There are some cities or places we feel at home. We are drawn to the place, an affinity because we have emotional attachment of having grown up there or have some other nostalgic links to the place. Paris happens to be one place where I feel at home, I can wander around the streets of the city aimlessly for hours. I have no prior nostalgic links to the city nor have I had any special interest in the city while growing up. Yet since my first visit to Paris, ten years ago, I have an ongoing love affair with the city. I am a why/because kind of person, everything must or should have a reasoning. Randomness is a concept which my brain refuses to accept. Normally when we want to go away and are looking at options for places to travel, I often insist on travelling somewhere new, where we have not been. I believe I need to challenge my senses and mind, by travelling to new places. Your eyes see different sights, you breathe the same air yet you can smell different aromas and fragrance, you taste different food, I find it refreshing and awakening. My mind has a tendency to switch to an autopilot mode in familiar area, because it is so familiar to its surroundings and senses. I find travel a perfect way to awaken my senses which otherwise seem to go in to a slumber. I find Paris an exception to this. I love visiting the city, I have visited the city several times, yet very time the city keeps me engaged and enthralled. I am in love with the city of love, I do think the city , loves me back with equal propensity.
If you are familiar with the movie ‘ Midnight in Paris’ where the protagonist Gail Pender loves to walk around Paris in rains and thinks the rain makes the city look magical. I am very much like Gail, always look to past looking for answers, love Paris, yet I differ in his views of Paris. I find Paris magical in any season, in rains, in blustery winters, in blistering heat with sun beating down my neck and in autumn. I say magical because it always manages put a smile on my face, make my heart feel feather light, making even the mundane daily monotony look rapturous. People say Paris is not very friendly in fact is considered very rude. Perhaps there is some truth in it, may be it is a relative truth. Paris is beautiful yet derelict, passionate yet indifferent, amorous yet sometimes hateful. Paris is much like life, an oxymoron, full of conflicting emotions, a paradox. It is a good place to do a bit people watch, best place to visit museums and art works, with best touristy spots, a paradise for food lovers and fashionistas equally. As for me Paris is an emotion, and that emotion is Love.
As I said I love walking around aimlessly in Paris, looking at paintings in Louvre and Muse D’orsay, sitting by a Café on Monmarte sipping a coffee, walking up to Sacre Coure and sitting on the steps and listen to a busker play harp.( I have visited five times and everytime, he is there, playing harp), walking in the night by the River Sienne and watch the Eifferl Tower Shimmer, having a Berthillon Ice cream in freezing cold, looking at the odd objects in the Flea markets of Cligancourt, browsing the books in Shakespeare and co. And I enjoy doing a Patisserie crawl or what I prefer calling as Patisserie Trail.
I used the below and went around for a patisserie trail. Rue de Bonaparte also has very interesting shops , in case you want a little break from all the cakes and macaroons.
http://foodloversodyssey.com/2011/08/food-lovers-walk-in-paris-rue-de-seine-and-bonaparte/
In the beginning of this year, I read a travelogue on Paris by a fellow blogger, and the photos and words made be long to revisit the city. I messaged my husband saying it has been two years since we went to Paris, and what better place to visit in February than Paris. And again in March I felt I need to visit the Giverny and see Monet s Garden ‘ We have never been to Giverny’ My husband seems to think I always find reason to visit Paris, but I what I find amusing is his response , when I say ‘ Do you not want to go to Paris?’ ‘Na , it been a while since we went to ‘Ol Pari’
PS: I am attaching the photos and not writing about them. A picture is worth a. thousand words, a visual expression!!
Le coin des Bobby 