Walk Faster, Live Longer

Here’s a link to a story in the Daily Telegraph which reported some recent research showing that a daily 'power walk' can halve heart attack and stroke risk. But only if you step up the pace to a proper stomp rather than a desultory stroll – although the latter is fine if you are honing your skills as a flaneur.  (Photograph: fascia of shoe shop in Santander)

Window Gazing in Paris

Being a flaneur isn’t primarily about shopping. But in Paris, spiritual home to the flaneur, shop windows are part of the backdrop, the stage set. Maybe it’s more about “window-gazing” rather than “window shopping.” Either way, here are some shop windows seen while wandering around Paris – including an Eiffel Tower made from bread  (Poilane, naturellement), a window full of plastics, a snail atop a sea of scary easter eggs, a weird arrangement of wigs and a couple of frocks for fashionistas. Not recommended: getting on a Velib in that red dress.

Outside the Box in Paris

Last week we took a spring break on Eurostar to Paris – for £55 return why wouldn’t you? Travelling by rail at 186mph has become so commonplace that the train crew don’t even bother to announce that the train is going at maximum speed any more, let alone telling you that you’re in the tunnel and will be under the English Channel (La Manche, if you prefer), for 20 minutes.  When you get to Paris, getting around is cheap and easy: the city is compact, there are plenty of buses, you are never more than 500 metres from a metro station, you can jump on a Velib hire bike if you want to (and wearing a bike helmet is rare). And Paris is the spiritual home of the flaneur.  Which doesn’t really translate, but essentially means a person who goes for an aimless wander along the boulevards: although, when doing so, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the traffic – there are very few trucks, but where cars are allowed, they move at breakneck speed, so it’s best not to get too existential.  Paris is geographically closer to London than many big British cities, but despite the occasional McDonalds and Starbucks, Paris is a whole lot still less homogenised than London – there are thousands of individual cafes, restaurants and shops, and a vitality to the streetscape that has been lost in many parts of the UK, including London.

Stroll On….

One of the things that happens sur le continent but mostly not in the UK is the afternoon stroll, the paseo, the passeggiata. In Spain, a paseo is a slow, idle, or leisurely walk or stroll, or the place where the strolling happens - a public place or path designed for walking, which can also be a promenade or a tree-lined thoroughfare. It’s derived from the Spanish pasear, to walk. In Italy, it’s la passeggiata, a gentle stroll through the main streets of the old town, usually in the pedestrian zones in the centro storico, the historic centre. The passeggiata or "little walk" happens between 5 and 7pm. But it doesn’t have to be on a sunny day - I’ve seen it in February in a Milan that was more cold and more foggy than London. So it’s not about the weather. France has its flaneurs, from the verb meaning "stroll." Being France, it has become associated with a philosophy, thanks to Baudelaire, who considered a flâneur to be "a person who walks the city in order to experience it". In England, we just don’t seem to have an equivalent. Except, maybe at the seaside. Not so much Nordic power walking, as a stroll along the prom, even a “Constitutional.” It’s not quite a daily ritual, more a phenomenon of High Days and Holidays, of which we have just had a few. On Easter Monday, the sun shone, the waves rolled in. And le tout Hove strolled, walked, and flaneured its way along the prom. Not quite le continent, but not far off…..