“When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” – Oscar Wilde
Paris is a theme park for adults …and cute kids and dogs.
A celebration of monumental civic beauty, communal spirit, and of life.
Dedicated to lovers, anarchists, epicures, glacial bureaucrats, artists, proud Gaelic traditions, revolutionaries, cheese-mongers, existentialists, temperamental waiters, socialists, exiles, aggressive motorcyclists, colorful immigrants, and overwhelmed tourists.
Conveyances of this fantasy-land include tree-lined boulevards, arched bridges, gothic churches, shimmering rivers, towering architecture, exquisite storefronts, lazy cafes, random transit strikes, and lavish, abundant museums.
Sunday is most illustrative to tell our experience. (May, a “month of Sundays” celebrates three bank holidays, as well as 2 week-ends in the 17 days we spend as wide-eyed residents):
Sounds in the night: rain dripping from roofs and down medieval gutters is reassuring prelude to the Sabbath. Is the City of Light also engineered for sound?
We awaken to a chorus of bells from postcard cathedrals competing for worship. We are blessed. Our elegant 7th floor pied-a-terre overlooks the Seine, just downstream from Notre Dame. Oddly, the sound of persistent emergency sirens seems harmonically tuned to the tolling.
This Sunday, Paris blearily awakens to heavenly light that paints the capital.
We set out without clear plans, yet trust the “as and when” premise that guides most of wanderings. Our first stop is Café Le Bonaparte in Saint Germaine de Pres for obligatory caffe crème.
Sitting contently, we take in promenades of citizens who seemingly perfected the art of doing nothing, with great élan. Most everyone smokes. We joke that Paris is where New Yorkers come to get their nicotine buzz.
“Monsieur, another caffe crème, s’il vous plait!”
Strolling through La Rive Gauche, we are drawn to the lush enclosure of Jardin du Luxembourg –“the lungs of Paris”. Napoléon dedicated 23 gracefully laid-out hectares to the children of Paris. Residents are occupied in sundry forms of diversion under warming sun and shaded reclines. We sit enthralled for 2 hours near a covered rotunda, watching gathered families enjoy a brass “oom-pah” band, killing it with polkas and kid’s favorites.
Remembering a more formal concert to be performed nearby, we set off to locate stunning, yet hidden, Eglise Notre-Dame-du-Val-de-Grace, and a concert by a surprising string ensemble of the Republican Guard.
The very correct career musicians of uniformed Guard deliver a remarkably curated and disciplined recital spanning Bach to Copeland. Almost daily, Paris offers arrays of classical music in regal, acoustically consecrated basilicas. The quality and scope of performance is impressive.
After nourishing the soul, it is time to feed the corpus. Our stride extends to Montparnasse (many days we cover 7 miles over cobbled sidewalks) and the high-temple brassieres that maintain storied traditions blending food, Arts, and celebrity.
Many of these institutions evoke halos of Picasso, Joyce, Hemingway, and Stravinsky. Our preference is La Rotonde, upholstered in scarlet, and regimented by black-vested waiters with crisp white aprons. President Macron, a regular, now assigned to a secure table in the rear.
Classics of French gastronomy are always on-call, and proper: Normandy oysters, rich onion soup, duck à l’orange, croque madame (ham and cheese sandwich topped with a perfectly co0ked egg), glace from noble house of Berthillon.
Dining here is Performance Art, available only in Paris.
We retire to our cozy apartment in lingering twilight…grateful for days of peaceful discovery.
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All photos captured on iPhoneX. Click on any thumbnail to engage the photo montage:
What a delightful tour through the City of Light you’ve given us! Thanks for sharing and allowing us to live vicariously through your wanderings.