I Love Paris In The Winter, When It Drizzles...

There are so many things I’m going miss about Paris.

Here are some that immediately come to mind and some more of my favourite images of the city (neither in any particular order) :

The No 72 Bus – surely one of the world’s most picturesque transport routes. I will certainly miss my Tuesday night bus-ride along the Seine, with the Eiffel Tower illuminated and occasionally an orange moon in the sky alongside.

Tonight I was early enough to be treated to the sparkling light-show that lights up the tour every hour, from Pont Alexandre III.

An unplanned but fitting closing night performance.

Bread (Come to think about it, a lot of the things I’ll miss involve food!) These people have forgotten more about how to make bread than most other cultures have ever known.

Late European summer nights – love the happy sounds rebounding around the courtyard. And even though the coming winter and all its paraphernalia feels so familiar to me as well, this is one happy camper who is delighted not to be hanging around for another European winter (ever again, if she can possibly avoid it)!

Authentic pains au chocolat and decadent croissant beurre (as if a croissant needs more butter)! The real deal.

Scarves and collars – honestly, finally the pressure will be off and I can go back to being a slob. Parisians are just born knowing how to tilt a beret at a jaunty angle, casually knot a flowing winter scarf and sport a turned up collar to make James Dean envious. There’s no point even trying to emulate their style DNA – they can spot an imposter from a hundred metres.

Cheese – if you can milk it, you can make cheese from it and sell it in specialist fromageries and may it ever be thus!

Pedal Power – I’ll certainly miss the bikes and it may well be some long time before I stop automatically photographing every one I see.

On my way home this evening, I actually saw a guy pedaling home in a leisurely fashion, with a kitchen sink strapped on to the back of his bike.

And, who needs bike-paths or even roads for that matter? Every kind of vehicle can be ridden on every kind of surface, who cares if it’s a footpath? There’s a funny kind of transport anarchy that is amusing, once you know what to look out for when you’re ambling along the street window shopping.

This is hardly a very long-thought-out or exhaustive list and I’m sure I’ll have time to reflect upon and add to this list once I’ve made it onto the plane tomorrow and drawn a deep breath.

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Finally, a fond, final au revoir today to our dear Andre.

You would have loved it here and savoured every minute, I’m sure.

We will always miss you.