I am taking a blogging break this week to enjoy Paris in the summer. I am running some of my popular past blogs, The Best of Eye Prefer Paris. Enjoy and next week I will have exciting and new stories to tell.
Quatorze Juillet (also known as Fête Nationale or Bastille Day) always opens with a roar. The jet flyover streams tricolor patriotism through the sky and makes me think of a French Rapunzel, letting down her long blue, white, and red hair. I watch the spectacle from my home bridge (Pont Louis Phillippe) and then wait around for the horsemen of the Republican Guard to clipclop their way home to the stables after the Champs Elysées parade. It’s a time when I feel a little française (a tug of pride deep inside), just as I feel American pride when the National Anthem is sung by someone like Aretha Franklin (not Brittany Spears or Roseanne Barr). I’m bi-pridal.
This year I watched the evening fireworks display from the comfort of a friend’s apartment, and had the added pleasure of singing along to my favorite musicals while photographing. No one was sure why the theme of the show was mostly anglophone musicals, but it hit home. In fact, I had to put down the camera from time to time to sing with full voice, like I did when I was eight years old in the privacy of an empty living room, with a broom for a microphone. Don’t cry for me Argentina. The hills are alive. Let the sunshine in.
Even the smushing crowds on the way home played their roles impeccably (that is to say, we lived through it). And I ended the day full of pomp and a good understanding of what it means to be free.
Meredith Mullins is a fine art photographer, photography instructor, writer for OIC Moments, and Director of the International Fine Art Photography Competition. Her work can be seen at www.meredithmullins.artspan.com or in her award-winning book, In A Paris Moment. She is also available for private photography instruction/exploration in Paris. Contact her at meredithmullins@earthlink.net. Her solo exhibition, Free Floating, opens at the Pacific Grove Art Center in California on July 18.
I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.
Tours cost 210 euros for up to 3 people, and 70 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.
Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com
Click here to watch a video of our famous Marais tour