Paris Notes

The last stop of the trip was Paris. As this was my second visit to the city, I can now conclude that Paris is undoubtedly one of the greatest cities of the world. The urban infrastructure, heritage structures, Haussmannian boulevards and the exceptional food make the place vibrant in a remarkable sense. The number of cyclists (mostly tourists) have gone up a lot since my last visit.

What I couldn’t cover in the last trip was the focus this time. I wonder if the 4 hours spent at the Musée d’Orsay was more visually stimulating than the time spent at the Louvre. The museum boasts of the most impressive collection of Impressionist paintings and literally has the ‘Who’s who of Impressionism’ on display here – Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Cezanne, Sisley, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Courbet, van Gogh and Gauguin greet you as you walk past one gallery after the other. I was most impressed by Toulouse-Lautrec’s works. Courbet’s ‘L’Origine du monde‘ was sadly away on loan to a museum in Vienna. The museum was hosting a retrospective of Renoir when we visited. The crowd, the curation, the art and the accessibility showed how museums and a well-planned city can make life more meaningful.

The Notre-Dame cathedral looked unscathed after the fire. I was surprised by the lax checking of bags while entering the place. The cathedral also served as a reminder to reread Hugo’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ which is what brought this building into popular imagination.

One entire afternoon was spent walking through the Pere Lachaise Cemetery which is the city’s largest. Some of the famous ‘residents’ include Balzac, Proust, Wilde, Piaf, Jimi Hendrix, Delacroix… If Hindus weren’t cremated but buried instead, what would have been the response by the real estate markets in India? I shudder to imagine cemeteries branded by the DLFs, Rahejas and the rest with launch offers, and “eternal” maintenance plans. The other major cemetery of Paris is the one in Montparnasse which will be visited some other day!

The last day was spent doing absolutely nothing but soaking up the company of two friends who flew all the way from York to meet us.