Hidden in Plain Sight, Treasures are Everywhere!

Paris is easily the most beautiful city in the world. True, I’ve not been to every other city in the world, but from what I’ve seen in person and in pictures, I’m confident in my assessment.

Paris seems to be one of those places that’s on most people’s bucket list. Whether for their honeymoon, a romantic getaway, a shopping spree or some other “excuse” the idea of Paris makes most hearts skip a beat, and with good reason…

There are of course the required sights on the list that we all want to check off. The Eiffel Tower. The Louvre. The Arc de Triomphe. Notre-Dame. The Sacré-Cœur. And maybe if you have time, Versailles.  Then there are the activities such as riding a boat down the Seine, drinking a cappuccino in a café and of course walking down the Champs-Élysées.

Indeed, one could spend a week, a month or a year in Paris and still you might be left wanting more. But one of the things that is most captivating about Paris is that there is another level of beauty beyond the things that show up on postcards or in airline advertisements or high school social studies classes.

This lamp or that balcony or yes, that roof. The city is full of things that were never meant to be cultural touchstones but rather were just the normal, average way things were done in Paris. One can walk around and look up at a the sound of a barking dog and notice she’s poking her head through a carved balustrade that looks like something out of Architectural Digest or turn a corner and stumble across a little park the size of one of an SUV where an office worker and a student are sharing lunch.

I recently had one of those moments when I’m standing, looking up in awe of something grand and notice a small detail that simply captivates me. In this case I was in the Louvre courtyard walking around looking for the statues of Voltaire and Molière among the 85 or so men that look down from around the courtyard. While there I noticed the elegant street lights that line the entire courtyard. Tall and with a verdigris patina, each with a column wrapped in ivy and four rounded glass panes sitting below a crown, they were works of art into themselves. But the part I found most fascinating was the base. Each base features an inverted fish (a dolphin as a matter of fact) seemingly descending to the ground and keeping a close eye on any who venture by. I stood and shook my head. I’d been in that courtyard countless times yet had never noticed that simple element that was so captivating that anywhere else in the world it might have had people taking pictures in front of it…

But alas, it wasn’t anywhere else, it was in the courtyard of the greatest museum in the world, and as such, a life of relative obscurity likely will continue. But for me, not so much. In that one moment I was reminded to slow down, maybe just a beat, and remember that Paris (and much of the rest of the world, too) has treasures hidden everywhere in plain sight, it’s just a matter of taking notice…