Paris at Night

David and I left Colmar early on a Saturday morning. When darkness fell, we were still on the expressway driving towards Paris. I pulled the car into a rest area which advertised “Tourist Information.”

Behind the counter was a young woman. French women are slim and elegant and look chic in the simplest clothes. How they accomplish this miracle is a mystery to me This one, with her neat, close-cropped dark hair, was charming in a simple white blouse and black skirt. She greeted me in English with a delightful French accent, with only a frosty glance to indicate she recognized me as an American by my clothes, also a shirt and skirt, stained from German meals and disheveled after driving all day.

I asked if she could make reservations for David and me at an inexpensive hotel in Paris.
She said, “Paris is full.”
“What do you mean, ‘Paris is full?’”
“It is the weekend. There are no hotel rooms available in Paris. Paris is full.”

Despite this warning, I drove on into Paris. I had a list of cheap hotels from the Frommer guide books. Surely we could find something.

I drove up the Champs Elise, as garish as Las Vegas with ugly neon signs. I found the highly recommended hotel near the Arch de Triumph. No vacancy. Could they suggest another hotel? No. Nothing available on this side of the Seine.

We drove by the long, dark shape of the Louvre. David said, “That sure is a big museum.” I said, “That’s only one wing. There is more on the other side.”

We crossed the Seine. From the bridge David had a good view of the Eiffel Tower, brilliantly lighted at night. In the Latin Quarter I drove through ancient, narrow streets vainly looking for a hotel with room for a middle-aged American with kid in tow.

I turned the car back towards the river. We passed Notre Dame. I remembered Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in 'Charade' seeing the cathedral on a night such as this from the boat on the Seine. As I drove along the boulevard next to the river, I saw a road sign indicating the way to Versailles. I decided to follow the signs out of the city and all the way through the Paris suburbs to Versailles.

In the village of Versailles, I found the Hotel Richard, another Frommer recommendation. They, too, were full. Then a miracle! The manager called another hotel. They had a room for us.

Hotel Clagney was off the main drag at the end of a dead end street called the “Impasse de Clagney.” (First time I was at an impasse.) The little hotel was next to the railroad tracks, where trains from Versailles to Paris roared past day and night. That did not keep us from sleeping in the comfortable bed. The large room had a shower but no toilet, a situation we found several times in France.

As I fell asleep, I thought about our night-time tour of Paris. I said to myself, “We might as well have been on a damned bus tour.”

Years later I went on a trip which included a daytime “tour of Paris” which was a perfunctory as the night David and I wandered around the city looking for a hotel. But that night we had a full week ahead of us to really see the sights.