French Fun

Name: French Fun
Uploaded: 2023-06-10T11:11:04Z
Description: in Paris

in Paris

By Mario & Melissa Saliba

June 10^th, 2023

We strolled in a starry night through the boulevards, avenues, and rues of Paris,

the land of the iron Eiffel Tower, Dior, of the Croissant & Champagne, of the célèbre Monalisa,

and the scorched Notre Dame;

And the city still seemed to be ablaze in a festival of white, golden, orange and yellow bulbs,

illuminating the treasures of the Louvre, and Paris’ only River Seine,

ever so a City of Art & Lights;

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, then cries Paris several times,

but no one seems to take heed,

as her cries get lost in a hodgepodge of sirens, French cabarets, a Babel of languages, protests and in its busy streets;

And we just walked on holding each others’ hands, not knowing or caring where we went,

As long as we were strolling through the renowned City of Love.

It was simply a pleasure wandering through the streets of Paris after a long span of seventeen years, this time with my husband, and apparently nothing had changed much since the last time I was there.

Though the sky was a cloudy grey and the city’s trees bare of leaves, while the cool February air occasionally stung our faces, yet there is something about Paris which still makes it look captivating even in the midst of winter. Maybe it is its good taste in fashion, design and style, which gives it that elegant, even dignified, quality; or maybe it is just the rhythmic music of the French language continuously hanging in the air.

Whatever it is, the Tour Eiffel looked even more exalted on this drab February afternoon, and surrounded with small little people looking up at its distant peak. Unfortunately, (or fortunately for some!), visitors to the tour Eiffel during that period could not make it to the top due to some renovation taking place, which we were already aware of prior to our trip to Paris. But we still managed to take good pictures of us with this worldwide icon, as proof that we at least touched one of the metallic feet of the Eiffel Tower.

NOTE: I had already made it twice previously to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but it is on my checklist to take in the breath-taking 360° view from the top with my husband, and maybe with a glass of champagne.

After having a good look around the area of the Eiffel Tower, we resumed to the streets of Paris and walked by a bunch of love locks precisely a couple of minutes away from the Eiffel Tower, which was only the first of other such clusters, and which is as to be expected in Paris. We then took a brief glimpse of the River Seine with the intention to return later, to then walk through the Champ de Mars from where my husband could take more stunning pictures of the Tour Eiffel also in its entirety.

Finally, we bid ‘au revoir’ to the Eiffel Tower, to then spend what was left of the afternoon acquainting ourselves with Paris. We did some window shopping, walked past the Galerie Dior, to then keep walking along the rue Champs Elysée to take souvenir photos of another icon, the Arc de Triomphe. It stands proudly at the centre of the circular Place Charles de Gaulle, the meeting point of 12 grand avenues in the shape of a star, celebrating victory and honouring those who lost their lives in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars with its sculptures and inscriptions.

The highlight of the day, however, was the trip along the River Seine by night, which we had already booked online. While taking us past several of Paris’ beautiful landmarks starting with the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, Notre Dame and others in that order and with the monuments all lit-up, true to its appellation ‘City of Lights’; the trip ended with a final stop at the Eiffel Tower, allowing us to enjoy its spectacle of floodlights up-closer, and a truly dazzling close to the tour.