Tonight we are going to drink by the canal,” said Robert, and I pictured us dancing with rats under a slimy bridge. This fantasy included Robert, a university student here in Paris, and James, an American whiling away some post-collegiate years on the continent, playing instruments we don’t play (fiddles, jaw harps) and singing folk songs we don’t know (e.g., “The Colonel Likes a Spanking” and “When the Regiment Gets Some Rum”). I mean, who makes a rendez-vous to drink at an artificial water duct? Couldn’t we pick a bar? This is Paris, after all.
But it turns out that for anyone in Paris between now and the fall, Canal St. Martin is a magical place to drink. I should specify where along the waterway we were, since the canal, which links two large reservoirs, is about three miles long and runs partly underground, and nobody wants to throw back a beer in a sealed tunnel under the traffic circle at Place de La Bastille. The canal re-emerges in the 10th arrondissement, flanked by large sidewalks that attract picnics and joggers during the day. This re-emergence conveniently occurs right by Le Verre Volé (67, Rue de Lancry), an affordable eight-table bistro cluttered with shelves and shelves of wine bottles reaching all the way to the ceiling. So the strategy is to pop into the restaurant and ogle the food (terrine de campagne, marinated sardines, sautéed veal) as Cyril, the owner, goes into the cellar, gets a chilly ten-Euro bottle of Chablis and uncorks it. Then you take your wine out to the banks of the canal and join what amounts to a half-mile-long party.
Some revelers get drunk (especially by ten or eleven) and some don’t, but for a public party, the scene is remarkably un-seedy, especially in the early hours, around sunset. When I was there the other evening, a pair of German photographers alternately sipped Heinekens and chatted about their work (not drunk). I told a French man I loved his Rottweiler puppy and he said “moi aussi” and then French kissed it (drunk). Either way, it’s a place where the expectation is that you’ll find friends. Those not interested in practicing foreign languages or meeting dedicated pet owners can roost on a bench, take in the night air, and wait for someone to undress and dive into the soupy canal, which sets both banks cheering.
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