Good Morning!
..and now I am continuing with the idea of sharing our experiences in Paris through the five senses! When a friend or relative of mine goes on a trip, I am the one with 10,ooo questions upon thier return. "What did the food taste like? "Was it quiet, noisy?" "Did you see anything new"? I always want to try and get a real feeling for a place that I've never been. These posts will be my attempt at sharing that kind of information with you. I hope you enjoy!
Of course there are many sounds in Paris, but these are the ones I heard.
Soft French voices everywhere that somehow ended up sounding like romantic backround music precisely because we didn't understand much of what was being said.
The old fashioned ambulance sirens that we've only ever heard in the movies. Weee Aw Weee Aw. So cool.
Clicking and clacking of well heeled Parisien boots on cobblestone.
Vespa motors whirring past and weaving through traffic and pedestrians.
Classical piano music floating and bouncing off the crumbling walls of a gorgeous church that has been standing since 1550.
But one sound has stayed with me since that one day last week when we first entered an underground tunnel. The tunnel led to a bridge that crossed the River Seine and the sound that filled it was of the music of a lone saxophone. I couldn't see anyone at first but heard the music immediately. It seemed to fill every inch of that space, billowing out like the air in a balloon until I could feel it reverberating in my chest. The musician came into view and it struck me how magical it was that such a huge sound could be brought out of one instrument by one single person in that underground space. I could have listened for hours.
The following video is the closest I could find to what I heard that day. Beautiful all on its own and a very close match to that moment by the Seine. Enjoy!
Back soon with more "sensory" Paris :)
great post :)
Posted by: CAD | April 27, 2012 at 08:30 AM