Apologies for the late post but I decided to take the advice of many on this blog and catch my breath. After one attempt at sight-seeing Eiffel Tower Coco and I retreated out of the rain and cold, and did nothing over Easter but eat macarons and sleep. Ironically, having now missed a week, I feel far more relaxed about it — my first project ran over time so this one is bound to as well. Having last explored the neighbourhood around Faubourg Saint Denis, I thought it would be interesting to follow up with another Saint Denis.
Same saint, different address. Very different in fact. Because Saint Denis is one of the much maligned Northern suburbs — banlieues — of Paris. Not quite riot territory but not far from it. I expected that people would warn me off it and they did. Pickpocketed maybe but not knifed. Because in the midst of all the apparent horror lies the beautiful Basilica of Saint Denis. You see a few adventurous souls hop off the metro and make a beeline directly to the church before scuttling back, warnings not to dally no doubt ringing in their ears.
The Basilica is lovely but what impressed me more was the general environment around it. Instead I found a generous town square with a beautiful mairie town hall on one side, the Basilica on another and a handful of charming cafes facing both. On the days I visited that were sunny, older kids raced around the square, on foot or bike, while little ones whizzed around on an amusement ride.
Twice I found markets nearby the square, general and flea, the latter complete with wonderful old books. This was more South of France than scary suburb, and far from feeling uptight, I felt my shoulders drop. After weeks of intense Paris, here was space to breath. My initial impression of Saint Denis as somewhere thoroughly pleasant was also helped by the fact that the first people I met were a delightfully rambunctious group of school kids on an outing to see the Basilica.
Although they were from the Stalingrad area in Paris, their teachers told me they had similar backgrounds to kids in Saint Denis, and as a result were sometimes challenging but never boring. I say braved because this of all the areas I explored was the one the locals told me to avoid. La vie ordinaire. It was all in French but from what I could understand, things had improved but they were still far from rosy.
