Lofty comes to Paris
Lofty (aka Craig) is visiting Paris for an international horse racing meeting. He was keen to get out and breathe some fresh air, rather than being locked up in some fancy museum.
So I took him to the Bois de Boulogne (“Boulogne woodland”), a large public park in the western half of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburbs of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. I know the Bois very well, because it is located just behind the OECD where I worked for some 22 years. In my younger and fitter days, I used to go jogging in the Bois.
The Bois is the second-largest park in Paris, slightly smaller than the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern side of the city. It covers an area of 845 hectares, which is about two and a half times the area of New York’s Central Park.
The Bois de Boulogne has a grand history. It is a remnant of the ancient oak forest of Rouvray, which included the present-day forests of Montmorency, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Chaville, and Meudon.
Dagobert I hunted bears, deer, and other game in the forest. His grandson, Childeric II, gave the forest to the monks of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, who founded several monastic communities there. Philip Augustus bought back the main part of the forest from the monks to create a royal hunting reserve. In 1256, Isabelle de France, sister of Saint-Louis, founded the Abbey of Longchamp at the site of the present hippodrome.
More recently, the land was ceded to the city of Paris by the Emperor Napoleon III to be turned into a public park in 1852. Napoleon III was personally involved in the planning and insisted that the Bois de Boulogne should have a stream and lakes. Thus Lakes Superior and Inferior were dug out in 1852/3.
From 1952 until 1986, the Duke of Windsor, the title granted to King Edward VIII after his abdication, and his wife, Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, lived in the Villa Windsor, a house in the Bois de Boulogne behind the garden of the Bagatelle. The Duke died in this house in 1972, and the Duchess died there in 1986.
Villa Windsor is also tinged with sadness. Its lease from the City of Paris was purchased by Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The house was visited briefly by Diana, Princess of Wales and her companion, Dodi Fayed, on 31 August 1997, the day that they died in a traffic accident in the Alma tunnel.
Today, the Bois has too many attractions to list. But one of the best for casual travellers is the Chalet des Iles, which sits on one of the islands of Lake Inferior. So our first port of call was the Chalet.
The Chalet des Iles is quite simply one of the most charming restaurants in Paris — surrounded by beautiful nature, and with its wonderful architecture. Moreover, the cuisine is actually quite delicious and also good value.
After the lovely meal, a little gallop was certainly called for. So we had a lovely walk through the Bois up to Porte Maillot. But we were not the only ones. The Bois is one of the lungs of Paris, and attracts many walkers, joggers and horse riders.
If you follow my advice and go to the Bois, you should also go to the Louis Vuitton Foundation museum, which is located in the Bois. It was opened in October 2014, with the building designed by architect Frank Gehry.
And if you ever have a chance to visit the OECD, you will notice that the Secretary-General’s office is located in the “Château de la Muette” – which in reality is a former hunting lodge, dating back to the Bois’s hunting days.