Paris For The Ages by Sanjeev Nanda

European countries have a certain Effortlessness to them - other nations have tried emulating this very aura, and have achieved very little in terms of success. There is a particular reason for this, which Paris demonstrates spectacularly. My visit to the "City of Love", during the summer of 2012, was one I will not forget. Tagged along with a few friends, we set out to explore the beauty of the French capital in the wake of the morning. We took a 20 Euro daily pass, and moved from station to station, location to location, absorbing the sights and loving the excursion that came with it. I raised my eyes up from the beauty, and into the sea of tourists around me, and realized one thing - all of them were on their cameras, clicking everything they could spot; we, in contrast, were admiring the essence of the city, simply because it is unlike anything we are used to. The old timely architecture takes you out of whatever has gotten you bothered, and transports you to an completely different dimension. This was the case until we came back to our hotel room, which is in Modern Paris - that's when the dream broke. The new city is a complete whiplash from what the old, more famous part of Paris is like. We as tourists, tend to miss the forest for the trees. Old timely Paris was a hallowed destination known for its architecture (which has been encapsulated in the Victor Hugo's works as well) - modern Paris cannot even compare, let alone it's lesser imitators.