Joie de Vivre -- France

It was a beautiful Tuesday morning when I boarded the flight that would take me to places that I thought I could only dream about. It took us forever to reach the city that I always wanted to visit – Paris. As the plane landed, I got my first glimpse of its iconic monument – The Eiffel Tower, huge, grand, and majestic. Paris has a lot of labels – the city of love, the city of fashion, the city of lights and what not. As soon as I disembarked, I knew I was in all those cities. I could feel the vibrancy, the effervescence, the vivacity, (yes, I confess, I used a thesaurus for these words, that’s how speechless I got as I landed). No wonder “joie de vivre” is a French phrase. So full of life.

As luck would have it, the Eiffel Tower was just within a stone’s throw away from our hotel. Oh, the view at night. That was the first non-google close-up view of the tower. Glowing with all its glory. A perfect way to end a day. Early next morning, the first thing we did was to go up to the summit of the tower. (Many of us probably didn’t sleep all night, excited). The elevator that took us all the way up was an engineering marvel to me. Oh, and the view. Breathtaking. Let me tell you a short story now. I always wanted to visit France, Paris in particular. To be more precise, on the top of the Eiffel Tower. You want me to be more specific? (I’m going to tell you anyway). To be proposed to on the top of the Eiffel Tower (okay, just kidding, this is just a small part of the dream). Before you turn the gossip mills, nothing of that sort happened and I wasn’t disappointed either. Nothing can spoil that moment. On top of the world – with a magnificent view of the city you have always loved – with the people you love – can’t beat it. What more can you ask for? That’s when I knew I was in love. With the city. With its beauty. With the city of love and romance. I knew then why the most used line in Paris is – “Je t’aime Paris!” and I add “Beaucoup! Merci pour un merveilleux jour.”

After a beautiful cruise on the river Seine, we went on a panoramic tour of the city. Only made my love for it stronger. The Arc de Triomphe,Champs-Élysées, picturesque. (Also, reminded me of my French classes. Maybe I’ll read through it again, relive every moment of the trip through the leçons). A bonus awaited us as we get off the coach that dropped us at the hotel. Sparkling, glittering, glistening, shimmering, flickering lights, crystal-like, all over the tower for a lovely 5 minutes. I couldn’t take my eyes off the tower the whole time. I wanted to witness it again so we went an hour later to be mesmerised again. Then, it dawned upon me why they called it the city of lights.

With a happy smile etched on my face, photographs clicked galore, we returned to our rooms and slept soundly, bonne nuit indeed.

If the excitement from the previous day wasn’t enough, we started our journey to one of the largest museums in the world, the Louvre Museum. Whoever has read the Da Vinci Code would want to visit that place, for all the right reasons. But, the three hours we spent there was equivalent to a small drop in an ocean. Everybody who walks into the Louvre, goes foremost to the first floor to the Italian paintings section to see what it is most known for – The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. A small portrait of a woman named Lisa Gheradini which is well-known for the enigmatic smile. Something painted almost 500 years ago stands before us in all its splendour. After another check on the bucket list, we moved onto other paintings and sculptures in the museum. While we are at it, the guide tells us that assuming a short period of 30 seconds on each artefact in the museum, it takes about 2 months to see everything in the museum. Think about that!!

From the museum, we start our journey towards Switzerland. We bid adieu to the city with a heavy heart to what-now-is-one-of-my-favourite-cities-in-the-world but vowing to come back again.

We stopped on the way to spend the night at a small, quiet town in the middle-of-nowhere in France after the bustling-with-life Paris. We sleep to our heart’s content in this place called Metz. The next day we began our journey to Germany and Switzerland.

To be continued….