The Best Therapy. Parisian Journal II

I hope I can keep up with this project of posting each week the Parisian journals, I actually have thought a lot about it and I find making a part of one’s life too public... and the existential, philosophical reasons why making life so public… I really don’t want to think about it, otherwise I wouldn’t write anything.

On Sunday, September 24, we woke up quite late but it was well deserved as we hadn’t acutally slept in more than 36 hours. We went straight for lunch to the Carette in Place des Vosges. Carette is not one of those restaurants that appear frequently in blog lists as a trendy place to have lunch in Paris, quite the contrary in fact, it’s a chain restaurant, really French, sort-of fancy, but the important thing is that they sell all of the typical French dishes you should taste, they cook awesomely and it’s really delicious. I had a Bœuf Bourguignon, a delicious meat with some particular taste of wine and spices that is subtle, like everything french-y; and Sebastian had a breakfast... :(

Afterwards, we went walking around the Marais again, (I promise there won’t be anything else about this quartier in the next entries), thanks to my luck with the Parisian weather this year, the sun was shining marvelously, there were a lot of people in the streets, everybody seemed happy and warm, the atmosphere was great. so cool, we took some photos here and there, and then we went to the Rue des Rosiers where my husband inquired if he could get some breadmaking lessons in the Jewish bakeries in that street, but they didn’t any more. Next we went looking for some macarons in Pierre Hermé for a little photographic project I wanted to make and obviously to eat them when we were finished. All the cafes were full and we managed to find a table in the terrace of Cafe Vito, by the way, the coffee is delicious there; after several cup of coffees and some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and talking and seeing people go by in this happy Sunday in the Marais we went to the Eiffel Tower.

In the tower we made some photos with the macarons, a cliche after another! I love cliches!. After that we went to make the so-called endless line to go up the tower. I’ll stress some points here: first of all, we only were in the line for 20 minutes, second, please leave all the following prejudices home: “it is not worth it”, “it’s some touristy shit”, you really don’t know what you’re missing if you avoid it. You can go to the second and third floors of the tower; the view from the second floor is spectacular and it would have been enough for me. 

I think that before going up the tower I didn’t quite get the geography of the city, how the Seine goes through it, how the neighborhoods are laid, its organization and its confusion, it is enlightening. While we went to the third floor in the elevator the tower was lit up! And again we waited until 8 pm for the lights of Paris to be turned on and continue with our photographic project, the thing we went there for, among so many other things, things from the heart and from life! Because you shouldn’t and mustn’t go to Paris just to work.

I wanted to go to the restaurant in the first floor of the Eiffel Tower but we needed to make a reservation, so I told Sebastian to look for a restaurant along the Quais that had a view of the tower. Of course he tried to keep a straight face because spending money on restaurants is really not his thing but, dear readers, Paris at night is a gift to open and enjoy!

We went to a seafood restaurant, Bal de la Marine, in a boat in the river, the waiters were so nice and cool, and we ate shrimp while we looked at the tower at night completely dumbstruck, and I thought that, after all, life is not so bad. Life is hard, let’s be honest, even for us lucky enough to travel, for us who get to make beautiful things, and even for those who have all we want to have. And in those moments that you feel life is really good with you is when you feel that all the scars made by the everyday struggles begin to heal. This is why I will always recommend traveling, there is no better therapy than that, there really isn’t.

By the way, if you want any of the photos above in print or in canvas, or any other Paris photos, please write me or visit my shops at www.carolinecestlavie.com