Tell most Irish people you’re off to London and their eyes will glaze over faster than you can say “Bin there, innit”, while a visit to Paris is almost as everyday an experience. But when you’ve a tale of two cities punctuated by a train that goes under the grey waters of the English Channel, reaching speeds of up to 300km/h at times, it’s a different proposition.
First up, before we get to price-gouging Paris, London is calling. Ireland’s problematic relationship with its nearest neighbour over the centuries means we’re sometimes loath to admit the truth: it’s one of the world’s great cities.
Our adventure started in the well-heeled parish of Marylebone, and after breakfast of swanky pastries and coffee in an Ottolenghi cafe, we set off on a traditional pilgrimage to Camden Town, beloved of the cool kids for generations.
Tourists stand shoulder to shoulder on Camden’s High Street, while grizzled old punks look on through hungover eyes. One of the last of the Mohicans, a 50-something man in a heavily safety-pinned leather jacket that last had cultural relevance when he was a toddler, sits on the street nursing a flagon of cider. A sign propped up against his 18-hole Dr Marten boots says, “Help this punk get drunk.”
Just like the old punk, Camden Town is tired, cliched and laid low by market stalls selling Peaky Blinders caps, identikit jewellery, Union Jack tea towels and dodgy sunglasses.
Conor Pope wanders about Camden in London
Heaven knows it’s miserable now, I think, as we walk past a heaving T-shirt shop engaged in a rough trade of Smiths merch. A young man sings, “I would go out tonight but I haven’t got nothing to wear” as I pass. I’m outraged by his lyrical sacrilege but he looks unhinged so I let him be.
From Camden we take a black cab – because when you’re in London for just one weekend, you can sometimes pretend to have money – to Portobello, where the vibe shifts appreciably. It too is awash with tourists buying rubbish, but it’s not as much of a try-hard as Camden.
Throngs walk past stalls at Portobello Road Market in west London. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty
From there we check out Covent Garden, full of its stupidly expensive boutiques, and the wonderful and reasonably priced Seven Dials food market, packed with folk eating tapas-style dishes. We settle on crumble and custard from the Humble Crumble. It alone is worth the trip.
After the markets we get two hits of the West End, firstly Wicked, and then a Paddington matinee. The former is a breathtaking celebration of difference, while the latter is a super-cute hymn to a welcoming, multicultural London. Even though they’re just musicals, it’s hard not to feel a little uplifted by them both.
Paddington at the West End: A super-cute hymn to a welcoming, multicultural London
Given all London has to offer and our time constraints, we take an open-top bus tour for a drive-by of the must-see landmarks over three freezing hours, leaving time for a wander through Soho and up Oxford Street. Then we take our leave of Marlyebone and travel to St Pancras Station for the train under the sea, bound for Paris.
The giddy excitement in the Eurostar station is palpable. It feels like what flying must have felt like in the 1950s before we wearied of the idea of travelling at 1,000km/h in the sky while being served snacks and hot drinks.
Our tickets are scanned by a cheery Cockney chap, and glass doors part. We hoist our baggage onto a conveyor belt to be screened and walk three steps to British passport control, and two more steps to French passport control.
The journey from check-in desk to boarding gate is about 50 metres and takes no longer than five minutes. Take that, airports of the world. Immediately after pulling out, we enter a long tunnel and spend 10 minutes barrelling in blackness under Islington and Hackney and Barking and Dagenham and other delightful-sounding London suburbs before emerging into the green fields of England. Just over 20 minutes later, we’re under water.
Conor Pope on the Eurostar
I’m thrilled by this moment, but the laconic French man in the red knitted jumper, skinny cream chinos and glowing white Adidas sitting beside me seems less so and – infuriatingly – he falls asleep immediately. As his perfectly coiffured head lolls towards my shoulder, I realise that until he wakes, I’m trapped. I curse my laissez-faire approach to seat selection and stare out at the blackness while my family are free to explore. Some 20 minutes later, we emerge into the watery sunshine illuminating the fringes of Calais.
We’re sucking diesel now, and our train reaches close to 300km an hour as we barrel along parallel to the motorway network, leaving speeding cars in our sleek wake.
The most beautiful and romantic city in the world is even more actively hostile and egregiously expensive for visitors. It’s an eternal pity
— Conor Pope on Paris
Like most Irish trains, there’s no trolley service selling Barry’s Tea or Tayto, but eventually the sleeping Frenchman wakes up, allowing me to shimmy past him and sway my way down to the cafe for snacks and coffee which I’ve barely time to finish before we arrive in Paris.
If we’d travelled the conventional way on a flight leaving at 1.30pm, we’d have set off from our London hotel at 10am. Then there’d have been a 45-minute flight and 45 minutes walking through the airport and 15 more getting through passport control, and an hour to get from Charles de Gaulle to the centre of Paris.
