We’re back in the French capital for just under two days, before boarding the Eurostar and making our way home. And it seems that Paris’ nickname as the ‘City of Light’ is two-fold; in the daylight there is plenty to see, but when darkness falls and the buildings are lit up, its beauty is arguably even more spectacular. Last night, we explored the city as darkness fell around us, walking from south to north, and passing landmark after landmark. On the tourist trail for sure, but when you’ve one night left, why not?
We’d arrived earlier that day to a hotel with a tree-lined avenue and Sacre Coeur view, glorious sunshine and a desire to do a whistle-stop walk around the city, catching the tourist hot spots that we didn’t see in the first half of the week. Lunch at Trocadéro started us off, taking us past the ever-graceful Eiffel Tower in the direction of Île des Cygnes – just past the Grenelle Bridge – and the smaller replica of the Statue of Liberty. It taught us that Paris’ beauty isn’t just in its buildings either; the architecture of the overground Metro lines is equally stunning in all its 1930s glory.
From there, we caught the underground up to the Bois de Boulogne, a massive wooded park in the north of the city, famed for its reputation as a playground for the ladies of the night once the sky turns black. We were on Velibs – Paris’ bikes for hire – though, so if any of them got mistakenly frisky, we could ride off and escape.
A convoluted sign-out and sign-in process made securing our somewhat wobbly two-wheeled steeds harder than was necessary, but once on the move, we were glad of the change of transport pace. I certainly wouldn’t use the Velibs on the main roads. With Parisians seemingly taking as much care of them as their cars, mine felt decidedly unsafe at times, and once we’d got among the bustling crowds coming out of the French Open at Roland Garros, I was pleased to be walking once more.
Back in the centre of the city we made for the Latin Quarter for an early supper, so we could go out and get those night-time pictures. Snapping Notre-Dame, the Pompidou Centre, the Louvre, and the Moulin Rouge, the Sacre Coeur was to be our last stop before the hotel, but once we’d made the climb to the top of the hill just after midnight, we were disappointed; the basilica was swathed in darkness. It would appear that the lights are turned off just after the witching hour, so it was back to the hotel for our final night under the Parisian stars.
