Winter in the City of Lights
Even in the winter, Paris is a city that attracts visitors. A destination where you are guaranteed culture, beauty, charm, and quality. Rediscover Paris every time you return.
Rain falls by the banks of the Seine and there is a moment when the camera lens captures that nostalgic, gray moment, but beautiful in the essence that emanates from a poem. The trees are like silver filigree, and the colors of Paris mix with sounds and smells, which lead this city to maintain the ardent flame of the City of Lights. Paris will always be Paris, regardless of what time of year. While works at Notre-Dame Cathedral are still very much ongoing after the fire on April 15, 2019, its reconstruction is not scheduled to end until 2024. That is also the year Paris will host the XXXIII Olympics of the modern era.
The city recovers the rhythm of a bygone age, always open to tourists and prepared to receive with open arms with events and, above all, that which will never be lacking in Paris: sophistication, beauty, and culture. Although, since 2015, it has not been possible for lovers of the Seine to leave their love locked eternally on the Pont des Arts, there are still tourists who insist on maintaining this tradition, structurally damaging many Parisian bridges. A movement called “No Love Locks” was even set up to combat and raise people’s awareness of the effects of their actions.
Paris can also be enjoyed with a visit to Christmas theme parks to admire the decorations of the time and sample the diverse gastronomic offers. Carousels continue to turn in Montmartre and, from luxury shopping centers to walks through the different gardens – don’t miss the Jardin du Luxembourg, for example —, the city still evokes memories of its past. A time when there was a monarchy, but also a revolution, an Emperor with world ambitions, whose course has also in fact influenced the history of Portugal, not to mention the challenges that the Republic now faces.
Tourists must always remember that this is the city that has given the world big names in the arts and intellectualism. It is a place steeped in wisdom and knowledge where the “lights” of the modern era do not just reflect a time in history when, in 1667, to reduce the night crime rate, the Lieutenant General of the Police, Gilbert Nicolas, ordered that the city be lit up with lanterns and torches. The residents also liked the idea, and Paris became known as the City of Lights. Yet today, lights illuminate a world different from what it used to be: in Paris, there is an ongoing desire to change the world. For that reason, we must lighten up people’s minds. Perhaps visitors will see in Paris’ Christmas lights new hope for brighter days in which there is a continued desire to travel, always leaving a bit of the French capital in our memory banks. Knowing that their days have been well spent.
To read the edition 13 of our inflight magazine Azorean Spirit, click here.
