A Week in Paris

On this, my first visit to Paris, I set off alone on the train that at the time ran from Tuscany straight to Gare de Lyon. At the station a friend of mine, a journalist from Pordenone who had reached the capital a couple of days earlier, was waiting for me. We lodged together in a hotel room in the Pigalle district. You can imagine my curiosity as I wandered every evening through the streets of Paris's 'red light' district; I was 17 and it all seemed unreal to me, among those sex shops, night clubs and music halls. In the afternoon we roamed the city, having lunch at hot dog stands along the street or in a fast food place. We strolled through the city, along the Seine and the streets of the bistros. On grey days we preferred to go to the Centre Georges Pompidou to leaf through the library's books or climb the escalators that scale the futuristic tubes of the building.

In the evening the fixed appointment was with a sporting event held at the Palais des Sports de Coubertin. We moved easily by Metro. Once we went to the Saint-Denis district; I found it a place of vice and sex, with streets full of prostitutes, a squalor. My friend, who was a few years older than me, slipped away for a while to make use of the services of one of those ladies, and I found myself alone amid this sexual marketplace. One morning we visited the Louvre, but at the time I didn't have the cultural grounding to appreciate either the museum or the rest of the city. Despite a week as a semi-'tramp', careful to spend the little money I had, something unusual happened to me. The organisers of the sporting event we were following gave us an invitation to a reception hosted by the Mayor of Paris, who at that time was none other than Chirac.

We were received in a sumptuous hall of the Hôtel de Ville, Paris's City Hall, together with international delegations and accredited journalists. Chirac wasn't there, but his deputy, doing the honours, offered us a sumptuous buffet. After days of fasting we could stuff ourselves!! I've returned to Paris other times, of course with more money and peace of mind, but I've never had another chance to be received at the Hôtel de Ville. Leaving Paris I didn't go straight back to Italy but continued on my own to Belgium (see the related itinerary).