Paris: Cinquième Partie

The rest of my seven-and-a-half hour tour of Paris was like a whirlwind trip to wonderland with a little bit of a suspense-horror vibe going on. Why, you might ask? Well, I arrived from Maastricht at around four in the afternoon. The sun was getting low and the darkness of the cold mid-winter night in the French capital was slowly creeping in.

So, after about 30 to 45 minutes of just being mesmerized by the Eiffel Tower and its peripherals, I proceeded with my self-made itinerary, using the river Seine as my main point of reference. On my list of spots to briefly visit and take pictures of (and with) were the Louvre, Cathedrale Notre-Dame, Champ Elysees, and the Arc de Triomphe... all of which I crammed into my walking tour.

I make it first to the Louvre after Tour Eiffel. The museum was already closed, but I wasn't really there to see its interiors; I was after its very interesting external architecture. Perhaps I came at the right time of the day because both of the Louvre's pyramids were looking exceptionally magnificent with its night lighting. As I was taking pictures and enjoying the views, my thoughts kept going back to Ron Howard's adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, specifically to the scene where Tom Hanks' Robert Langdon makes his way in and out of this also-world-famous Parisian landmark, and to other where Jean Reno's Bezu Fache says its "a scar on the face of Paris!" 

Oh yeah! The suspense-horror vibe! Well, by seven o'clock (I think it was), Paris, though a well-lit city by night, was still kind of shady at certain areas, and some portions of my route were already desolate, with people probably already at home or catching the commute on the subway. In fact, there was a segment on my tour (the sidewalk on the south side of the Louvre; on Quai Francois Mitterand to be exact) that gave off a spooky vibe because nobody else was walking the shadowy street with me. I was wondering if I was walking on a no-pedestrian part of the city, and thinking I could get mugged at any point of this tour. Thank God that didn't happen.

I think it was a this point that I decided to cross the Seine on Port de Arts to get to Quai de Conti where I saw better street lighting and more human activity. The Port de Arts or Passerelle des Arts is one of the many pedestrian bridges on the Seine that, to my surprise, turned out to be the famous Love Lock bridge of Paris! How cool is that! To incidentally visit a famous tour stop without even being aware of it. This night just got more interesting!

... to be continued ...