One day in Paris is like a year in any other place, is almost what 10cc sang in 1975. Actually they sang about the night, but I wasn’t in the market for that sort of tourism. On my last day in France’s capital, I visited the Pompidou Centre to see some modern art, and then spent the rest of the day wandering around aimlessly, just taking in the atmosphere.
The atmosphere was actually quite damp, so I ducked into the arches around the Louvre, and peered into arcades and dusty old shops. All the while, weird photographic stuff was going on all around me, like a strange Christmassy photo-shoot, and gritty urban wedding portraits.
As the night drew in, the lights came on, and the French (naturally) know how to make a city look cool without too much effort. I came to the conclusion that Paris was actually quite like London: eclectic, sprawling and impressive. But, where London is the man (brutish and hard), Paris is the woman (curvy and elegant).
So, as I went for my last metro train back to the hotel, and said goodbye to the Place de la Concorde and its Ferris wheel, I sang Une Nuit à Paris to myself one last time, and gave my feet a well-deserved night off.
