Paris

Paris rewards the unhurried. Beneath the wide Haussmann boulevards and the grey-zinc rooftops runs a city built for walking — and lately for swimming, too: since the summer of 2025 Parisians once again bathe in the Seine at supervised riverside pools, steps from a Notre-Dame reopened in December 2024 with its stone scrubbed luminous and cream. The great sights need no introduction — the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower catching the evening light — but the real Paris lives in its villages: the medieval lanes of Le Marais, the canal-side apéro of Canal Saint-Martin, the literary cafés of Saint-Germain. The riverbanks are pedestrian promenades now, Rue de Rivoli nearly car-free, and a shared bike is often the loveliest way across town. Come for the museums and monuments; stay for the smaller pleasures — a warm baguette carried home, a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, the first glass of the evening as the streetlights come on. Few cities blend grandeur with everyday grace so effortlessly.

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