✦ France · October 2025 ✦
Letters from a slow city
✦ Quick facts ✦
✦ Chapter zero ✦
The plans, the assumptions, and the small preparations that travel never quite asks you to keep.
I
A list of bookshops, an unreasonable number of museums, and the firm intention to skip at least half of them.
II
Cliché. Beauty. Mild rudeness, gracefully delivered. Paris obliged on all counts and then a few I had not asked for.
III
Re-read A Moveable Feast on the plane. Watched Midnight in Paris twice without apology.
IV
Comfortable shoes, an empty notebook, a stubborn refusal to use the Metro before sunset.
Charting the route…
The trip as it happened, in order — chapters of field notes, with photographs, pull quotes and a ledger at the end of each day.
Chapter One · Arrival
Day 01
— 03 October 2025 —
I walked into Paris from the Gare du Nord and did not stop walking for four days. The city, as advertised, is best read on foot.
Notre-Dame was scaffolded but still impossible to look away from. I sat on a bench across from her for almost an hour, eating an unremarkable sandwich and feeling improbably happy.
Paris is best read on foot, in the present tense.
Chapter Two · The Left Bank
Day 02
— 04 October 2025 —
Shakespeare & Company in the morning. A long lunch in the 6th. The Musée d’Orsay in the afternoon, and the Seine again at dusk.
The city does not ask much of you, beyond attention.
Chapter Three · The Right Bank
Day 03
— 05 October 2025 —
Sacré-Cœur in the rain has a particular kind of dignity. I sat on the steps with a paper cup of coffee and watched the city do its slow morning thing.
Chapter Four · Departure
Day 04
— 06 October 2025 —
A long, last walk along the Seine. A train back home, a notebook nearly full, a city already half-missed.
✦ Moments to remember ✦
The funny incidents, the unexpected kindnesses, the things a trip keeps even after the photographs have been filed away.
01
An older man with a green box told me I had bought the wrong Hemingway. He was probably right.
02
The view from Sacré-Cœur, the cheapest coffee of the trip, and the best one.
Photography
A selection from the road — captured slowly, edited even slower.
✦ Route map ✦
Charting the route…
✦ A small guide ✦
The short list of places and tips that made this journey easier — kept honest, not exhaustive.
Hôtel des Marronniers, Saint-Germain
A quiet courtyard in a noisy quarter.
Le Comptoir du Relais
Tiny, generous, reserve weeks ahead.
Du Pain et des Idées
The escargot pistache is worth a small crime.
Pont de Bir-Hakeim
The classic Eiffel view, with trains.
Sacré-Cœur steps
Sunset, ideally in the rain.
✦ Highlights ✦
01
Scaffolding and all, still impossible to look away from.
02
A bookshop you can lose half a day in, easily.
03
The whole city, blurred and silver, laid out below.
Paris does not need much from a traveller. Pay attention, walk further than you planned, and let the city be itself.
I came home slower than I arrived, which is the best thing a journey can do.