Montmartre and Sacre Coeur in Paris. Photo / Getty Images
Montmartre and Sacre Coeur in Paris. Photo / Getty Images
Ah, Paris. Je t'aime beaucoup. The city of light, the city of love; the city I have wanted to visit since I was 13 years of age, sitting in Miss Gavigan's class and learning how to ask in French where the train station is, while dreaming of drinking a kirroyale on the Champs-Elysees…
So many cultural icons reside within your walls. View the Mona Lisa in the Louvre! Channel your inner Toulouse-Lautrec at Moulin Rouge caberet! Hunch over and pull the bell at Notre-Dame! Or climb 276 metres up the most visited paid monument in the world, Gustave Eiffel's tower, to view Paris from above (cue swirling accordion music). I love you so, so much.
Alas, almost four decades on, my love remains unrequited. And unconsummated, for that matter. I've flirted with other French cities (adorable Avignon, loveable Lyon et al) but nothing - in my head, at least - can compare with passionate Paris. And yet my only (brief, tumultuous, ultimately unsatisfying) encounter has been with Charles de Gaulle airport. Not one of the greats.
This year (around about now, as it happens), I'd arranged to visit Paris in the springtime. Events (and viruses) conspired against us. But we will meet. We will. I've waited this long. I can wait a little longer.
But I probably didn't need to send this love letter after all. In the immortal words of Desbordes-Valmore, "Entre deux cœurs qui s'aiment, nul besoin de paroles" - two hearts in love need no words. A bientot, Paris!
