Psyched on Paris

Author: By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, April 5, 1998

Page: M1

Section: Travel

That we would live in France

We'd go boating on the Seine

And I would learn to dance.''

Judy Collins, from ``My Father''

PARIS -- This city insinuates itself in our memories long before we plow through life to get there. When did we first desperately yearn to go; what did we expect?

This would be the first visit to the city of dreams for my daughter and her friend, both 16. Just a weekend, the barest introduction. The teenagers, I'll call them N. and M., were psyched, each with her own list of must-sees.

The girls stumble off the plane, groggy from only a few hours of sleep and an early-morning flight from Barcelona. Janet Jackson bounces through their earphones, and that ever-present edge of teenage truculence shows in their sleepy faces. The taxi cruises into the city, the morning streets quiet and decorous.

Even before we stop at our hotel, the girls are entranced with the shop windows along the way, that Parisian jumble of elegant pastries, sumptuous cheeses, and glimpses of chic clothing producing shoppers' squeals. We leave our suitcases, and I grab a giveaway map, one that marks all the McDonald's restaurants in the city (many, many of them). It turns out to be the most legible of several maps we use (although we shun the burgers). We set out immediately on foot. Paris is waiting.

The Eiffel Tower looms over the 7th arrondissement; we thread through the Left Bank streets by following the black, lacy outline against the sky, the girls racing ahead like children to stand in line for the elevator trip to the top.

The tower, erected between 1885 and 1887, has become a symbol of Paris, certainly for young Americans who associate it with movies and the love of anything really tall. I read the statistics and history from the Michelin guide as they wait in line -- 7,000 tons, 1,051 feet high, made of pig iron, and fastened with 2 1/2 million rivets. From close up, the tower is brown, not chic black, and one can understand the opposition of literary Paris, who thought it garish, at the time it was built. N and M could care less, and blithely ride up while I peruse maps and guidebooks, plotting our Parisian campaign.

One thing to remember about traveling with teenagers -- a little information is a dangerous thing. Both of them are armed with some facts -- about the French Revolution, about the expatriate writers who frequented the Left Bank, about the ``Mona Lisa'' and Rodin -- but they have many, many questions. I'm called upon to lecture on all sorts of subjects about which I know precious little; by the time I toss out a few answers, they've moved on to marvel over a cool dress in a shop window.

We continue our walking attack on the Left Bank of Paris by striding to the Musee D'Orsay near the Seine. The grand former train station with its gilt and gorgeous green-and-glass ceiling intrigues us first. Originally a French government palace, the Orsay was burned in 1871 during the Commune and later restored as a railway terminus, designed to match the elegance of the Louvre and the Tuileries across the river. Finally, it was again refurbished to hold the glories of French Impressionism and reopened in 1986.

Although the museum is packed with treasures, the layout is confusing. Still, we track down the Monets my daughter loves from a book she read as an 8-year-old and the Degas dancers that her friend identifies with. The requisite prints and books are bought to carry home to seal the memories.

Then we head into the Boulevard St. Germain as M excitedly relates her English teacher's comments about Hemingway and Sartre at Cafe les Deux-Magots and Cafe de Flore. Glittering boutiques line the area -- Prada, Kenzo, Chanel -- much more upscale a scene than I remember from my last visit to Paris more than a dozen years ago. The opulence deflates the romantic mood -- it's hard to envision bohemian artists and writers amid sky-high prices and expensively-dressed tourists at the two cafes.

We head back to our hotel, weary from all the walking and gawking. Then we turn the corner and suddenly the Eiffel Tower is silhouetted against a pink sky. Perfect -- the romance of Paris is rescued.

Another certainty: 16-year-olds attract each other like magnets. We are heading up the Champs-Elysees and I'm explaining about General Eisenhower and Parisian joy at the end of World War II. Suddenly, M squeals and starts to run toward two figures coming toward us; N follows. It's two girls from M's school program, visiting Spain and Paris. Much kissing, exchanging of hotel phone numbers, and making plans for the evening. I'm definitely a fifth wheel at the moment.

We stop for tea and croissants before attacking the Louvre. The cafe, in a prime Right Bank shopping area, seems to have adopted a Dunkin' Donuts system. After we're told by one waiter to go inside to order and to stand in line, a second waiter comes up and tells us to go back outside and he'll wait on us. ``This is my first and last day here,'' he mutters in exasperation. ``Customers can't be treated this way.'' We're bemused, since despite all the fears about rude waiters, Parisian service is generally coddling compared to the States.

