"There are many reasons why Paris is beautiful, but most people can't put their finger on them until they're pointed out," says APT tour guide Flavia as our coach trundles along Quai Branly. "For example, there are no telegraph wires, and practically every car is silver, grey or black. Even our traffic is chic!"
I tear my eyes away from the looming Eiffel Tower (denounced by an 1880s critic as "this truly tragic street lamp") and squint up the road, where indeed there aren't any bright-coloured cars. I've been to Paris a half-dozen times, and only now noticed.
"And all the perspectives, of course," Flavia says. "You see right here: the military academy is 18th century, the Eiffel Tower 19th, and across the river that palace is 20th century. But all in a straight line! Oh, it's a gift every day to be a guide in Paris."
I feel lucky too, since good guides who open your eyes to new ways of seeing things are rare as Sahara snow. I store away Flavia's nuggets of information like a squirrel with prized hazelnuts, to chew them over later. Such passing comments, yet I feel I'll never look at Paris in quite the same way again.
I'm fortune enough on this APT cruise to encounter Flavia twice and the equally marvellous – but utterly different – Lexy three times. Lexy is a firecracker American, surely past retirement age, who came to France as a student and married a Frenchman. She's a pint-size Dame Edna, catty comments diluted by a twinkling eye. "Versailles," she scoffs. "Such a snobbish town. The sort of place residents visit their shrink to find out what the neighbours are up to."
Quite a bit of my Seine River cruise is seen through the eyes of Flavia and Lexy, which makes it especially memorable. It also makes me think about how, when we travel, we translate our experiences through the eyes of others who've gone before. This is certainly true on the Seine, which provides uncanny deja-vu feelings thanks to its depictions in art and cinema. Over the coming week, its scenery echoes in my mind. In Paris, moody city-centre quays, deep in shadow with monument lights twinkling above, have a cinematographic quality. Later, beyond the city, the Seine becomes soft and grey. Trees shimmer, clouds scud, cows knee-deep in water provide wobbling reflections. Cruising the Seine River is like sailing through an Impressionist canvas.
Our first port of call, Vernon, is only 75 kilometres out of Paris, but our ship AmaLegro hairpins around the river's lazy loops. I listen to an afternoon lecture on French culture in the lounge and watch a live slide show beyond the windows: a tower-topped town with poplar-lined promenades, a villa of provincial smugness from a Flaubert novel, swans honking under willow trees. Near Vernon, the Seine's riverbanks ruck into the white limestone cliffs that once supplied building material for the region's pale churches and chateaux.
"You see the silvery light here? That's what the painters came for," Lexy says as we set off next morning across the river to Giverny. Claude Monet lived here in a pink house with green shutters, dug himself some lily ponds, planted a riotous flower garden and daubed it all onto canvas. He saw his garden through the eyes of the Japanese water-colourists who inspired him; now it's impossible not to see Giverny through the eyes of the Impressionist painter whose works have become a staple of tea towels and student posters. In truth, there's nothing remarkable about Monet's garden as a garden but, as the inspiration for such well-known art, it provides me a curious thrill. I see pictures in the way the sun shines through the apple trees, in the poppy-filled borders, in the artist's studio with its oriental carpets and faded chaise longue.
It's hard here on the Seine just to appreciate things as they are, because someone else has always gone before and told you how to look at them. Not that this is a bad thing, because the whole length of the compact Seine River is crammed with historical and cultural icons that fill the ragbag of the western imagination. The Normandy countryside, with its blur of willow trees, thatched cottages and sunflower blobs, hangs on the walls of museums and kitchens everywhere – not to mention on the walls of my cruise ship AmaLegro. Big, round bales of hay are an Impressionist icon in three dimensions.
"The hay is rolled here, the cows complain they never get a square meal," Lexy jokes before a little discourse on Monet's haystack paintings and their slanting use of light.
Three days after Giverny, we're at the mouth of the Seine where it meets the English Channel at Honfleur. Monet, Sisley and Corot captured the old port in paint and turned the fishing town into one of France's most-visited destinations. It's a wonder it took so long to see the world the Impressionist way. Clouds shift in the soft Normandy sky, creating shadows and impasto scenes, and bold-coloured houses ripple in harbour water.
