A reconnaissance mission

What to do when your hubby's snoring wakes you at six am on a Sunday morning and you cannot get back to sleep? You sneak into Expat Girl's room to pinch her Vélib card and head out into the deserted streets of Paris to soak in the sun rays.

After living in Paris for nine years I have finally rented a Vélib from the city's public bicycle sharing system which has defiantly risen to the challenge over the past months by providing citizens a way to get around during general transport strikes and confinement rules. Apparently during peak hours more than four Vélibs are picked up from a station every second?!

On a reconnaissance mission before the new normal sets in, I decided to enjoy Paris to myself one last time before all the governments restrictions are revoked...

A heartwarming "Welcome back" greeting from the Mayor of Paris

Palais de Chaillot bathing in the sun at 7am on a Sunday morning 

The Eiffel Tower all to myself

Majestic view onto a very calm River Seine

It's just my Vélib and I

Place de la Concorde, Paris' largest square is abandoned 

Paris' Town Hall

World-famous Café Les Deux Magots should be back in business next week

No tourists on Place St. Germain

Paris as it was in the olden days....

All of Paris' parks and gardens are opening today after three months

One of my favourite Parisian icons: 

public drinking fountains designed by Sir Richard Wallace and sculpted by Charles-Auguste Lebourg 

Not a soul in sight

Place de Fürstenberg, labeled as being one of the most picturesque squares in Paris

Rue de Rivoli has just been declared off limits for cars this month.

Biking through Paris has never felt better!

Iconic Champs Elysées deserted by tourists, cars and public transport.

It's a beauty!

Merci Paris pour cette sublime ballade un dimanche matin.

A place in the sun

Feeling very energetic and thrilled to have rediscovered my love for city biking I resuscitate my 20-year old Rossignoli bike which had transported me with little Expat boy far and wide across Milano back in the days. 

So, I might have been a bit ambitious wanting to bike from the 16th arrondissement to the Bois de Vincennes but luckily I have girlfriends who hurl me back to earth.

Bringing out the car for the first time in two months I followed a lunch invitation by a dear friend and drove myself the other side of the city. Boy, it feels good to get around town again. I missed flaneusing the streets of Paris and although it's not quite the same in the car it was nice to salute Notre Dame Cathedral all wrapped up in scaffolding, drive along Ile Saint-Louis admiring the 17th century building in the sun, navigate around the Bastille in the bus line by mistake and admire an empty, very pristine looking Place de la Nation.

What I did not expect after our lovely walk around the Lake Daumesnil was the enchanted garden that welcomed us at my friend's house. Clearly a great deal of time, dedication and passion had turned this little green patch into an English garden complete with Laura Ashely patterned deck chairs... and much to my delight in PiNk! This is definitely my place in the sun for today.

A colourful moment at the market

Today I ventured down to the local market curious to see how they coped with the government's Covid restrictions knowing that the Avenue President Wilson's market is the largest open-air market in Paris. Apparently this is where all the top three-star chefs come pick the best products.

As always, there were multiple stands with a wide array of prepared foods, cheese, produce, fish, meat, breads and pastries, olives, dried fruits and flowers as well as some less interesting clothing goods. 

What changed was the space left between each stand and the little amount of people. Usually this place is brimming with shoppers and you need to squeeze around the food trolleys and baskets. Today, however, there were few queues at select stands and lots of moving space to avoid close contact with others. All in all, it was a rather pleasant experience albeit the untypical circumstances.

What makes the farmers' market such a special place is that it creates a community around food. Just take a glimpse of some of the lovely stands that typify the President Wilson market:

Who can resist "produits italiens"?

A splash of my favourite colour

Sheets of see-thru plastic are wrapped around most stalls

 in order to protect produce

A tropical vibe

Ratatouille anyone?!?

Essential ingredients for a "Soupe à l'onion"

Loyal clientele

Home-made apple juice

Loving these colours

Fresh eggs, anyone?

My favourite fish mongrel

I'll take a kilo of that, please.

May is not a month for oysters as it does not have an "r"

Could not resist a shot of the fish packaging

Parisian bikes are called la petite reine

Mayor Anne Hidalgo wants to make Paris the world’s most bikeable city but we are a far cry from Amsterdam or Copenhagen. During France’s 46-day transit strike last year, however, many metro-goers switched to cycling, doubling the number of cyclists on the roads. Le vélo became known as la petite reine (the little Queen).

