Summer has arrived in Paris
Well somehow I’ve misplaced an entire day. Wednesday was rainy and cold and I went to small museums and did a lot of writing in my cozy apartment.
That’s the whole plan for me this time in Paris—I want time to lose myself in my writing and reading. To feel I can spend the afternoon lying on the sofa with the windows open to let Paris in.
To just BE in Paris.
This morning dawned hot and bright. Summer is finally here and everyone was OUT and ABOUT! There are a lot of tourists here for sure, but there are also a lot of French voices in every crowd. No matter which street I walk down, every bar and bistro is full to capacity and if you take a while you hear the voices—many are locals—smoking and looking very stylish.
I’d booked a table for one at Cafe Marly overlooking the Pyramid at the Louvre and I facetimed my family on the way, walking through Paris with my boys on the other side of the planet. One was at the pub with friends and the other at a Friday night party. I miss them but today I spent almost 6 hours in the Louvre. They would not have tolerated such nonsense, I can assure you!
Breakfast at Cafe Marly was lovely and the service was so kind. It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it. I read my book while I enjoyed my tea after breakfast. No one hurried me along and I was made to feel very welcome to as sit as long as I wanted.
Then it was time to breach the castle walls (the Louvre started life as a royal palace) and look at art until even I was tired!
I called my husband again on Facetime (with headphones, of course) and walked through showing him the Italian paintings including—of course—La Jaconda, the Mona Lisa. Further to my rant yesterday about finding YOUR thing in Paris, don’t go and see the Mona Lisa only to complain about ‘how small it is.’
I took a break on the terrace with a cuppa and listened to a young US woman beside me complain to her mother about how disappointing the Mona Lisa was. If she hadn’t been on the phone I might have interrupted and encouraged her to go find something else that did float her boat.
In my opinion the Louvre should show this most famous of paintings just to small groups of 20 or 30 at a time, the way they show Da Vinci’s Last Supper in Milan. No one comes out of that showing feeling disappointed (unless it’s about the people videoing when they were expressly told not to. Is being disappointed by shitty human behaviour different to being disappointed by unrealistic expectations created by social media?)
I just want everyone to love Paris.
I first saw the Mona Lisa in 1994 when it was just me and a security guard. It’s an incredible painting and I wish people would understand it better rather than just treating it as a back drop for a selfie.
My phone battery was looking grim after all that Facetime action on the way here so there aren’t many photos but in a way that was great because I turned my phone off and just enjoyed myself.
This post was originally published on Substack.
