Paris, Je T'aime

Paris is a very difference place when you go with someone who loves it.

The first time I went to Paris it was nice. Nice, but I wasn’t overwhelmed by the city. Paris is one of the most iconic cities in the world, and so, I was looking for that moment to connect and fall in love with the city that so many people had. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, like I said it was nice, but that was it.
The second time I went to Paris, I went with someone who adores the city. Actually, adore doesn’t quite cover it. He truly lives and breathes Paris in the most passionate way, and honestly this completely changed the city for me. Spending time in Paris with someone who knows all those little secret spots, and has a story for every street and building is something extraordinary. Have you ever walked around Paris and thought about the huge amount of history there? Not just how pretty everything is, but which cafés Hemingway would spend a day writing, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald would drink away their fortune, where George Gershwin and Coco Chanel would drink, or where Picasso and Matisse would debate their art? After a couple hours with this guy in Paris, I had. Although we only spent an afternoon in Paris, I left knowing that I had to go back.

Everybody knows Paris in the most basic way, it’s in so many movies and books that it is hard to grow up knowing nothing of the city of love (or lights, depending on who you ask); but the image of the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe is only scratching the surface. Having spent quite a significant amount of time with someone who loves Paris I realised that there were so many other places and experiences that I wanted to have there, it’s a good thing that Paris is only a few hours away!

My first time in Paris (posts here and here) I hit most of the major tourist spots, I'd ticked off the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, Notre Dame...but only in the most superficial way. We hadn't seen anything in depth yet.
The next time I was only in Paris itself for a couple of hours before heading off to the ornate Palace of Versailles for Bastille Day celebrations. Versailles was beautiful and we saw one of the most incredible sunsets over the gardens, but Paris itself still hadn't got the time it deserved.
My third time in Paris was meticulously mapped out by my travel partner and we were determined to make the most of every minute in the city!

Never underestimate the value of having a Francophile with you on a trip to Paris, it is really like having a personal tour guide and historian at your fingertips. We visited the Musée d'Orsay, and took in the newly opened neo-impressionist wing in an almost empty gallery. We marvelled at Monet's water lilies at the Musée de l'Orangerie. We even dropped by The Thinker and wandered around the gardens at the Musée Rodin. There is so much amazing art in Paris that you could spend a whole trip just soaking in some of the greatest pieces of art ever created, and it is a fantastic way to spend a few days in Paris, but what made this trip so fascinating for me was that everything we saw was given a context.
It is a completely different experience to just visit the Picasso Blue and Rose exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay and leave it like that, than to visit the exhibition having walked past the flat where Gertrude Stein used to live when she took a fancy to Picasso's work and helped to bring his art to the prominence that it enjoys today. Or visit the crazy taxidermist shop, Deyrolle, that inspired Salvador Dali and the other surrealists. It all adds a context and another layer to the trip, which I would never have even thought about had I not visited Paris with a Francophile.

As with any good trip, we didn't just spend the whole time on galleries.
We ate macaroons from Ladurée, where they were allegedly invented.
We hunted for sweeping views over Paris, only to be thwarted by a thick fog hiding even the Eiffel Tower. Luckily the views from the roof of the Galerie Lafayette were still worth hanging around for in the cold and fog.
We drank cocktails and listened to live jazz at Harry's New York Bar. A bar that boasts being the oldest cocktail bar in Europe, the birthplace of the Bloody Mary, the French 75 and, the Side Car and the spot where George Gerswhin composed his hit ‘An American in Paris’. A bar so notorious that Ian Fleming wrote of a 16 year old James Bond visiting Harry's his first time in Paris. Amusingly described as a night that was "one of the memorable evenings of his life, culminating in the loss, almost simultaneous, of his virginity and his notecase". I mean a bar that was literally dismantled and shipped to Paris from New York must be worth visiting.
We even went to see France play rugby against Fiji (and lose) at the Stade de France.

So, has Paris grown on me? Absolutely, I now understand a little bit more why people love Paris so much. I still can't say that I share the same passionate enthusiasm as some people, but I do think it is a city like no other and I enjoy spending time there enough to already have another trip booked in for early 2019.

After all, there is always more to see and explore in Paris.