Euro-Rail V

Even though not enamoured by the city of the famed la Cathédrale de Notre Dame, la Tour Eiffel, l’Arc de Triomphe et l’Arche de la Défénse, l’Obélisque/ Place de la Concorde, le musée du Louvre, la Sacré Coeur (my most favoured monument parisien), the city of the high fashion, the city of the metro, I always wanted to visit it and to feel that rush from atop the Eiffel with the French capital lying below me. My first trip to Paris (December 2003) was as perfect as it could be – a low-budget trip made in the company of my friend from Bordeaux, P, it was ideally planned and I covered more in those three short days in Paris than most people cover in a week. Sure I didn’t enter a single museum, in a city famed for its museums, I didn’t visit Le Moulin Rouge or Lido, I didn’t shop at Champs Élysées, but in those 72 hours I discovered Paris through the eyes of someone who knew the city, who admired it with a certain level of objectivity and the same sense of aesthetics and cultural interest as me.

(At the Temple de Madeleine - taken, obviously by K)

I wanted to go back, not so much so cover what I missed last time, but to go back to the streets and places that most charmed me on my first visit and spend time there and most importantly to spend time with Kitana. I didn’t achieve most of what I wanted to do, for various reasons, my missing bag being the biggest of them all, marking it as an incomplete sojourn in many ways, but I did discover a different Paris this time…

Paris, of the famed Catacombs, which despite all the warnings of being spooky and not for those with a frail heart, weren’t the least bit frightening. Interesting, but after a point a little too boney, if you get my point ;-)
Paris, of Paris Plage, a crazy idea, that only a French-man could come up with, of dumping tons of sand by the banks of the Seine to convert it into a beach every summer, so that Parisiens who couldn’t head to the beach for summer are not deprived!
Paris, home to Shakespeare and Co, paradise on earth for book-lovers and amateur writers. It applied the must needed balm to my bruised spirit at the right time. I would have broken down completely, if not for that visit to this amazing bookstore opposite Notre Dame (needless to say, even Shakespeare and Co would have been helpless if not for Kitana)

Biggest Regrets: Not being able to spend that completely mad, crazy moment with Kitana, or catch up peacefully with A (who had traveled all the way from Magdeburg to spend time with me), friends I cherish and don’t get to spend enough time with because of the miles separating us…and most of all, letting the dark cloud of worry consuming me, cast its shadow on K, Kitana and A’s break.

...and with this, I finally complete my Euro-Rail series! :-)