|
Paris Fast
Facts
|
|
Paris intrigues,
astonishes, provokes, overwhelms…and gets under your skin. The
City of Light is the apex of architectural beauty, artistic
expression, and culinary delight, and it knows it. As drop-dead
arrogant as the Arc de Triomphe, as disarmingly quaint as a
lace-curtain bistro, it seduces newcomers with a Latin-lover
style---and its subtle siren song invites unhurried exploration of
its picture-perfect streets.
Paris is a city of vast, noble perspectives and intimate,
ramshackle streets, of formal espaces vertes (green open
spaces) and of quiet squares. This combination of the pompous and
the private is one of the secrets of its perennial pull. Another
is its size. Paris is relatively small as capitals go, with
distances between many of its major sights and museums invariably
walkable.
For the first-timer there will always be several must-dos at the
top of the list, but a visit to Paris will never be quite as
simple as a quick look at Notre-Dame, the Louvre, and the Eiffel
Tower. You'll discover that around every corner, down every ruelle
(little street) lies a resonance-in-wait.
You can stand on the rue du Faubourg St-Honoré at the very spot
Edmond Rostand set Ragueneau's pastry shop in Cyrano de
Bergerac. You can read the letters of Madame de Sévigné in
her actual hôtel particulier, or private mansion, now the
Musée Carnavalet. You can breathe in the fumes of hubris before
the extravagant onyx tomb Napoléon designed for himself. You can
gaze through the gates at the school where Voltaire honed his wit
and lay a garland on Oscar Wilde's poignant grave at Père
Lachaise.
If this is your first trip, there's no harm in taking a guided
tour of the city---a perfectly good introduction that will help
you get your bearings and provide you with a general impression
before you return to explore at leisure the sights that
particularly interest you. By the time you have explored the city,
you should not only have had your cultural fill but be downright
exhausted and hungry, too.
Again, take your cue from Parisians, and think out your next move
in a sidewalk café. So you've heard stories of a friend who paid
$5 for a cup of coffee. But bear in mind that what you're paying
for is time---to watch the intricate dramas of Parisian street
life unfold in front of you. Hemingway knew the rules; after all,
he would have remained just another unknown sportswriter if the
waiters of Paris's cafés had hovered around him impatiently.
|
|
|
|
|
