What it's like holidaying in Paris, city changed by terror attacks
The November 13 attacks struck at the heart of one of the world's most beloved cities. Jeff Chu returns to a Paris still coming to terms with tragedy.
The outpouring of love for Paris reflects its special hold on the world. The city first put me under its spell when I was 13. My Hong Kong-born aunt and uncle, who lived in London at that time, took me to Paris for three days of art and architecture, eating and shopping. For a kid growing up in the American suburbs, it provided an entrée to another, more romantic world. The bells of Notre-Dame have summoned me repeatedly since.
I am incensed. Then, on further reflection, I soften. Perhaps, I think, there is some comfort in his unwelcoming, if stereotypical, French surliness. Perhaps it is a sign that Paris endures.
At the end of last month, my partner and I decided to make a last-minute trip to Paris. It wasn't an altruistic journey: it's hard to paint a trip to one of the world's greatest cities as an act of self-sacrifice. Also, we thought that we might be able to get a deal on a hotel - and we did, paying about €125 (HK$1,050) a night for a room that typically goes for at least twice that.
Yet I couldn't help but wonder what we'd find.
the 11th arrondissement, at the Hotel l'Antoine. It's about 10 minutes' walk from the Bataclan theatre, where terrorists killed 89 people, and just down the street from La Belle Equipe, the café where 19 were shot dead. Bouquets and notes remain piled up outside the still-closed café. The flowers have wilted, rain has blurred the writing, but weeks after the carnage, the makeshift memorial lives on in its own way: someone lights its candles each night.
One evening, we have dinner at a friend's apartment. She takes our presence as a sign of solidarity, telling us she is "so glad" we've come to Paris now. She and her husband describe subtle but pronounced changes in Parisian life. Recently, for instance, the two of them went to a rock concert for the first time since November 13; before, it would have been sold out, but this time it wasn't.