French Letter: To see the real Paris, take the number 95 bus

The Paris Métro is a fabled institution, and rightly so. Its 304 stations (32 more than the London Tube) are bright and clean. The trains, some old, some new, arrive on time and get you where you want to go with a minimum of fuss. My one serious criticism, apart from the inevitable overcrowding during peak hours, is that there are too many stairs and not enough escalators. 

But — and I shouldn’t be telling you this — the buses are even better. For just €1.90 (about £1.60), a bus ride will give you a real feel for the city and a chance to meet its inhabitants at close quarters as they pursue their everyday lives. 

My favourite is the number 95, which winds its way from the Porte de Montmartre in the north to the Porte de Vanves in the south, just inside the Périphérique, where le vieux Paris gives way to the anonymity of the banlieues. 

Our stop is Damrémont-Caulaincourt, right next to the cemetery of Montmartre, resting-place of more than 20,000 one-time Parisians, including Émile Zola, Hector Berlioz, Edgar Degas and — most famously in the city’s memory — the actress and singer Iolanda Dalida, whose voice and beauty helped reawaken France after the dark years of the Occupation. 

But the 95 is a busy bus and soon we are down the hill and in the Place de Clichy, midway between the faded allure of Pigalle and the rapidly-upcoming Batignolles district. Here, facing the traffic’s onslaught, is Le Petit Poucet, a bar-brasserie that while in no way out of the ordinary is a place where we frequently meet our friends.

Not far away, up the nearby Rue de Clichy, is the Paris home, behind double doors, of the singer Nolwenn Leroy, for whom my son produced an album in 2017 that earned him a gold disc for which, five years on, he still awaits delivery. 

We turn sharp left here, down the Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, which brings us, by way of the Place de l’Europe, to the Gare Saint-Lazare, the city’s busiest commuter station, thence, via Boulevard Haussmann, with its side-on view of the Galeries Lafayette, to the Opéra, an institution so famous that I have yet to set foot in it. 

All the while, Parisians — not so many tourists — will be getting on and off the bus, polite for the most part and observant of the protocols that decide who has priority when it comes to sitting on which seat. In the old days, the list included not just the elderly and pregnant women, but mutilés de guerre.

The last-named group looks to have disappeared, but there remains a reduced tariff for grands invalides de guerre. Whether veterans have to produce evidence of their war wounds when they board is not clear, but I can well imagine standoffs between widows of a certain age, leaning on their walking sticks, and any man claiming without proof to have taken a bullet for la Patrie. 

After the Opera, just off the Place André Malraux, comes the Comedie Française, founded in 1680 by Louis XIV in honour of Molière, whose principal actors to this day are guaranteed a state pension after twenty years of service. This summer’s offerings include L’Avare (The Miser), Tartuffe and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Laugh if you can. 

The Louvre is next. The bus enters the massive museum complex through an archway so narrow that you think the driver won’t make it. But (as far as I know) they always do. We halt between the Arc de Triomphe — not that one! — and the famous glass Pyramid surrounding which thousands of students paw the earth as they wait to take their selfie with the Mona Lisa. I am reminded of a herd of restive wildebeest waiting in the Serengeti to begin their annual migration to greener pastures. 

From the Louvre, we head out, via Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Deux Magots and the Café Flore (the latter two a little sad these days — the glory has departed), to the Rue de Rennes, which brings us (finally in our case) to the Gare Montparnasse, dominated by the 210-metre tall Tour Montparnasse and the station building itself, each as ugly as the other. 

This is where we get off to catch our train to Brittany, though I urge you to continue, past the Institut Pasteur and the sprawling Parc Georges-Brassens, all the way to the Porte de Vanves, a tram terminus and home of one of Paris’s most celebrated flea markets (marchés aux puces), open every weekend from dawn to dusk. 

One last secret before we step down and thank our driver. The area immediately surrounding the station at Montparnasse is pretty ghastly. But one jewel does stand out: the Café Jeannette, number 8 Boulevard de Vaugirard (off Place Bienvenue), less than a minute from the bus stop, with its cheerful white and yellow awning and a profusion of flowers.

It’s service with a smile in the Café Jeanette, with prices to match — and you don’t get that every day. Ding-ding!