All that means we’d have arrived at our destination at 5.15pm local time, equating to over seven hours’ travel time. By contrast, we left our London hotel at 11.30am, departed on the Eurostar at 1.31pm and arrived in the centre of Paris at 4.55pm, which amounted to just over five hours of travelling.
And so, our tale of two cities moved on to the best of times and the worst of times.
If ever a place didn’t need an extra soupçon of confident arrogance, it’s Paris, but that’s what the 2024 Olympic Games seems to have given it. Now, the most beautiful and romantic city in the world is even more actively hostile and egregiously expensive for visitors.
It’s an eternal pity.
I’ve been in Paris many times, but have never been as badly gouged as on this occasion. At every turn, someone seemed to be standing by to screw me.
Infuriatingly, I was complicit in some of the rip-offs.
Tourists aplenty sit on the street outside a cafe in Paris. Photograph: Getty
On our first morning, we wandered into a postcard-pretty bistro near our hotel, close to the Place de la Madeleine, and ordered two coffees, a hot chocolate and three croissants. The smiley waiter left with our menus but then paused to ask whether we’d like orange juice.
“Sure why not,” I thought. “We’re on holidays, we’ll take three.”
Almost immediately, small cups of lukewarm cafe creme arrived along with very tired croissants. Our friendly waiter placed three tiny glasses of juice made up mostly of ice cubes before us.
Moments later we’d finished so I asked for l‘addition. It came to €60.
“Surely some mistake,” I thought – until I looked at the receipt and realised the juice we’d been so casually upsold cost €9.
Each.
It was three quid a watered-down mouthful. And to think we think we’re the masters of the rip-off in Ireland!
I questioned the price, and the once-lovely waiter morphed into a Gallic cliche, all shrugs and disdain. I left scowling.
Another rip-off came in Le Marais, one of the most chilled-out shopping and eating places in the city.
It lashed rain a lot while we were there, and my child’s porous shoes were quickly rendered cold and unwearable. Not able to find a Penney’s-type shop and getting desperate, we settled on an Ugg shop. The only option were boots priced at 90 quid – expensive for sure, but we went a size up and figured she’d get a good year out of them.
As the littlest Pope bounced about, relishing that new shoe feeling, the assistant asked me for €159.
“Surely some mistake,” I thought again, and pointed to the €90 price tag on the shelf.
She shrugged and said that was for slightly smaller sizes. With my daughter testing out the boots’ waterproofing in a puddle by the door I’d no choice but to buy the Uggs.
Ugh, actually. But such Parisian rip-offs were left in the ha’penny place by the Metro meanies.
Now, I’ve used the Paris subway system many times and never with any difficulty, but for reasons that still confound me, it seemed trickier this time. On arrival, I’d bought passes that could be topped up, and paid a €2 deposit on each card, along with the fare. They didn’t work, and with no attendants to ask, I bought three more. All told, I spent the guts of €20.
We used the cards once and when I tried to use them on the second day, they didn’t seem to be working. I figured it was a system error, and seeing an open turnstile, seized my chance, ushering my family through so we could board a metro travelling two stops to Chatelet, near Notre Dame.
The Louvre was, as ever, overrun, but the stroll from the Place de la Concorde through the Jardin de Tuileries – where Dior were setting up for Jonathan Anderson’s spring-summer showcase – was a delight
As we left the station, we were met by 15 ticket inspectors and four transport police. Our tickets were scanned and declared invalid. I was asked for €140.
There was a frank and lengthy exchange of views which ended with me assuring the man robbing me that if he ever brought his family to Ireland and found himself similarly befuddled by our public transport system, we would not treat him as Paris was treating the Popes.
He shrugged and said, “But your country is small and this is Paris and we have just hosted the Olympics, so …”
I’ve never hated a man as much.
Apart from the wasted money and the driving rain, Paris was as beautiful as ever. Notre Dame has been fully restored as a glorious hymn to heavenly majesties.
The Shakespeare and Co coffee and pastries were gorgeous and the staff lovely – the queue for the bookshop was far too long. And while the Eiffel Tower was shrouded in heavy mist when we ascended, the absence of decent views had deterred all but the most optimistic tourists, so we got to the top in record time.
The Popes in Paris: ‘The Eiffel Tower was shrouded in heavy mist when we ascended it’
The Louvre was, as ever, overrun, but the stroll from the Place de la Concorde through the Jardin de Tuileries – where Dior were setting up for Jonathan Anderson’s spring-summer showcase – was a delight.
Le Marais was pleasant, and getting a table in the eternally lovely Chez Janou off Place des Vosges ahead of a bunch of queuing tourists made me feel just a little less displeased by Paris as I headed to the airport – for a disappointingly ordinary flight home.