London today, in insolent defiance of the official weather forecast, is blanketed in a heat wave; people are going around naked in the park (mildly acceptable) and in the crush between Piccadilly and Leicester Square. One of these shirtless men doggedly tried to pick me up with the tenacity of an Italian; whatever happened to the stereotypical well-dressed Englishman and the British reserve?
It was probably the same temperature on the centigrade scale at the Place d'Horloge in Avignon; but oh, it was glorious last weekend. I draped myself on the stone steps facing the Palais des Papes and luxuriated in the sunshine and the breeze, idly remembering and then dismissing the vague thought that we were well past the allotted time for our rented car on the parking meter. The rest of the the weekend was a Peter Mayle idyll; we based ourselves at the Hotel les Frenes outside Avignon and made the usual rounds of Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Les Baux (excellent unfiltered olive oil); we went to the morning market at Nimes and went sat down for a round of Perrier-menthes. (Sadly, though, gone are the days when you could race around the French countryside at top speed; they've taken to enforcing speed limits and some very unfriendly people will be waiting for you at the tollbooths.)
Waterloo Station is ironically and aptly named; it is here that the unified European rail system disintegrates into the chaos of the former British Rail, now subdivided and privatised into a system of utter confusion. They've cut the journey time down now by making some improvements on the British side, but essentially the TGV chugs along at the speed of a railway carriage from era when there were compartments on the train instead of airplane-like seats. After the descent into the tunnel and the re-emergence on the other side, time leaps forward an hour; the train leaps forward into the high-speed mode it was made for, and one leaps into the glory of continental civilisation.
Pierre Gagnaire was unavailable to feed us, as was Guy Savoy, but a table for five was available at the restaurant Alain Ducasse; it was my decision not to book our usual room at the Crillon and stay at the Plaza-Athenée instead, where the restaurant (formerly Joël Robuchon's Jamin) has now relocated. Ducasse suffered from his usual problem of a leitmotif becoming repetitious rather than resonant (it was asparagus and caviar this time); but it was an excellent meal all around. And the Plaza-Athenée is beautiful, so beautiful: its winding staircase with the unending red carpet winding upwards; the attention to detail down to the selection of pillows; the exuberant red of the canopies that unfurl every morning. If it weren't for the prohibitive price of the aller-retour (£500 for a first-class return) I'd be back there this weekend.
The Greater Parisian Co-Prosperity Sphere (as we called our reunion in Paris) has dissolved itself; the boys are off to Prague, my cousin to Milan, and my brother back home. The last time I drove on the left was when I was in South Africa, but for the moment Chelsea is charmless and the prospect of a weekend alone at Sloane seems a condemnation. Perhaps if I can make my way out of central London I shall do the Lake District this weekend. I'm sure London will be interesting again; but can these boys please put their shirts back on?
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