How to navigate Paris with two baby strollers

Part I

February 10, 2001

Paris might be the greatest city in the world to live in with an infant baby. There are countless distractions, diversions, and directions in which to take your child. The city is easily walkable with each district displaying it's own sense of character. The cafés and bistros are bright and lively, the Parisians full of life. A twenty pound bundle of joy for her parents is easy to transport across this cultural paradise assuming that you have the correct stroller.

The French love to see a happy baby. A baby who does not cry is "sage", a strong baby is "costo". In the morning when I go across the street for the breakfast pain au chocolat her smile is "très souriante". In restaurants she is our ambassador, leading the way to great service when the staff comprehends that she is happy to be there and is going to behave herself (and usually reward them with coos and sweet chuckles).

When we visited Paris with the idea that we would move here we brought our baby in her papoose. We were on our way to the States and we could not be weighed down with a lot of heavy hardware. We were encouraged to see Parisian mothers pushing around 3-wheeled "jogger" strollers like we had back home in Geneva (where the sidewalks are wide and the pedestrians few). So we happily went on our way and kept our 3 month old close to us and brought her wherever we went.

A few weeks ago we arrived back in Paris with our now 8 month old daughter, an apartment address, and a car load full of our belongings. We were about to start our new family life in the city of lights. We are staying in the very centrally located 3rd arrondissment, the north part of the Marais. One nice thing about the location is the ease of getting around. My wife was able to take a non-stop route on a handicapped access bus from Gare de Lyon directly to the apartment. Of course the third floor of a "walk-up" apartment (read no elevator) was a small inconvenience.

We unpacked our belongings, including a car seat, a bouncy chair which was to serve as her eating chair, quilts, toys, books, and our very own three-wheeled jogger stroller outfitted in its stroller mode (we had used the baby carriage configuration for several months). Getting the stroller up and down the narrow stairs of the apartment was a small feat that at the least made up for my lapse of subscription at the gym.

Happy to be finally here in the city of our dreams we set off to find the best that the city had to offer in culinary delights. Only a few stairs later we were seated in the popular Alsacian Brasserie chez Jenny. We were fortunate that they were able to find us a table with extra room at the end (a small feat for a restaurant where everyone is seated elbow-to-elbow in two long rows). We were back out on the streets the next day and the next week looking for good places to rent a permanent apartment during our stay. We even used the bus from Gare de Lyon a few times to save time.

It soon came to light that although our "costo" stroller was great at navigating the sometime irregular sidewalks and streets of Paris, it was not going to fold up and fit under our arm for trips through the other French national institution - the Paris metro. Even if you can get it into the metro, the knobs on the outside of the wheels are just wide enough to prevent a graceful exit. In fact, we had already been stuck in the Paris RER with the same stroller. We only got out when a nice French traveller manually jammed open the gates. Not taking any chances this time we were sticking to the surface routes. However, we were soon in need of metro mobility. I actually tried to walk back solo to our apartment from the south side of the 14th district (15 metro stops) just for fun. After 3 hours of wrong turns and distractions I had made it back to the Seine, halfway across the city. I was close to home but I took the metro the last few stops because my feet were aching.

The first weekend in town we headed out to the largest store in town, Gallery Lafayette on Rue de Rivoli. This is Paris, right? If they don't have it then it doesn't exist. The weather hadn't been cooperating with us for the entire first week in the city. OK, we arrived at the end of January…what could we expect? Today it was raining and Dad was getting a little wet pushing the stroller during the 20 minute walk down to the Grands Boulevards along the Seine. Nathalie of course was happy as a clam in her rain-protected transportation-device. At the store, feeling a little dog-eared, we headed for the floor that corresponds to the children's-wear section. Arriving the floor we demanded (for that is what you do in French, demander) where the strollers were to be found. After winding through an impressive array of designer childrens clothes (all marked down for clearance at the end of the 6 month buying season, in case we cared to splurge) we were presented with an obstacle course of stairs - on the kids level? yes. Remember that this store takes up an entire city block. Up and down and we landed in the mind-bogglingly petite section of the magasin entitled "for those of you so practical as to need these things, here are a couple of token travel beds and strollers, but only the best and since we have already made the choice for you we will not give you any help". Needless to say we did not find exactly what we were looking for. Too heavy, too expensive, no choice, - next store please.

Not the type of couple to be discouraged by our first defeat, we headed for the more down-to-earth store across the street called le Printemps. We figured that the lack of lightweight strollers at Lafayette could have been attributed to the fact that the winter line was still in the store and the new models had not yet arrived. One of peculiarities of le Printemps is that you have an elevator attendant who operates the lift for you. I guess the French have demonstrated their lack of ability to close the double doors on the antiquated elevator a few too many times. We had to traverse the sports section, take the elevator, skirt an ongoing installation of new fashion, survive the 3rd floor vapor lock connecting the two of the buildings (momentarily stuck between the two doors) in order to arrive at the slightly larger infant paraphernalia section. Similar selection: no motivation to make a purchase.

This time however we thought we had an ace in the hole in that we had confirmed that there was a cafe on this floor. Not only a cafe but a filial of the prosperous albeit ubiquitous Flo Brasserie. It was called le Petit Flo and it was where we were going to rest after our great purchase, feed out infant and kick up our heels. It turned out to be a round disk of a cafe where we licked our wounds of not finding what we wanted, accompanied with the smell of the smoke of all the employees who came to this convenient bar apparently for the sole purpose of smoking as many cigarettes as possible in five minutes. The non-smoking section did not have the view. Our chances of finding a stroller today were fading with the pale winter light.