Paris revisited

Peter and I joined the rest of Australia in travelling to Europe this summer, first stop Paris.

It had been nearly a decade since I last visited Paris, heading there with my partner to spend time with his parents who kindly invited us to join them for a few days their annual retreat to their favorite city. The wonderful family time was complemented by catchups with several lovely friends, making the four nights we spent there all the richer and special. Always the case when you have people to connect with in foreign places.

We woke up to the sound of Paris lazily waking up, sipping on coffee on the balcony, soaking up the peace and quiet in the heart of the city, in the apartment Peter’s parents call home once a year.

Daily breakfast had to be a buttery feast, of course, made up of croissants from the local bakery that just melted in one’s mouth. And the sweetest, juiciest strawberries, raspberries, blueberries I’ve had in a while. The simplest of pleasures.

We explored our neighborhood, Le Marais, with Peter’s parents, photographing everything because everything in Le Marais from the vines growing on the sides of buildings to the way the afternoon light falls on the alleyways and churches to the people chatting away in outdoor bars, cigarettes and wines in hands, just felt so surreal and cinematic, given mere days prior I was frantically clearing the last of my must-action emails.

We ate boeuf bourguignon at Au Bourguignon du Marais! I also had my first beef tartare, and I’m so glad I pushed past the anxiety of eating raw ground meat because, wow, was it good.

We visited one of the holiest sites for book lovers, Shakespeare & Co. I remember first seeing it on a travel documentary in the 90s as a little boy while in Sri Lanka for summer holidays, thinking how it looked like a place from a fairytale. Despite several visits to Paris I never had a chance to explore the bookstore, until this trip. I loved the history of the place. The upstairs sitting room with little handwritten notes in the books from all sorts of eras reminded me how books miraculously and intimately connect you with people long gone. Books find you there, and I left with a short read about physics, stamped with the Shakespeare & Co logo, in my Shakespeare & Co tote, no less.

I wandered through the Bourse de Commerce, the former commodities exchange, now exhibition space sponsored by luxury magnate François Pinault. It had the most impressive rotunda whose inner panels were painted to depict the North, South, East, and West, representing trade between the continents.

What really stood out to me was how social and centered around people Paris. I rarely saw people sitting at bars, restaurants and cafes alone. And if they were, they were comfortable in their solitude, sitting with their thoughts or people watching. I may have had my holiday-tinted lenses on, and we were based in a particularly vibrant part of Paris, but I wondered whether this is why we love travelling for 24 hours on planes to the other side of the world, without even realizing it. Like a reminder to be present, without the extreme of having to go on a meditation retreat and with the pleasures of good wine and food.