My half-day in Honfleur is a memory of a wooden church ceiling like an overturned ship; the seagull chatter of tourists in harbour-front restaurants; art students with sketchbooks; oozing eclairs in bakeries. When Lexy turns us loose I'm content just to wander around. Sometimes travel doesn't have to be about the wow factor. Honfleur is a modest place but, as I return to AmaLegro mighty content, I can't help thinking it's provided one of life's most pleasant afternoons.
In Rouen our guide is long-term English resident Miranda. She shows us World War II shrapnel still embedded in the medieval courthouse, and tells us how the French blew up Rouen's bridges as the Germans advanced. "The bang was bigger than they thought, and cobblestones landed right in the middle of town in the archbishop's garden," she says with some glee. Inside the cathedral, a photo exhibit on Allied bombing shows the havoc caused to the medieval building.
Monet was here too. He painted the cathedral's broad, saint-sprinkled facade 43 times, setting up his easel in the changing room of a lingerie store across the square, though a screen at his back prevented inadvertent glimpses of wobbling flesh. However, it's Joan of Arc's name that peppers Rouen: a tower, school, deli, museum, cafe, wine shop and estate agency are named for the fanatical cross-dressing warrior-heroine. She saved France from invasion but was burned at the stake in Rouen by the English in 1431 at the age of 19. A cross marks the spot. Beside it stands a hideous carbuncle of a church – '70s architecture has much to answer for – redeemed inside by its gorgeous walls of relocated, Renaissance-era stained glass.
I like Rouen. It's unlauded only because Europe is so full of such charming small cities, groaning with history, gargoyles and bakeries. Fortunately, it's 600-year-old streets aren't quite pretty enough to have turned the old town into a theme park. Instead, locals continue to shop, drink, and harden their arteries on Rouen duck served in a sauce of butter, foie gras and cognac. Given short cruising times on the Seine, we're here longer than might be the case in ports on other rivers, providing plenty of time – and an evening – to enjoy its pleasures.
By week's end we're heading back upstream towards Paris. We stop at Les Andelys, a sleepy village on a grand bend in the river. On a bluff above stands Chateau Gaillard, 12th-century stronghold of Richard the Lionheart, the ruins of which provide one of river cruising's best views. The walk works up my appetite for the buffet lunch on board as we sail onwards: escargots, lamb shanks, creamy Normandy chicken, mussels cooked in cider. Beyond the windows, swans paddle, and all's right with my little world.
TRIP NOTES
MORE INFORMATION
GETTING THERE
Emirates flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Dubai with onward connections to Paris. Phone 1300 303 777, see emirates.com/au.
CRUISING THERE
APT's eight-day Romantic Seine cruise, round trip from Paris, is priced from $4695 per person, twin share, including all meals, complimentary beverages, sightseeing, transfers, port charges and tipping. The 2016 itinerary may differ slightly from the one described in this article. Phone 1300 196 420, see aptouring.com.au.
STAYING THERE
Extend your stay at Hotel Daniel just off the Champs-Elysees, where you'll find fabulous oriental decor and a great sense of cosiness. Phone 1300 121 341, see relaischateaux.com/danielparis.
Brian Johnston travelled as a guest of APT.
MORE EXCURSION HIGHLIGHTS
Paris, the medieval city-centre of Rouen, Monet's gardens at Giverny and the seaport of Honfleur are highlights of APT's Seine River cruise. But here are four other great experiences.
THE SHOW
A meal and show at the Moulin Rouge in Paris is a highly entertaining evening of high-kicking cancan girls, magicians and sequined dancers that will have your head in a whirl.
THE VIEW
An ascent to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, the best level from which to photograph Paris. Look out for the electronic panel that announces how many visitors have visited the Eiffel Tower since its inauguration (more than 250 million).
THE FOOD
Sampling gourmet cheese and apple cider at a calvados distillery in the rolling agricultural Pays d'Auge region of Normandy, from which Camembert cheese originates.
THE MEMORIAL
An optional (but complimentary) visit to the site of the Battle of the Somme, as well as the Australian National Memorial and Franco-Australian Museum in Villers-Bretonneux.
