi fare from the airport has gone up to 56 euros. Our driver explained that he was going to take us by a slightly circuitous route, but that the extra distance wouldn't affect the fare. The reason for the detour, he explained, was that the "JOP Système" was in effect for one more day (through 11 September, illuminated temporary signs along our route confirmed it) and that the longer route would therefore be faster than a more direct one. I was initially baffled by the "JOP" acronym, but I looked it up later—"Jeux Olympiques Paris" of course. The system is that, at certain times, on certain days, during a specified period before, during, and after the games, on certain roads and streets (185 km of them in the Paris region) one lane was reserved exclusively for "accredited vehicles"—buses, taxis, and official Olympics traffic (not, e.g., Uber or Lyft). Violators were subject to stiff penalties. As a result, all the way into Paris, while the other lanes were crawling or at a bumper-to-bumper standstill, our taxi sailed along without delay in an empty lane.

Along the way, we passed a huge banner draped on a big heap of hay bales in a stubble field that said, "Agriculture, the official motor fuel of athletes!"

Avenue Dauménil was included in the system, so our driver brought us in through the Porte Dorée and along Dauménil all the way to the Place de la Bastille—a bonus for us, since that avenue parallels our old favorite, the Promenade Plantée.

Delta had also fed us a spinach frittata, sausage, potatoes (dreadful potatoes!), muffin, and fruit-and-yogurt parfait before we landed at 12:30 pm, so we just skipped lunch and held out for dinner at La Régalade on the rue Saint-Honoré.

In between, we walked from our hotel to the Bastille metro station to arrange for transportation for our time in Paris.

The hotel is participating in a stuffed-animal drive to benefit local hospitalized kids, so teddy-bears of all sizes decorated the lobby. These two are guarding an open chest in which contributions could be deposited.

Over the years, we've accumulated an impressive array of Paris public transit passes, but even after considerable study of the relevant website, I was pretty confused about our options, so rather than trying to work with the self-service kiosks, I presented these two cards from previous visits, plus an old "Paris Visite" tourist pass and my Visa card, to the friendly ladies in the kiosk at the Bastille station, and they explained it all and set it up for us. The card in the plastic sheath at the top (the "Navigo Découverte") is a commuter transport pass. On the back it has my photo and signature—we acquired it for a longer stay in Paris a couple of years ago. (It replaced our old photo-and-signature "orange cards.") It's the cheapest option per ride and can be loaded with unlimited public transport of any kind (metro, bus, tram, funicular) in Paris, by the week, month, or year. We're here for eight days this time, but a week on that pass can only run from Monday through Sunday. So we bought a week for each of us, which will run through midnight Sunday. For Monday and Tuesday, the ladies recommended loading each of the blue "Navigo Easy" cards with a "carnet" (booklet) of 20 individual transport tickets, again good on any kind of transport; we won't use up that many in two days, but they're good indefinitely. They didn't recommend the "Paris Visite" option, which is still available in 1-, 2-, 3-, and 5-day denominations (to begin on any day), because it's being phased out and is the most expensive option short of buying an individual ticket for each trip.

After strolling around a little more and locating a nearby Carrefour City (gotta love a convenience store that stocks four kinds of smoked salmon and two sizes of blini) to get David some bottled water—his stomach does not tolerate the change-over to Paris tap water well—we just went back to the hotel to take it easy until dinner time.

Here are two angles of the view from my fourth-floor hotel room (that's the fifth floor by American count). Straight across is a slightly shabby apartment building with mildew streaks below the window sills, inch-deep growth of moss on some of the window sills, and shutters in various states of repair. Angling slightly to the left, though, reveals a newer, spiffier building, shiny off-white, with sharp matching electric shutters, and wonderful inside-corner balconies!

Written 14 September 2024

The hotel, the Ibis Paris Opéra Bastille, is pretty bare-bones, even for an Ibis. The rooms are small, the bathrooms smaller, and the shower stalls are only about half the size of those in the cheapest Viking stateooms. Mine has a big-screen TV, a telephone, enough electrical outlets, and a large comfortable bed, but just one waste basket, a little hanging space and a couple of hooks for coats, but no drawers of any kind—just a wall system of very small shelves. Two small bath towels and a bathmat (no washcloths, no hand towels, no toiletries except two soap pumps bolted to the walls, one by the tiny trapezoidal sink and one in the shower stall). I got fed up with the soap pump in the shower after a few days and dug out a couple of old hotels-sized bars of real soap from my wash kit—from an Ibis Budget, ironically.

The nearby Place de la Bastille is a major metro hub as well as being a stop on the amazingly useful #1 metro line, which cuts straight through the heart of Paris, side to side, from the Bois de Vincennes on its eastern border right past the Bois de Boulogne on its western side and all the way to the modern high-rise neighborhood of La Défense.

La Régalade used to be way out in the 12th arrondissement, pretty much the boonies and hard to get to by metro. We ate there once and really, really liked it. Then it opened a "downtown" branch just a block off the #1 line at Louvre-Rivoli and eventually closed the outlying original branch, so we were whisked there in a (20-minute) flash, at least half of which was walking time to and from the metro. (On the way from the metro to the restaurant, we passed an especially fun "space invader"—those little pixilated characters from the old computer game that artists paint or tile on buildings around the world. This one was a stylized version of the Mona Lisa, appropriate for the location.)

The amuse-bouche was country-style terrine of pork and crusty bread, house-made gherkins and tiny pickled onions ad lib from the jar. Not quite as good as the version of Chez l'Ami Jean, but close.

At La Régalade, dinner is 55 euros for three courses—an absolute steal considering how good the food is. I started with a tartare of "white veal" (milk-fed veal?) with spinach sprouts and lime, all showered in bright orange grated mimolette cheese.

David started with chanterelle mushrooms sautéed with meat juices and ham (right), which was a special of the day that entailed a 10-euro supplement to the 55 euro price. He declared it well worth the money.

My main course was braised pork belly with soubise of onions and Comté cheese. Delicious, though the rind, described on the menu as "crunchy" was more like leathery.

David followed up with duck breast roasted rare with shiitake mushrooms and a sauce of fresh greengage plums. All excellent!

For dessert, David chose the cold compote of rhubarb and red fruits smothered in vanilla cream, but I went with the classic—the old-fashioned "riz au lait," boiled rice pudding with a little pot of dairy caramel to drizzle over it. Yum!

Back in the metro on the way home, I noticed that new line maps had been produced for the Olympics. The little pink "spotlights" dropping from some of the stops highlight sites popular with tourists, and in particular those used as Olympic venues. The grayish slice marks three stops that were closed during the games. They're open again now, but not all the transfers to other lines are back in place.

And in the Bastille station, we were on the right platform to get photos of the wonderful tile mural that lines the walls, a "Homage to the Revolution" by Liliane Belembert and Odile Jaquot (undated). The Bastille station is unusual in that, although it is below street level, it is well above the Basin de l'Arsenal, a boat basin (the downstream end of the mostly underground Canal de St. Martin) that used to serve boat builders but is now a marina for pleasure boats. So one side of the station is clad in the long mural and the other has exterior windows overlooking the basin!