“We’ll Always Have Paris”

A tribute to the magical city

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” — Ernest Hemingway

Upon climbing the stairs of the metro exit Abbé de l’Epée with your luggage and stepping outside, near the black bars surrounding Le Jardin du Luxembourg, the sun immediately blinds you — like it is installing a new filter behind your eye nerves: from now on, everything you will see in this city, will be in sepia tones, as if they have a veil of golden dust covering them. You don’t know what causes this effect, neither you will find out why. It’s just a part of the magic that this city has, and the more you breathe, the more you inhale these golden dust specks in the air. And the more you inhale them, the more it just settles under your skin, and becomes a city you are going to carry in you, for the rest of your life. Bienvenue à Paris!

You are now in the Quartier Latin. Your mind is filled with so many options about where to go from there. It’s like being a kid in a candy shop, you can’t eat everything at once. Just start walking, over the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and then Rue de la Harpe. Drop by the bookshop Shakespeare and Company, where Hemingway, Joyce, Fitzgerald and many other writers used to borrow books from its owner, Sylvia Beach…