Paris is rightly famed for it's beauty. Its magnificent boulevards, astonishing art collections and pompous history make up for an atmosphere that is unique! The city centre holds some of the world's most identifiable landmarks. The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.
The Louvre, with I.M.Pei's ground-breaking pyramid, experiences a constant relentless roar of tourist traffic. The museum buildings are on such a magnificent scale that they easily swallow the ever increasing volume and form cliffs of golden stone in the wintry sunlight. The very size of this massive treasure collection negates a human engagement.
The Eiffel Tower dominates the skyline for miles around and the image of Paris. Legend has it that the nineteenth century painter Edouard Detaille insisted on having his lunch within it's restaurant everyday. A purist, he disliked the metal construction so much that he ate his dejeuner in one of the few places in Paris where Mr. Eiffel's engineering was not visible. I tend to agree with Detaille in this one opinion at least - albeit the tower is instantly definable as Paris and, for most, Paris is the tower.
Notre Dame is centuries older than the other two structures. It rises up on the banks of the Seine and casts a shadow across European history. Every child is familiar with the legend that Victor Hugo entwined between its rooves - Quasimodo. Indeed when I visited a young French mother was sharing the story with her children. They looked suitably impressed.
For me, like those French children, Notre Dame and it's romantic mythology is Paris.
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