The last time I saw Paris

My Paris Trilogy (sort of!) – 1

I love Paris in the spring time

I love Paris in the fall

I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles

I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles

—  from a Frank Sinatra song

The first time I saw Paris was in 1989 on a “quickie” side trip from London during a “famtour” sponsored by Cathay Pacific (with a bonus of watching Lea Salonga in Miss Saigon on West End). As soon as I got off the train, I hopped into another one bound for Lourdes (more on this later) and went back to the City of Light the next day. I was infatuated with Paris during my one-day stay, too short for me to explore it.

The last time I saw Paris was three  weeks ago after I attended as Philippine Ambassador the Smurfs Day in Brussels where the celebration was kicked off, capped by a Smurfs afternoon party at the bank of Seine River from across the Eiffel Tower. My traveling friend Raoul Tidalgo and I stayed for four days.

Paris didn’t drizzle and didn’t sizzle but I fell in love with it anyway. I love Paris in the spring time and I took all I could of her during a half-day city tour.

“Paris is actually very small,” said Andy Celario, a Filipino who runs a car-rental business there. “The whole city is like a museum.”

In fact, the whole city is a museum as Raoul and I would find out.

“But be careful when you go around,” Andy reminded us while he took several alternative routes to avoid what he said was a “manifestation” (equivalent to a street rally in the Philippines) against same-sex marriage. “There are so many pickpockets, especially at the parks and at the subway station. Be sure to keep your wallet in your front pocket, not at the back.”

Spoiler alert: This is not a travelogue in the strict sense of the word but only a “quickie” (oops! that word again!) tourist’s bird’s-eye view of Paris with snippets of information and snapshots clicked with a shaky finger on my iPhone from the top of the double-deck tour bus that wound around the city. After all, what else can we say that almost everybody doesn’t know yet?

Despite the economic pinch in Europe, the city was packed full with tourists who were, like us, too busy clicking here and there to listen to what the tour guide was saying, anyway his voice was often drowned out by the background songs exalting the beauty, no so much the virtues, of Paris, one of them the Sinatra song I Love Paris that I quoted above.

These were the few landmarks that stuck to our minds:

• The Arc de Triomphe, one of the most famous monuments in the city that stands in the center of the Place Charles de Gaulle, designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806, “its iconographic program pitted heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail.”

• The Luxor Obelisk, a 23-meter high Egyptian obelisk standing at the center of the Place de la Concorde, that (as pointed out by the tour guide) “marks the spot where Anne Boleyn was beheaded.”

• Eiffel Tower (but, of course!) where we spent most of the afternoon along with myriad tourists who were energizing themselves with servings of hotdogs downed by sodas while gazing up at the tower. Sad note: No “climbers” that day as portions of the tower  were under renovation.

• Notre Dame de Paris (setting of the Victor Hugo novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame), “the cathedral widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and among the largest and well-known church buildings in the world, the construction of which began in the 1163 during the reign of Louis VII.”

Our attention was caught by a bridge the railings on both sides of which were adorned with thousands of locks of all shapes and sizes left there by lovers to symbolize, according to the tourist guide, “their never-ending love, locked together for ever and ever.” Beside it was a magazine stand that sold collectors’ items (old photos of movie stars, etc.). As our bus tour crossed the bridge, we spotted a cruise boat loaded with tourists waving at us. We waved back.

One regret: We didn’t have a chance to visit Louvre Museum (setting of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code). Closed that day.

The next time I see Paris I will take more of her. Promise!

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