A little background. Paris is my passion. When I’m not in Paris, I love thinking and talking about it. But what I love about Paris may not be what you expect. In fact, when I started Paris Off Script, my husband said, Well, you certainly have something to offer because you have a unique way of seeing the city. That comment, by the way, did not start an argument!
Before I settled on the title page “Speaking of Paris,” I was going to call the blog Paris Perspectives. But honestly, doesn’t that sound a little dull? Mmm, I thought so, too. So I decided instead that I would just speak about Paris: about things I discover, about things I think about, about things I find interesting.
But I do have a perspective, a take that's different. I look for the uncommon in the commonplace. Scroll the Paris Off Script feed on Instagram (linked below) and you’ll see what I mean.
Which brings me to this photo of the Eiffel Tower, perhaps the most iconic “on script” symbol of Paris. So what’s up with that? Well, this. The day I took the picture—and by the way, all the photos I share are mine—I was poking around Montmartre putting the final touches on a new walking itinerary. I turned a corner and there it was! Now I’m not so cynical as to be immune to Paris’s Big Things. Those Big Things are pretty great. But the Big Things are only a part (a small part, I would argue) of what makes Paris the place that captures so many imaginations. What struck me as I rounded the bend, was how enormous the tower looked from where I was standing, a distance of 3.5 miles.
For me, that put the Eiffel Tower’s soaring height into a different perspective, certainly, and maybe a greater perspective, than standing right beside it. There were no crowds, no selfie-takers, and definitely no one accosting me with armloads of mini Eiffel Tower key chains. I had the view to myself; the crowds were all in front of Sacré Coeur, facing the basilica, taking pictures of themselves with the city in the background.
I stood there for several minutes, thinking and admiring the view, and then moved on.