way out across the left bank of Paris

way out across the left bank of Paris

fiction
edward w pritchard


It's  about to have the first snow here, the temperature is into the twenties, it's dark on a Saturday night with me alone and I am remembering my vacation trip to Paris less than 25 years ago.

Paris is one of the only places I have ever been that surpasses the hype about it. It has the best museum, no not the Louvre but to my taste the Cluny medieval museum with it's unicorn tapestry and early middle ages atmosphere. Paris has the world's most beautiful women especially if you take one with you from home on your trip. When I was in Paris the Seine was nearly dried up and the walks up the stairs, hills and Butte's around Montmartre were higher than ever but the views were spectacular. Sacre Coeur [ sacred heart] the beautiful white stone church there in Montmartre at the top top of many many steps and more steps stays with you after your first glimpse forever as it is as a church should be magestic, serene and unobtrusive, surely worthy to be  a home of God. The best  two meals I had in Paris were at the cafeteria at the museum [Louvre ] and an early lunch at a dive bar that had an open restroom for two tired american tourists. A casual breakfast at the high end Hotel included a free gaggle of run way models displaying haute couture fashions quietly parading among the tables. Oh, by the way the George the fifth hotel where I stayed is the best hotel in the world at least it seemed so to me, even worth the $400 per night [ current price is $1100 per day].

I try very hard now to not live in the past and to live now in day tight compartments. Sometimes though when it's about to have the first snow on a dark lonely Saturday night I go way out across the left bank into the Latin quarter of Paris and stroll the narrow lanes until well past midnight in my imagination and remember good times past.

Go to Paris, it's worth the money and the time and you surely won't regret it later.