Quirky Old Paris – Musings On The Parisians

Parisian Train shop for grown-ups copyright Carla Coulson

It has been pouring for days in Paris and it has got me thinking about this town.

A friend arrived yesterday glowing from the south of France telling me that she had just left the beach. I was a little envious being a water baby!

I am not sure whether you have this afflication but do you ever ask yourself should you be living somewhere else?

Then I took a little stroll and had a think about Paris. Why do we love her so?

She is quirky, like this fellow gazing into the train shop window. What store in the world would even still sell trains that run around on tracks for little (and big) boys? Paris is chock full of quirkiness from Deyrolle, the taxidermist boutique that is out of this world to the stamp sellers in the 9th.

Who collects stamps when the whole world sends email I ask? Only in Paris..

Paris doesn’t fix things if they aren’t broken, she doesn’t replace the 18th century carousel in the Luxembourg gardens for a new one that will make you scream at the top of your lungs and she wouldn’t dream of updating her wonderful steel chairs that have been kicking around her gardens for centuries for plastic ones that would be cheaper, easier to maintain and move around. No Sirree.. Not in Paris. And she would never dream of  tearing down those wonderful wooden shop fronts that need repainting every year for a new whizz bang version. Don’t we love her?

She loves the individual, in Paris you can still find it all in a funny little shop that just sells cord, or another that only sells leather trims or one type of handbag. And Parisians aren’t scared of the competition, they generously gather the same type of cords shops, stamp collectors or camera shops together in the one quartier. How awfully thoughtful when you are shopping for a new camera or wanting to add to your stamp collection, no running around all over town just head to the stamp collecting quartier. J’adore Paris!

She loves beauty and attention to detail and generously plants flowers and almost hand trims the lawns in her public gardens, such attention to detail that would bring a grown man to tears.

Beauty, is there a city that loves beauty as much as Paris, from the wonderful graphics of her exhibitions, the breathtaking gowns of her couture runway shows to her decorated patisseries!!

Ok, so we don’t have the weather, we don’t have the beaches – but we will always have Paris!

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. Ernest Hermingway

 

PS: Paris lovers might like my Paris Pinterest Board