The Frequent Flier

A Week in the Paris

Publisher Christine Cunanan takes a historic walk through the City of Lights, revisiting old haunts and musing about --what else?-- love and death, with a little bit of comedy thrown in.

I was in Paris exactly one year ago. Initially, I planned to spend a week walking through favorite neighborhoods and frequenting the usual 6th and 7th Arrondissement bakeries and brasseries that are an integral part of my bi-annual visits. However, at the very last minute, while in Greece on the eve of my flight to Paris, I decided to ask two friends along on a whim. I had a two-bedroom suite at the Lancaster Hotel, a small but lovely boutique hotel off the Champs Elysees -- the perfect setup for a girls' week in Paris.

Not too many people I know are willing to fly halfway around the world on -- literally -- a moment's -- moment's notice, but I had just the ladies in mind.

I met Sonya and Deedee four years ago on a Silversea cruise ship that sailed the Black Sea from Istanbul to the Ukraine. It was the most exotic setting for a long-distance friendship with two conservative women from Florida, generations and continents apart from myself, but equally passionate about travel and curious about the world. Travel was their life, fellow nomads became their friends and their exciting lives enriched their equally stimulating travels. My husband and I dined al fresco with Sonya and her husband Jim at a fancy dress party right on the harbor of the beautiful city of Odessa. Meanwhile, Deedee struck up a conversation with us on the bus as we bobbed up and down a country road from the old Russian naval base of Sevastopol to a sixth-century mountain monastery, thereby starting a long-term, long-distance friendship.

Fast-track to September 2006, and an e-mail I typed out on my Mac on a beach outside Athens, inviting them to come stay with me in the City of Lights. Unfortunately, Deedee had a wedding to attend, but Sonya was enthusiastic. With the incredible efficiency of a multimillion-mile traveler, she arranged her overnight transcontinental flight within hours, and before I knew it she was in Paris, the morning after my own arrival, impeccably dressed in cashmere and pearls like a genteel countess, and ready for adventure.

Being fanatic history buffs with a crazy penchant for strange details, we ended up walking our shoes off in the footsteps of some of history’s famously tragic heroines. We trooped to Versailles to see the newly restored Hameau de Marie Antoinette, the doomed queen’s private playground of charming farmhouses and lakes. At a corner of the tree-lined Avenue Mandel in the 16th Arrondissement, we gazed up at the second-floor bay windows of Maria Callas’ former apartment and imagined her singing a lonely aria there
after learning that Aristotle Onassis, the love of her life, had married Jackie Kennedy. We then walked through the Bois de Boulogne, Paris’ version of Central Park, looking for someone who could point the way to the villa of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that also gained fame as one of the last places Princess Diana visited before she died. We asked several joggers and picnickers but no one knew or cared. Finally, we found a elderly gentleman with two Labradors who, upon learning of our quest, kindly drove us in his tiny Peugeot right to the front gates. The sparse neighborhood of private estates was surrounded by heavy woods.

“At least we got to see it from outside,” I said to Sonya, congratulating myself on having even found the reclusive villa at all. We had asked the concierge of several deluxe hotels in Paris, and no one had been able to give us concrete directions. The property was surrounded by forbidding hedges and electronic surveillance cameras, but we could still make out the mansion’s turrets from across the road.

“Outside? We’re going to try to get in, of course,” Sonya said, matter-of-factly. She then proceeded to ring the bell like an invited guest. Almost immediately, the heavy black gates slowly opened to reveal a long
gravel driveway leading to the main house. “It can’t be this easy,” I said, shocked and uneasy, as Sonya gleefully led the way into Dodi and Diana’s last sanctuary. “What did the Bible say? Ask and you shall receive?” Sonya said reprovingly. We had only ventured a few meters inside when a gardening truck drove out, and on its heels came a heavyset security man who looked like he could shove two ladies away with his pinky finger. For a moment, we thought the gates had opened for us. “You can’t come in here,” he said, unsmiling and firm. “Oh, can’t we take a look, even just for a minute?” Sonya pleaded. “We’ve come all this way and we just want to take a minute to see the house.” She gave him her best “Vote for George
Bush” smile.

The man shook his head. “Impossible,” he sighed. “No one is allowed to see the house and, believe me, so many people have tried. The last pair even tried to jump onto the grounds from the top of a garbage truck.”

“Would a garbage truck really be high enough for that?” Sonya asked earnestly. I knew her next plan of action but I was already thinking of dinner. It took all my persuasiveness—and only with great reluctance—did Sonya agree to leave the woods and we returned to reality.