Travel Bug

"Bon Bon"

France and food. They go together like chocolate and croissants. When I got off the plane in Paris, I was home. It was the noise that hit me first. Taxi’s hooters screeching, and their drivers even more so. The mellifluous language softening the passion verbalised by all the French I was to come across. Passion was tangible – in the architecture, the art and especially the food.

Secondly, it was the sheer size that dwarfed me. The Eiffel tower as if on tip toes, reached longingly for the sky, flirting with the clouds. The cathedral of Notre Dame was as beautiful as it was sinister. Bathed in the light of the stained glass, even an atheist could find peace. And coming face to cement snout with the gargoyles which had come to life to become my imaginary friends as a child, felt simply surreal.

People speak of ‘losing one’s breath’, but has this ever happened to you? Mouth open, gasping for air as the shivers of sheer excitement run along your spine, settling in your brain where you can only hope to comprehend the magnitude of it all? Probably not- but then maybe you’ve never been to the Louvre. I’m not sure how, but I swear to this day that I managed to levitate, Mary Poppins’ style. I levitated to the winged Nike of Samothrace, where I mourned for her head; then to the sculptures that made my hands sweat with the need to touch them (I didn’t... much, but if you had seen wax sculpted into lace you would have risked imprisonment too.) I let my inner artist out (never a good idea, can never get her back in) boring everyone to deaf analysing the art. They must have hated me, but I took an awful pixellated photo of the Mona Lisa on my phone, so I was not to be deflated.

I’m ashamed to say I learned all of three French words: “toilette”, “escuse moi”, and "chocolat", because let’s face it: France is about chocolate. Just like France’s architecture and art, it’s decadent, it’s refined, it’s been around forever, and it’s absolutely perfect just the way it is.