Yayyy! Almost time for my favorite biennial event – the Olympics!

This year is the Summer installment, and I’m all the more excited because its stage is a magical city I’ve been fortunate to visit – Paris! Almost 40 years ago (back when I was an innocent broad…), Paris was the first big Continental stop on probably the most eye-opening and awe-inspiring adventure of my youth!

And of all the mementos I brought home, the most meaningful souvenir (that’s French!) was a sense of wonder which I’ve tried to carry with me ever since, everywhere I go!

I’ve gushed before about how much I cherish the Olympic experience (still only a televised one for me) – and it includes getting a good look at the host city! This year, it’ll be the chance to catch up on what’s changed in the City of Light over the last four decades, and to get reacquainted with what remains sweetly the same!

So, back in the summer of 1985, my friend Kelly and I arrived on Gallic shores via a ferry from Ireland. With heavy and bursting backpacks but light and young hearts, we were ready to hit Europe for the first time! At least I thought I was ready. I felt I’d cracked a fair amount of books during the three years of college I’d had thus-far – but turns out I could have prepped a wee bit better for the historic and artistic adventures ahead…

Starting with the setting of our itinerary. Just by chance, we figured we’d hit Paris on July 14th which (besides being a dear lady’s birthday!) happens to be Fête Nationale Française (don’t know if it should be in caps, but I like it):

Also known as “Bastille Day”!

I recalled reading a bit in school about the French Revolution and about the Bastille which I knew got stormed. And I thought maybe a reenactment was in progress when I found myself carried along with a huge crowd through the streets of the Capital at dusk on the 14th. Thankfully, though, everyone stopped along the banks of the Seine where Kelly and I became unwitting but entirely appreciative American guests (“Lafayette, we’re accidentally here!”) at an amazing national celebration that included play-by-play narration, exhilarating music, and stunning light and fireworks displays! So our “Pin the Tail on the Map” approach to planning? Well, it couldn’t have worked out better!

We fit in some Parisian sightseeing too! I imagine the Eiffel Tower will look pretty much the same as it did when I captured views both of it and from it on that trip:

And while I might not have been up on historic dates, I luckily knew enough to hit a number of Paris’s fantastic museums! I know for certain the Louvre will look a bit different – because the glass pyramid outside was being installed when I was there:

I do trust some of my favorite works of art are still in residence. Like I fell madly in love with sculptor Antonio Canova’s work there, and the way he brought Cupid and Psyche to romantic life – out of a slab o’ rock!

And when I gazed into the face of Vincent Van Gogh at the Musée d’Orsay, I could feel real weight behind the pensive gaze this expert collection of brush strokes seemed to shoot right back at me…

Kelly and I also visited the Palace of Versailles – Louis XIV’s little château just outside Paris!

Antics aside, Paris offered constant proof to my youthful eyes that beauty – in its pursuit and its realization – truly is a thing eternal!

Up until a few years ago, I’d have assumed another beloved Paris sight – Notre-Dame Cathedral – would look just as it did. Since I had a grandfather who built buildings and a brother who studied Environmental Design, I felt particularly primed back in ’85 to survey this edifice through an architectural lens – I mean, I knew how to appreciate a good flying buttress!

Standing inside though, squinting up into the lofty beams and taking in each detailed panel of stained glass, I found myself pondering other things. It took a while to get my head around the thought that, more than being a must-see stop on a tour, Notre-Dame had been a place of worship for many centuries – for many more, in fact, than my nation had even existed. Throughout our European expedition, as I contemplated my particular place in all this, I felt like an ever smaller blip in the pulse of time. But recognizing I was even a teeny part of such a grand continuum? Well, I found great comfort in the idea.

Since the revered Cathedral shockingly caught fire in 2019, it’s been closed to the public while repairs to the roof and flèche continue. (Okay, “buttress” I knew, but “flèche” I had to look up – it’s that tall spire.) The cross, which escaped melting by falling early on, has just been restored to its place – and the hope, I believe, is that the Cathedral will be ready to reopen by year’s end!

Of course as my own blip of time marches on, it’s clear I’ve undergone changes myself since visiting Paris! While I’ve always admired the Olympic ideals of Citius, Altius, Fortius, I’m skewing more in the direction of “Slower, Lower, Stronger-Not-As-Much” these days. But hey – I’m still onboard for the Olympic motto of simply taking part! I used to ignore the benches available at intervals in museums – but now I’m often as pleased to see them as I am many a work of art! And I’d love another chance on some sunny afternoon to pick one of those small round tables outside a Parisian bistro, order up a Kir Royale (that’s French – also throughout the globe, one of my favorite drinks!), and sip it as I enjoy the passing parade! Except the next item on the itinerary will now have to be a nap…

What I don’t think has changed from those backpack touring days is my curiosity about the world. It’s a kind of hunger that became insatiable after I filled up my plate in Paris! I haven’t been on a plane in more than four years – but I’ve found I don’t need to fly to keep on feeding that hunger, as I love absorbing a bit of the art, architecture and history wherever I happen to be! Some very recent examples:

I’m no Sun King, but I’ve become a bit of an art collector, myself! My dining room wall is now pretty well covered with pieces by extraordinary and accomplished artists – that is, by generations of my family from grandmother to grand-niece!

And I do look forward to feeling wonder-ful both as I witness the feats of this summer’s Olympians and savor memories of my time in the city in which they’re competing! No doubt there will be chances to admire strength, resilience and grace all around!

Yup! Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris. And for the joy of life that it exhibited and inspired in me back in the day, I’d like to think I’ll always have it too!

Et voilà! (That’s French!)

And cheers!

(Yeah, still kinda appreciating art in my own way… This is inside Salvador Dalí’s ‘Dalídom’ – part of the fascinating and currently touring Luna Luna exhibition with unearthed treasures from the world’s first art amusement park!)