Then, Paris rolled out emergency bike lanes for the use of key workers during the lockdown. A total of 650 km of cycleway - including a number of "pop-up corona cycleways”- were readied when déconfinement began two weeks ago.

Bicycles were very popular in the French capital up until the 1940s. They were then gradually squeezed out by war and the boom in the auto industry. Bikes are now back in business with a 131% year-on-year rise in the number of cyclists. Car use in Paris is falling for the first time since the 1940s!

If Paris' mayor has her way, we will become the "Ville Du Quart D’Heure" (City of fifteen minutes) an ambitious plan promising that every street will have a cycle path, every bridge will have protected cycleways, and every resident can walk or cycle to get anything they need. Stay tuned...

Empty chairs

They are everywhere but you don’t see them. Or rather you don’t notice them. They are sometimes a privileged place for chitchat where the world is put to rights, sometimes reserved for a moment of peaceful thought or prayer and often chosen to grab a bite during lunchtime or a ray of sunshine.

Some people use them as a reading room, others as a telephone box, yet others as a stopover on their pedestrian itinerary.

Georges Brassens sang of the public benches as a privileged place for romantic amateurs of deep kisses. It is heartwarming to see Paris' chairs and benches being brought back to life after two months of quarantine... and have you noticed how many of their occupants are lovebirds?!? Now more than ever before has Paris earned its reputation as city of love.

Lockdown captured in a piece of art

If there's one thing that can never be contained, it is creativity. In the times of chaos, creating art can be cathartic even if you are not an artist. For starters we have more time to create as we are distanced from the distractions of our normal lives. If your lockdown experience were a piece of art, what would it look like?

Draw, paint, stitch, photograph, cook, and create your artistic response to living in isolation. It could be artwork, poetry, inspiring quotes, the view from your window or family tic tocs. Document your experiences of "confinement" as a reminder how drastically fast the world changed in a way no-one could have predicted!

I've entitled mine: L'attimo fuggente (A fleeting moment)

What did lockdown look like?

Paris has finally come to an end of 56 days of confinement and the general questions is: what did you do during lockdown?

Well, for most it began with incredulity, a stage where we could not believe the government was asking us not to leave our apartments and we had no choice but to adhere to the rules.

Things fell into place pretty fast after that; starting with the attestation de déplacement dérogatoire the French had a little escape route with the excuse to go wine shopping... we were off to a positive start!

Accompanied by Bob Sinclair's daily lockdown groove sessions on facebook, I followed mini-workshops on photography, branding and instagram editing. I finally got around to putting my Paris blog into print for keepsakes and ended up with eight volumes. I compiled a long overdue photo book and rebooted my recipe blog.

Of course, a bit of shopping online help boost the moral but mostly I was hogging the computer at the turn of midnight to grab a slot for our groceries to be delivered 10 days later!

Marks and Spencers Food hall became my new favourite place and the lady at the Lindt chocolate shop my new best friend! My Swiss wine and chocolate stocks have drastically dwindled...

I prepared my tax declaration documentation, caught up with my medical bills and took hours to claim reimbursements for flights. Trips to Madrid, Lugano, Ibiza, Naples and Croatia all went down the drain.

We had yet another water leak above our flat (are we at number 5 or 6?!?) and I am rather proud I managed a floor refurbishment in our Swiss flat via Whatsapp. It looks great on photo and I can't wait to see the real thing. Keeping my fingers crossed and trusting in Swiss efficiency.

We met many of our neighbours while cheering on the health workers every evening across our balconies and collectively sang "Happy Birthday" to a little toddler who will forever have a place in my memory for making the most noise every evening with his pan & wooden ladle and his gusto for being allowed to do so.

And then there was the exercise... determined not to let my gourmandise get the better of me, I have been working out nearly every day making the most of what the internet has to offer. French Bikram yoga classes, Californian barre, Spanish zumba and bi-lingual core sessions have all found their way into my weekly routine as has a cathartic run through the streets of Paris at the end of the day!

This period, however, will be remembered as the zooming and tic-tocing months. We were not going to go down without a fight, so if we were not allowed out we were inviting the world into our living room. Many a virtual aperò - with enthusitstic dress-ups at the beginning - was enjoyed with friends and lots of giggles accompanied the tic toc family filming trials.

Oh, and how could I forget the suntanning sessions in front of the window on our living room floor?!? Club Med is nothing compared to our family programme...