Paris 2

Paris, January 2026
First things first. The French, or at least the Parisians, do say ‘Voilà’, and they seem to say it a lot. I liked that. Secondly, all those stories about Parisians being rude to tourists, particularly the English, are, of course, complete pants, admittedly, these seem to be old stories. Everyone was very friendly.

We stayed in a hotel named after the writer Marcel Aymé. To be perfectly honest, prior to Eleanor booking the hotel I’d never heard of him. He was a prolific writer, though English translations are rare. He was born in Burgundy in 1902, moving to Paris in 1923 where he discovered a love and talent for writing, publishing his first novel in 1926. He lived most of his life in Montmartre. His most famous short story is Le passe-muraille or “The Walker-Through-Walls”. He died in 1967. He was also very cool.

We had a lot planned for today, the only day of the three days we have in Paris where rain isn’t forecast, so walking these lovely historic streets was in order. We started early, squeezing 40 minutes around Montmartre before breakfast in the hotel. The sculpture of ‘The walker through walls’ just round the corner was our first stop.

We had a lovely walk around the area. We/I should do more morning-before-breakfast walks when on holiday; it was so peaceful and as everyone who does photography knows, the light at the beginning and end of the day is usually the best.

One of the things I like about Montmartre, a location typical to the ones we try to stay in, is the mix of residential and tourist places. Seeing the residents going about their early morning, kids to school, walking to the station, grabbing coffee and breakfast on the way, just enhances the feel of a place. It’s as close to living somewhere as can be experienced in a few days.

We also got a great view towards the Eifel Tower, something that was impossible with the low cloud last night. I get an absolute thrill out of seeing such iconic things. I know it’s a cliché to love the view of the tower over Parisian rooftops, but hey. It’s fucking cool.

Way back when we first discussed coming to Paris, we timed the trip so we could see the Gerhard Richter exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation (LVF). We used the metro to get as close to the gallery as possible, though were surprised to find that the map’s recommended way took us through a bit of forest.

I was expecting to be walking through something open and grassy, like a London royal park. It was a little creepy walking through straggly trees not really knowing where we were going; especially to something as fancy as the LVF; which is an amazing building, and coming from the direction we did, completely out of place.

Gerhard Richter was born in Germany in 1932 and has been called ‘the world’s best living painter’. He is constantly changing, moving through a wide range of abstract styles over his career and this exhibition was vast, with so many impressive works, some of them huge; like ‘The Stroke (on red)’. Up close, this 20-metre long painting made from tiny individual brush strokes is stunning. It must have taken weeks to paint.

He had a period of very clinical, clean and brightly coloured works as well a ‘grey’ period.

I took a lot of photos in the exhibition; Richter was prolific and an artistic shapeshifter and with such a variety of work there was a lot I liked and a lot that didn’t appeal at all. I particularly liked his photo-realistic paintings, both from an early and late in his career.

I can’t say it was my favourite work, but a special mention has to go to his 1983 work ‘Candle’ which is best known as the cover of Sonic Youth’s 1988 album ‘Daydream Nation’, one of my favourite records.

We left the LVF after a tasty lunch in the (expensive) restaurant and walked to the Arc de Triumph. We’d both been up it before so decided to keep on going down towards the river Seine and the Eiffel Tower.

There is nothing I can say that will add to the many thousands (millions?) of references made to this wonderful piece of late 19th century engineering. It is impressive, I and the hundreds of people queuing to make their way up to the viewing platform, will attest to that.