The Louvre's organization and maps are impressive, and so is its size. Although the girls had to be coaxed out of bed at a rather late hour that morning, youthful resilience wins out here. We see room after room of European paintings, culminating with the ``Mona Lisa'' (``I thought it would be much bigger,'' N and M both say). They have energy for more, racing off in one direction to search out an El Greco, cruising down another hall to find ``Winged Victory,'' gaping at the gilded ceilings and crowded hallways. It's only a first foray, but more than I've ever seen of the Louvre's fabled treasures.

Shopping -- the other marathon event my daughter and her friend excel at -- takes up the remainder of the day. Paris invented department stores, I tell the girls as we head to the first, Au Bon Marche, opened in 1852 on Rue de Sevres. It's hardly the size of the Louvre, but it's huge nonetheless, and bits of history, such as the grand ironwork stairway partly hidden behind a partition, show through. Again, the teenagers outpace me, finding a dress, a blouse, a great pair of jeans to coo over every foot or so. Prices, though, are intimidating, and by day's end over coffee and chocolate, N decides that a charming set of drawings she saw in a little shop down from Boulevard St. Germain is exactly right for a Parisian memento.

By now, it's 6:20 p.m., and the stores close at 7. Without even an address to go by, only the memory of where the shop was, we hustle through the twilight. The Bermuda Triangle of streets in the Church of St. Suplice neighborhood defeats us, and I finally ask a woman for help in my thoroughly fractured French. Although I barely understand her replies, she displays that French paradox -- at first aloof but amazingly helpful if appealed to -- and points and gestures us forward.

We miss the shop hours after all, and are reduced to pressing noses against glass and copying names and phone numbers. N, her nascent collector's lust aroused, is crestfallen but puts her hopes in a phone call from the States -- or maybe a return trip.

A third teenage truth: Although glorious food is a focal point of Paris, growing teenage gourmandise has to be matched to teenage impatience. Last night's dinner at La Regalade was wonderful (although the girls cringed at the rough-hewn pates and sausages), but they don't want to spend a whole evening at dinner again. After delighting at the skaters twirling in front of the Hotel de Ville, Paris's answer to a city hall, we stumble into a rare health-food restaurant, Natur, on Rue Vielle du Temple. They're thrilled with mushroom tart and mushroom salad and the tiny place's low-beamed ceiling. Not exactly haute cuisine, but, to them, charmant.

Sunday, our last morning in Paris, and it's time to see Notre Dame. We zip over on the subway, by now expert at its labryrinthine passages, and walk across the Seine onto Ile de la Cite. The grandeur of the cathedral draws gasps from both girls as I read the Michelin out loud as fast as I can: a place of worship for 2,000 years; from Gallo-Roman temple to Romanesque church to finally the prototype of all Gothic churches; built from 1163 to 1345 and restored in the 1800s. The girls love the cathedral's balance and flying buttresses, and I love the fact that Sunday Mass is being said as we peer around the darkened interior. When we come out, the rainy morning has brightened into sun, perfect for viewing the close-by Sainte-Chapelle with its brilliant stained-glass windows.

The rest of Paris is a blur of walking through recurring raindrops and chill, peering up at the imposing grayness of the Conciergerie where Marie-Antoinette and other prisoners of the Revolution were imprisoned, searching out an all-butter bakery, catching glimpses of palaces and towers.

Finally, I shepherd our foot-weary trio over to see the Centre Pompidou. ``What is it,'' they ask in unison, puzzling over the red building with blue exposed pipes and grillwork. I explain it's a modern art museum (closed for renovation) and the controversy about it. ``Ugh,'' says M, who prefers her buildings Gothic. ``I like it,'' declares my lover of the avant. Then they spy a Sunday flea market on an adjacent street and are off, puzzling over the franc prices of used jeans.

Later, as we ride out to the airport, the girls crane their necks for last glimpses of streets full of Sunday strollers. ``Well, did you like it?'' I ask. ``I just wish we had three more days,'' my daughter answers plaintively. ``Me, too,'' her friend chimes in. Paris has captured two more young hearts.