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Showing posts with label Roue de Paris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roue de Paris. Show all posts

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Paris (France) - Time is the longest distance between two places



Paris (France)
26 November 2016

The last time we were in Paris together we were virtually strangers, meeting for only the second time on our first date. That was only two years ago but my, hadn’t we all rung in the changes since then. Up until that point my life had felt static, like I had slowly but surely found a way to sink deeper into the quicksand of complacency and the commonplace. I had all the right  to get me out of the quagmire but I just hadn’t been able to utilise them in the right fashion. It wasn’t for the sake of my own effort either. What it took however was a seismic shift, and when that necessary circuit break of rudimental certainty came, it flipped everything on its head. It also gave me the opportunity to take my life back.

Two years ago in this city I stood in the centre of my life’s own Venn diagram. There’s quote by Graham Greene that says, ‘A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead’ – symbolically or actually, Paris represents the end and start points of where I got to and where I’ve gotten to now.


Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Paris - France

Place de la Concorde - Paris - France


Only two days earlier I had asked Inga to marry me. Now he we were, in the city where we’d had our first date only two years ago, standing now on the precipice of a life together.  It was a poignant moment in many ways, filled with impactful, stirring memories. It sought to act as a great way to allow us reminisce but also, plan the way forward.

In these last gasps of Autumn Paris produced another wonderful day. Cold, for sure, but the sun was out, the leaves had reached a deep yellow, amber colour and symbolically underpinned this moment of change in my life.


Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Jardin de Tuileries - Paris - France

Avenida de Champs Elysees - Paris - France

Jardin de Tuileries - Paris - France


Transit cities for entering/exiting Belgrade to somewhere else is almost an obligation for travel out of Serbia (other than Australia, strangely enough), so Paris was a necessary stop, but one that we were happy to have. Even though our time in the city was short we did spend a bit of time walking around the Jardin de Tuileries, before entering the Place de la Concorde and taking  a turn on the Roue de Paris, a 60mtr tall Ferris wheel that offers some fairly impressive views over Paris.


Late Autumn in Paris

River Seine - Paris - France

River Seine - Paris - France

River Seine - Paris - France


Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Pont Neuf - Paris - France

Pont Neuf - Paris - France


Pont Neuf - Paris - France

Pont Neuf - Paris - France

Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Walking in Paris is always a pleasure and we took on a small-ish circuit by heading down to the Seine, and casually strolling to Pont Neuf where we ‘locked ourselves’ into a chained fence, like so many before us.  Strangely, the origin of the ‘love lock’ or pad lock dates back to an old melancholic Serbian tale of World War 1, with an attribution for the bridge of Most Ljubavi, in the spa town of Vrnjacka Banja. Apparently, as the tale goes, a local school mistress named Nada, who was from the town, fell in love with a Serbian Officer named Relja. After they committed to each other Relja went off to war in Greece where he fell for a woman in Corfu (and of course who wouldn’t want to stay in Corfu, I mean the place is gorgeous). Nada was of course devastated, never recovering and died eventually from a heart-attack, literally a broken heart. A young woman from Vrnjacka Banja who knew of the situation wanted to do something to protect their own loved ones and thus came up with the idea of affixing padlocks on the bridge where Nada & Relja used to meet.



Pyramide de Louvre - Paris - France


Pyramide de Louvre - Paris - France

A late night Aperol special - Paris - France

Charles de Gaulle Airport - Paris - France


After locking ourselves into Paris for eternity, or until such time the locks are forcibly removed, we had an afternoon meal before finishing up with evening drinks somewhere in the 1st.

Paris, you are always a pleasure, and so nice to have you take part in this part of our journey. You're a city where we can both reminisce about what was, how we got there, and now also, where our collective futures will take us.