Visiting Paris? First Read Downie’s Journey Into The City Of Light
- dthorgus
- Feb 10, 2023
- 4 min read
It is a timeless question, what draws people to Paris? With the help of author David Downie, you can have a deep-dive experience in the city.
In a quiet moment in the lobby of the Hotel Atmospheres in Paris, Eléa at the front desk asked Michelle and me what other cities we had visited. After our brief recitation of cities, her expression turned quizzical. She confessed that our decision to visit Paris didn’t make sense to her:
“We who live here don’t understand. People are grumpy here. There are museums in other places.”
And Eléa is not alone. When I asked a friend about his Paris experience, he frowned and said “it is overwhelming, too big, too dirty.” I’m not sure if “dirty” was a reference to actual dirt, or the sex shops in Montmartre near Moulin Rouge.
But I get it. Other cities have museums. Even the guide books on Paris acknowledge it is overwhelming to visit, specifying plans of attack if you are to visit three, four, or more days; with sections such as “Surviving the Louvre.”
I had my own so-so Paris experience years ago, but my recent visit with Michelle was something different entirely. My heart felt fuller this second time.
Why the difference? One factor was that my frame of reference shifted after reading David Downie’s Paris, Journey Into The City Of Light. His book might be summed up by the phrase depth over breadth. No bullet points or mini-maps here; he enlivens your understanding of Paris through thoughtful essays on choice locations and people.
Reading Downie harkens to stories I have heard and re-heard of my father’s expatriate friend, Martinek, who took my dad and sister on carefully orchestrated tours of the true Paris. Downie, too, is an expatriate American; a young intellectual who visited France and stayed after falling in love with a woman and a city. He is also a good writer.
Downie’s prose teaches the virtue of slowing down. He spends an entire day in the Luxembourg Gardens, where some boast you can tell the time of day by just listening to the activities of the throng of joggers, lunchtime loafers, and the decibel level of babies in their strollers. On another day, he attends a class for the socially anxious on the lost Parisian art of attracting a romantic other. [One hopes that he cleared his attendance with his wife.]
While we pursued some of the places mentioned in Downie’s book, hitting the list wasn’t the point. Instead, Michelle and I tried to follow his recommendation to breathe Paris in deeply. Though only tourists, we tried to ask ourselves questions about what we were seeing and experiencing.
With Downie as our inspiration, we spent half a rainy day in a warm sidewalk cafe, ordering a knockout succession of caffeinated and alcoholic beverages, punctuated by salads and sweets. We laughed along with kids propelling model sailboats across the Grand Bassin pond. We watched YouTube documentaries about French history and culture in our hotel room. On a cold afternoon, we fell asleep in a park, warmed by the sun.
We enjoyed talking to people. Michelle rekindled her French language skills before our trip and was rewarded in sweet moments. For example, she had a half French/English smile-filled discussion with a woman who was traveling into the city to get her hair done and see a Martin Scorcese movie. Struggling with jet lag, I went to the hotel lobby and enjoyed two late nights of conversations with the night-shift guy, Laurence. A former Fullbright winner and gifted jazz musician, he had played in New Orleans with luminaries such as Trombone Shorty. Amazing.
While Paris is not without challenges, it gives more than it takes. If you stay away from the vagaries of raw beef, you will find the food that is so good it will make you break into laughter. Parisians are straight forward, yes, but no one was grumpy with us. Around every corner there is another glorious streetside cafe, or two, or five. You keep expecting the monuments, museums, serene paths, food and drink to stop, but there is more and more.
Even as we had planned to avoid crowds, being swept along with a group headed to see Da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre, we realized that we were involved in something beautiful and meaningful. For me this feeling was most pronounced when I saw the work of the sculptor Auguste Rodin.
As imitation is the highest form of flattery, and in the spirit of second chances, I am going to try my hand at a Downie-style essay about Rodin in my next blog. Visiting Musee Rodin was a powerful experience, one that left me with challenging questions.
In the end, coming to Paris is saying “yes” to what feels like a kind of pilgrimage. A pilgrimage could be anyplace that you define as challenging and meaningful. Why choose Paris? For us, stretching ourselves to come to Paris–the origin of so many things artistic, intellectual, and culinary–seemed like saying “yes” to life itself.
To Your Health and Happiness,
Dan Gustafson
Paris door collage--including Science Po, where my sister spent her junior year of college
