KEY POINTS:
"You don't really like us, do you?" said the perfectly agreeable host from Maison de la France.
Wow, that's some introduction, I thought, wondering what had sparked this bizarre inquisition.
I looked down at my plate for clues. Instead of fillet mignon covered in a rich jus there were a few sad looking courgettes. Perhaps he saw my part-time vegetarianism as a slight against his country. After all, non-meat eaters are viewed with the same suspicion as corporate lawyers.
Just as I was about to fall into a lengthy and largely apologetic spiel as to why I wasn't consuming a large slab of cow, he elaborated. "The bombing."
Ah, the Rainbow Warrior, Mururoa Atoll.
Time for a bit of pocket-book diplomacy.
"Well, I think all grievances have been..." I was about to say when he came in with the scene stealer.
"But we love the All Blacks."
Oh yeah, we'll see. A France-New Zealand World Cup final later in the year seems to be written in the stars. Only then will we see how many French truly love the All Blacks should they line up against Les Bleus on the hallowed turf of Stade de France in Saint Denis, just one stop north of central Paris on their frighteningly efficient public transport system (Aucklanders, take note).
My suspicion is the love-fest will cease, unlike the delights of this city which are, like Rome's, eternal.
This slightly discomfiting dialogue took place on a Bateaux Parisiens cruise boat. We 20-odd scribblers from countries dotted around the rugby playing world - Welsh, Irish, Scots, Australians, Italians and even the bloody English! - are on the briefest of tours of the city.
In 48 hours you can't begin to scratch the surface of this city but a cruise down the Seine is a good way to get itching.
Duck foie gras, was followed by pan-fried beef (in my case, said courgettes), a cheese platter and a raspberry coulis-filled chocolate melt. The ridiculously drinkable red wine - Chateau Le Brule Medoc - that accompanied the meal ('complemented' by a white almost as ridiculously undrinkable) rendered a few of the group unable to fully appreciate the lifeblood of Paris that is the Seine, and the remarkable monuments to Paris' history that line its shores.
Les Invalides, L'Assemblee Nationale, Le Musee d'Orsay, L'Institut de France, Notre Dame and La Bibliotheque Nationale all showed themselves in a nice light while we floated upstream.
La Concierge reared up as we turned downstream. This is where Marie Antoinette was held until her death, a class above the death rows of today's prisons. The wife of Louis XVI knew her number was up in the most horrific way when her best friend Princesse de Lamballe's severed head was impaled on a pike and displayed outside her window. The consort's heart was apparently shattered so badly the guillotine was blessed relief.
Le Louvre followed, now somewhat tainted in my eyes by the travesty that was the Da Vinci Code, La Place de la Concorde, the palaces grand and petit, Le Palais de Chaillot, Le Statue de la Liberte and finally, an incandescent La Tour Eiffel.
The Eiffel Tower, in daylight, is an even more impressive structure, the sheer absurdity of it makes it all the more endearing.
Built for a world fair in 1889, and more importantly as a piece of one-upmanship on London and its doomed Crystal Palace, the 324m tower was only meant to stand for 20 years when its lease would expire and the City would tear it down. However it found a use, as a communications tower, and its future was assured.
It is reputedly the most visited monument in the world, so expect long queues for the lifts. This might be the best piece of advice - possibly only advice - you'll get in this article: buy yourself a couple of fromage-tomate baguettes, a big bottle of l'eau minerale, get there early and don't give up. The views from the top are gobsmacking, from La Defense out west to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur in the north and Notre Dame to the east.
Just south of that baroque cathedral made famous by Victor Hugo's protuberant bellringer Quasimodo, is Paris' chic St Germain district, which butts up against the bohemian Latin Quarter to the east and the artistic community of Montparnasse to the south. This is Paris' famed Left Bank where artists and thinkers like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald came to, well, paint and think... and drink.
Go to bars, cafes and restaurants - Cafe de Flore, Les Deux Magots, Whisky A Go-go - around the Latin Quarter and know that Jim Morrison was there before you, taking impossibly long drags on his cigarettes, writing rubbish poetry (and songs) and drinking and drugging himself into a vacant lot at Pere Lachaise where he shares his resting place with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Chopin and Edith Piaf.
I mention Morrison ahead of other, more talented, denizens of the said cemetery only because his grave has the dubious honour of being the fourth-most visited tourist attraction in Paris behind the Notre Dame, the Pompidou Centre and the Eiffel Tower.
That tourists would consider a headstone as a more worthwhile totem than the Arc de Triomphe, or any number of historic buildings, is beyond comprehension. Why go to Paris and sit with the dead when the city is so alive?
Nowhere was that more evident than at the rugby that afternoon, attended following a whistlestop trip around the new Musee du Quai Branly and a quick lunch at L'Atelier Renault, a high-tech restaurant on the Champs Elysee where Renault show off a Replica Formula One car and their latest electronic incarnations.
France needed to beat the Scots handsomely to capture the Six Nations crown. You'd expect a nervy type of frisson at such an occasion, but on the concourses leading to the Stade de France it was like New Year's Eve without the drunks. It was a magnificent occasion. But one that will surely be topped on October 20.
- Extra
Need to know
France for the World Cup:
There are still opportunities to get a slice of Rugby World Cup action and experience Paris. Packages are available from GO Holidays from $10,359 for a 14-day 'base tour' including return airfares from NZ to Paris, nine nights 3-star share twin/double accommodation in central Paris, breakfasts and coach transfers to and from the semi-finals, play-off and final, plus selected World Cup functions. Price does not include match tickets (approx $1500-$3500) or airline taxes. Call 0508 GO SPORT or book through your travel agent.
Dylan Cleaver travelled as a guest of French Tourist Bureau.
www.franceguide.com
