Paris, the City of Cars
We recently spent a few days in Paris again. The weather was warm, like late summer, and the city was heavenly. Of course, I kept an eye on the traffic. After all, there's been a lot written in the press about Paris being partially car-free. In fact, car traffic has been curtailed, many lanes have been reallocated to bicycles, and the pace of life in the city center has slowed down.
But this by no means means that there are no longer any cars driving in central Paris. If you sit down in the evening at the restaurant “Le Départ” near Place St. Michel, the traffic certainly looks just like it used to. There's a constant bustle, and a sense of hectic activity takes hold. Cyclists do indeed enjoy many privileges, but they haven't quite figured out how to handle their new freedom yet and continue to run red lights and ignore pedestrians who have the right of way.
Still, traffic flows, even if it's probably more of a hassle today to drive into the city center and reach your destination. A high-speed ride to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, as seen in the film “C'était un Rendez-Vous,” would hardly be possible today, even early in the morning—there are simply too many closed streets, and the streets have become even narrower.
But despite all the doomsday predictions, old cars are still around in Paris. We, for one, spotted several Citroën 2 CVs, which these days apparently serve to transport tourists through the city in a typically French way.
We also spotted the occasional first-generation Renault Twingo, some of which were a bit battered from use.
A Citroën ZX drove past us over a picturesque bridge. We saw a Saab convertible parked by the roadside. A Porsche 924 was also doing its rounds.
And as a little highlight, we found an Autobianchi Bianchina convertible parked on a small neighborhood street.
The real highlight, however, came when, as we sat at an outdoor café almost in the middle of Avenue Charles de Gaulle, a dark Ferrari 250 GT California Spider roared past us. We almost thought we spotted Alain Delon and Jane Fonda inside, but the Spider was black, not dark blue. And, of course, Alain Delon has been dead for two years now. Unfortunately, I was too slow to snap a photo of that as well.
Finally, a Peugeot 104 proved that, thanks to its light weight and an alert driver, it could easily outrun everyone else when the light turned green (see also the photo above) ….
