TRAVEL: Paris, 2018

All pictures by Zachary V. Sunderman.
Please do not use without credit.

As with other trips we've taken, Paris held different types of appeal for me and for my wife, Kirsten. While we both were lured by the promise of France's excellent art, we were otherwise interested in quite different things. For her - a Culinary Institute-trained professional bread baker who once worked for a Michelin-starred restaurant group - to be in the world capital of fine food and good bread was a pilgrimage. For me, history, jazz records, and the possibility of an encounter with my beloved spiritual brother Rousseau were the draws. Paris paid off richly for us both.

As we were staying in a spectacular apartment just down the stairs from Place des Abbesses in the city's northern limit of Montmartre, we, accompanied by our friends Jess and Emily, got up early our first morning in town and walked up the hill to Sacré-Cœur. But though that building was certainly something to see, the real treat was a sunrise view over the entire sweep of the city. Taking in that place - a place where so much beauty, tragedy, and more than anything inspiration had taken place, looking much as it had for hundreds of years - was special, to say the least.

After a couple days of sight-seeing, I decided to spend a day exploring on my own. It turned out to be one of the best days of my life. After a fantastic breakfast on the Seine and a tour of Notre Dame (still at the time in possession of its historic spire) and the archaeological crypt underneath (which contains the weathered remains of the earliest, ancient settlement that eventually grew into Paris), I walked through the Latin Quarter and had one amazing experience after another. My first stop was to be the Arènes de Lutèce - the startlingly well-preserved arena from what was the Roman city of Lutetia. It was my first encounter with antiquity, and as I stepped through the entryway into the ancient arena, for the first time in the presence of the Roman Empire, I was well and truly blown away. But on the way there, I had the additional pleasure of happening upon the home of Descartes. How amazing suddenly to be in the actual presence of such seminal, world-historic minds!

After thoroughly taking in the amphitheater, imagining as best I could the bustling ancient world that used it nearly 2,000 years ago, I turned a corner and found myself face-to-face with the storefront of Paris Jazz Corner. It turned out to be a fruitful dig, and from there, I made my way to the somberly monumental Panthéon. Nestled between numerous very-old buildings, including the Sorbonne and the Lycée Henri-IV with its Clovis Tower, my descent into its crypt brought me within inches of the final resting places of forces of nature such as Hugo and Voltaire. And as I stood before the coffin of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I couldn't help but weep as I lamented the tragic life of this misunderstood giant whose adoration came too late. And that was not my last encounter with Jean-Jacques. On another day, I made my way up to the suburb of Montmorency, where I visited Rousseau's house, which includes many of his actual personal effects. My guide even led me to his garden shed, in which he wrote no less a seismic piece of philosophy than The Social Contract.

On our last full day in town, Kirsten and I visited the Catacombs, the sobering mass grave of countless Parisian skeletons, some of whom fought in the French Revolution (and some of whom were killed by them). I closed the day with one of the best meals of my life, courtesy of Le Potager de Charlotte. As a vegan, I was told Paris would be difficult, but at this point in time, it absolutely was not.