The City of Lights

There's just something about Paris isn't there? My fourth visit to Paris and still I get excited about seeing the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre despite all the tourists, pigeon shit and annoying street vendors. I was meeting up with ‘the girls’, two of whom are living in Paris this year (one in Montparnasse and the other close to Opéra) - perfect excuse to keep visiting if ever I needed one!

Perhaps I still get excited about Paris because all four of my visits have been different. I first visited the City of Lights aged 12 with my family, wide-eyed about Parc Astérix and seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time (definitely worth the wait). My second trip was more of a mistake than a well thought out plan- on a school French exchange in 2007 we got on the wrong TGV and ended up in Paris Gare de Lyon, as opposed to actual Lyon. This resulted in six crazy hours, trying to see as many of the sights as possible- I remember pigeons walking all over our feet as we ate baguettes under the Eiffel Tower. Best mistake my teacher ever made! My third visit was rather spontaneous also- I was working in a youth hostel in Brittany and was given four days off ‘pour voyager’. Hence my first thought ‘Sod it, I’m going to Paris’. I spent three (and a bit) days wandering round Parisian streets, and doing as many of the tourist spots as possible. I had completely forgotten just how large a city Paris is and stupidly kept walking between sights, thus ‘knackering myself out’ a treat. So that was an experience, albeit a little lonely at times.

So trip number four was (yet again) rather different to the first three, namely because I went ‘out out’ for the first time in Paris. We all met in a cosy bar near Belleville, a working class district of Paris that is ‘up and coming’ if any of the slightly pretentious magazines and newspapers are to believe. Moved on to Bastille just before the last metro and raved in a bar/club before a quick visit to the Irish bar next door (would have been rude not to really). Other night-time escapades in Paris included a lovely meal near the Moulin Rouge, sitting on the steps with crepes outside the Sacré-Cœur and sipping 11 euro cocktails in Montparnasse. I only had one- you can take the girl out of the North of England, etc, etc.

During the day wandering was high on the agenda- we wandered over to Trocadéro and walked down past the Musée de l’Armée before heading up the Champs-Elysées. Highlight of one afternoon was helping some students do a challenge for charity by leap-frogging up the Champs-Elysées before climbing the Arch de Triomphe just as the sun was setting. Parfait.

Notre-Dame was full of tourists, but I still decided to go in (fourth visit), we went to a gorgeous English bookshop just across the river from Notre-Dame (Shakespeare and Company- check it out if you’re ever in Paris). The top floor of the bookshop has beds, comfy chairs, typewriters to mess around with and even a piano! Books aren’t even for sale on this floor- instead browsers are encouraged to sit down and read (and we did exactly this).

The final day in Paris was spent visiting le Cimetière du Montparnasse- where we stumbled upon the graves of Serge Gainsbourg, John Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (we didn’t exactly stumble, it was all intentional…) before wandering round the streets of the Marais district around the Latin Quarter. CULTURE!

So after four visits, Paris is still my favourite city in the world (apart from Newcastle, obviously). Clichéd I know, but there really is just something about the City of Lights. Maybe the media has something to do with that- the scenes at the end of Amélie in Montmartre, the Sex and the City finale, the views of the Eiffel Tower at the start of Truffaut’s Les 400 Coups, even the bloody Hunchback of Notre Dame. It’s not just the media though- there’s something special about watching people as they sit reading/eating/etc along the Seine (in a strictly non-creepy way, I hasten to add) and listening to buskers as they do their best Piaf impressions on the metro. Yes, Paris is expensive, full of tourists, litter and ugly souvenir shops, but it’s also got taste, charm- a certain ‘Je ne sais quoi’ if you will (ha ha ha).

Ever since starting university, my course friends and I had talked about meeting up for a Parisian weekend, dreaming about hot chocolates in cosy cafés and tourist pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower. Well the dream came true. Now what??