“Those screams aren’t drunk tourists,” the artist whispered in my ear. “Musketeers are battling the cardinal’s guards for the Queen’s necklace. And that off-key busker? That’s Quasimodo singing from the roof of Notre-Dame. You don’t see Paris with your eyes. Only with your heart. Saint-Exupéry wrote that. I’d say: after a bottle of wine.”
Actually, it was after three. He wouldn’t even talk to me before the first. Our journey through Paris began in his apartment, but now we’re stumbling out of his studio in a neighborhood travel blogs call vibrant.
“Don’t stare,” the artist mutters. “Weed dealers. Armed. Two hundred years ago, they were robbing Dumas’s heroes. Today, they serve screenwriters and film stars.”
This was my first time in Paris. Day three. The exact moment I began falling in love with the city.
We’re on our way to his main buyer. At three in the morning. The man lives in a top-floor apartment with a private elevator. His wife meets us at the door, still half-asleep, apologizing: “All I can offer is a thirty-year-old Armagnac.”
We talk about Picasso —how the difference between Spanish and French pronunciation shows up in his brushstrokes. This very apartment, it turns out, was once a set for a film from the French New Wave from the 1950s. The man, now the owner of an ad agency, built barricades back in ’68, hurled stones at riot cops, protested soulless capitalism. He met his wife on the frontlines. Now he collects rebellious art. Sold off all his Impressionists.
My high school French teacher would never have understood him. She believed Paris was men in berets, women in lace dresses and wide-brimmed Monet hats. Lovers meeting beneath the Eiffel Tower, reciting poetry.
Reality? A mess. I’m disappointed. Counting down the days to my flight. Waiters are rude. Crowds so thick you can barely see the art in the Louvre. Trash lines the streets. The Eiffel Tower is just a circus of souvenir peddlers.
I checked the tourist box: been there, done that. Never coming back.
But the first time I felt like I was watching the wrong movie came outside Notre-Dame. The real Paris—my Paris—was behind an old bookstore door on the banks of the Seine. Shakespeare and Company.
From the outside, just an old shop. Inside? Magic. Time frozen in the 20th century. One of the original founders, Mr. Whitman, still lingers like a guardian of literary ghosts. Joyce typed Ulysses here. Fitzgerald partied here. When the current owner talks about the roaring American ‘20s, you’d think they might stop by later for wine.
He holds a key. Upstairs: a low-ceilinged attic where tomorrow’s literary stars sleep off cheap red wine. They live there for free. No time limit. The only rule? Promise you’re writing a book. No one checks. You just put in a few hours selling books downstairs.
I know where I’ll go when life falls apart.
And I know exactly where I won’t go back to: a café on the Champs-Élysées with the worst pizza I’ve ever had. Just fifty feet away, though, a culinary temple. The best restaurant of my life. Just a house, you walk in like you’re visiting a friend. No dining hall with dozens of tables. No noise. Waiters move like ghosts. Plates just appear. You have no idea what you’re eating. Molecular cuisine—flavors layered like a Notre-Dame musical: sweet and bitter at once. In Paris, beauty and disaster often arrive together. Esméralda and Quasimodo. That’s the deal.
Here, eating at your desk is illegal. Food is sacred. I once spent thirty minutes choosing cheese. Each question from the cheesemonger narrowed it down like a quiz, eliminating ten cheeses out of 300 on the counter: When’s dinner? How many guests? Young or old? Should the wine lead, or the cheese? Music or political debate?
I like visiting Paris during presidential elections. It always feels like good vs. evil. I can’t vote here, but for the last 15 years it’s felt like someone dangerous might win—and then, like in the novels, d’Artagnan saves the day. Good prevails. Champagne bottles pop open on the Champs-Élysées. People drink from the neck, toasting the new—or old—president. It’s so Parisian. Turning an election into a party.
This city teaches the art of doing sophisticated nothing. And still getting everything done. It shows you beauty where a million others miss it. It spins fairy tales out of the ordinary.
That’s why Hemingway advised: see Paris young. It’ll change your life.
I know.
That’s why I love you, Paris.