A STROLL UP THE SEINE

I’ve been in France. Paris, to be precise.

I walked up the river last night, just as the sun was falling behind the silhouetted buildings either side of the Seine.

It’s such a curious city. I spent a lot of that walk trying to work it out.

It’s young. There were a lot of young people sitting in huddles near the edge of the sparkling water. Some smoke, some listen to music. Some dance! At one point I found a kind of amphitheatre where couples span each other round very gently, while a portable speaker played folky jazzy music.

There were joggers too. They sprinted past, bobbing up and down, looking cool. Twilight hid them in shadow as they ran under the arches of bridges across the river.

Notre Dame was lit up. I last saw it in the 90s, long before the 2019 fire ripped through the east end of the cathedral. It is still in scaffold, despite the remarkably tall flèche that poked proudly into the golden sky. It is quite the cathedral! To the west, it was draped in banners - the tricolor of course, and the crisp yellow and white of the Vatican. I quickly realised that they were preparing for a papal visit. It was the thousands of white chairs, the remarkably ornate lectern and gigantic bank of TV cameras that gave it away.

Through theatre town and the bright lights of cafes and bistros, the tall tapering shape of the Eiffel Tower rises above the salons and ateliers.

The river sparkled with both the fading light of the sun, and the reflections from party bateaux steadily churning their way up the Seine. Many I saw were crowded with Parisian partygoers, dressed in dinner jackets and evening gowns. The sound of music, laughter, and chinking glass carried easily across the water.

It’s hard for me to work out how none of this felt like the version of Paris I expected. It’s all there isn’t it? The cosmopolitan city of cool romance, the suaveness and sophistication, the energy and love, alongside the pure history and drama of this extraordinary place. And yet. Paris is a city like a lot of cities, somehow parodying the version of itself given to us by every inch of film we’ve all seen. It’s a good reminder that sometimes our version of a thing is not the truth, and that we should always be prepared for the truth to be… well, more disappointing.

Could I live there? Non. Was i inspired to pick up a paintbrush or craft existential poetry? Non. Was it the real Paris? I suppose it was. By the time I was walking back, it was dark and the river seemed an inky ribbon flowing under prettily illuminated bridges.

Paris is like its river then, I thought to myself. Wide, mysterious, and beautiful. But, I would wager, a lot colder and less friendly should you really fall into it.