That Season of Light

SOMEWHERE IN-BETWEEN THE SPRING AND THE SUMMER, Paris glistened with prolonged afternoon sunshine and brief morning rains. The foliage glimmered, the Seine sparkled and the champagne effervesced so sensationally, as if to safeguard the city's sobriquet "La Ville-Lumière" or "The City of Light" in a post-Enlightenment, post-Industrialist setting. I myself tried to keep things "light", in an unrelated sense of the word, with moderate eating, drinking and consumption of those evil sweets. As expected, Paris still hit my sweet spot with long-craved-for favorites like steak tartare and oeuf a la coque, as well as new marvels including Angelina's historical Mont Blanc and Le Rubis' salade de beouf, which was anything but "bof".

Lunch and l'apero were the only real plans we made for each day, leaving me hours to amble aimlessly through the long, sunlit days. Highlights involve catching Vika Gazinskaya's & Other Stories launch at Colette, and discovering the fashionable ease of Le Marais. Lowlights, on the other hand, left me mildly enlightened with such nuggets of traveler's wisdom as: getting enough sleep so as not to get a fever during a trip, being wary of loitering kids to protect one's money and optimism, booking always through the hotel or credit card concierge for securing tables with good views, and double-checking museum closing days to keep from staring fail-faced in front of a shuttered museum entrance.

With a lack of adventurous anecdotes, the trip left me only with a fascination for the late spring light; the way it filtered through the haze, the way it caught on gilt sculptures. Shame we are not skillful enough to capture it. At least in Paris, it seems, all that glitters may in fact be gold.

Jardins du Trocadéro, Hôtel Melia Vendôme, Angelina's Mont Blanc, Pont Alexandre III, Jardin des Tuileries, Vika Gazinskaya x & Other Stories launch at Colette, Café Charlot, Monsieur Bleu and Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, Paris. Photos by Lady San Pedro and Jaime Sese.