Finally, after almost four years, we were back in Paris. We stayed in an apartment belonging to a friend of Norman’s, and were greeted with the sight of red geraniums in the window boxes. We were there for Christmas and New Year’s, happy to get away from Toronto, with its cheesy Christmas music in shops and the insistent ads about what to buy for everyone on your list. This was a gift from us to each other, and we unwrapped it a day at a time.

Shortly after we arrived back in Toronto (during a snowstorm), I wrote down a list of things that we love about Paris, the reasons we return as often as we can. Not sights and monuments, but details we find pleasing.

Such as the way in which the city is filled with ateliers in which people make things and repair things. A street that we often passed near the apartment had both a stained glass studio and a workshop in which a man made custom frames and mountings for unusual artwork. We chatted with the owner of the stained glass shop and Norman talked to the framer. Elsewhere in the city, we’ve seen people making furniture or musical instruments, fixing locks, mending china, and even repairing umbrellas. By comparison, many modern cities are mere logistics centres, storing and despatching, but not creating and never repairing.

At the larger scale, these skills aggregate to the art of restoration. On this visit, we saw several recently restored buildings: the Hotel de la Marine, the Musee Carnavalet, La Samaritaine department store (shown below), and the Bourse de Commerce, which has become an art gallery. In each one, we marvelled at the work that had been done and the care that had been taken with old materials.

We even found a shop called Les Toits Parisiens near the Village St-Paul, in which you can learn how to create artworks using zinc or ardoise (slate), the traditional materials of Paris roofs. We bought an original picture, a zinc objet, and some delicious little bonbons the colour of slate. We spent hours talking to the owner and examining everything in the small space.

Speaking of small spaces, we love the compactness of the city and are consistently amazed at the way in which bus drivers manage to manoeuvre articulated vehicles through impossibly small gaps in traffic or between buildings. I don’t know how they are trained, but they have our unbounded admiration.

We’ve heard residents of Paris complain about the public transit system, but they haven’t lived in Toronto. We are in awe of the extent and reach of the system, the frequency of Metro trains (even on public holidays), and the imaginative decoration of so many stations. We are also delighted when younger people leap to their feet if we seem to be hunting for a seat on the Metro. It’s not that we look terribly old, but giving up one’s seat is surprisingly common. In one bus, we watched a little minuet as a middle-aged woman gave her seat to an older woman, who in turn gave it up to an even older man with a cane. I’m quite sure he would have given way if someone with crutches and a cast had entered the bus.*

Good public transit means that living in Paris without a private car is a reasonable option for all kinds of people. This fact accounts for the interest provided by sidewalk traffic, as things that would be hidden away in cars in Canada are on display in the streets in Paris. People walk by carrying furniture, works of art, flowers, bags of groceries, tools, and toys.

Life is lived out in the open in so many ways. People in small apartments need cafés for meeting friends or just reading a book, and even in December, the outdoor terraces were filled with patrons, drinking coffee or wine and catching up on the news from other people or from newspapers. Lingering is allowed, because the table is important, socializing is important.

People speak of sitting outside cafés watching the world go by, but the world is just as fascinating inside the café. At one of our favourite restaurants, Café Varenne on the rue du Bac, we sat on little stools in the entrance, as the wait staff bustled around us, squeezing through the crowd without spilling the contents of their trays. We enjoyed the choreography as we waited for what the cheerful maître d’ called “the pole position.”

Despite the bustle of Paris life, we like the fact that social exchanges are given priority, even if you are merely buying stamps at the Post Office or cough drops at a pharmacie. It doesn’t matter how many people are waiting in line; these things cannot be rushed. You say Bonjour, get a Bonjour in return, state your business, discuss the options available, sometimes in considerable detail, make the transaction, and end with Au revoir (or Bonnes fêtes or Bonne année at this time of year). The people waiting behind you know they will have their time too. Indeed, it is common to see a line of people waiting as an elderly customer has a full and frank discussion with a pharmacist about health matters and then spends some time finding the money to pay for médicaments. This is as it should be.

What else? Papeteries (stationers’ shops) and drogueries – the latter are not drugstores but shops filled with every kind of tool and product to clean and shine anything you can imagine. Norman calls them “drudgery stores,” but even he has bought a variety of useful items there. And then there is Deyrolle, because after all who doesn’t need a stuffed owl? And the Bazar de l’Hotel de Ville basement hardware emporium, where we inspected the vast range of door handles available.

These places have knowledgeable sales staff. Sure, Paris has its share of sulky young people on the sales floor, absorbed in their mobile phones, but they mainly work for chain stores or shops catering to teenagers. In the papeteries, the drogueries, the shops selling housewares or artworks, or the specialized food shops, the staff pay attention, know the products, and can provide useful advice.

And they need to, because shops offer so many choices. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. A friend asked me which type of kiwi I preferred. I was speechless. There’s more than one kind of kiwi? She explained that she likes the yellow-fleshed ones, but the red-fleshed ones are nice, too. I didn’t know that green was not the only option. So she brought us some to show us. At the open-air markets, usually one stall sells nothing but lettuce, about 25 types (we’re lucky to find half a dozen in our central Toronto market). At the grocery store, I can spend hours pondering the available flavours of jam or yoghurt (chestnut, anyone? fig, plum, persimmon?).

It’s not just quantity and choice, but quality. Everything tastes better, fresher, juicier.

And the bread. Some people prefer croissants for breakfast, but give me a tartine (that is, a ficelle cut lengthwise), preferably with Normandy butter and a bit of jam, and I am in heaven. Later in the day, a baguette to go with the cheese course. The cheese is optional. Bread is much more of a temptation for me than pastries. I’ve never understood the appeal of macarons, although I enjoy financiers and I always hunt for pistachio éclairs (much better than the chocolate versions).

Paris is also becoming more welcoming to gluten-intolerant visitors. A friend of ours visiting from California is gluten-intolerant, and found a wealth of options, as well as sympathetic treatment in restaurants. She brought an amazing gluten-free galette des rois to an end-of-the year celebration with friends.

We loved the apartment, with its high ceilings and enormous windows. It even had (albeit a small one, high up on the wall), an internal window, as well as a transom over the entrance (shown below). I’ve always liked the way transoms, skylights, and windows in interior walls bring extra daylight deep into Paris apartments. In a previous place we rented, the internal window took the form of a porthole.

We were impressed with some of the changes over the last few years designed to reduce car traffic. Pedestrianized streets. Other streets limited to commercial traffic only (buses, taxis, delivery vehicles). Bike lanes – okay, the bicyclists themselves are casual about obeying traffic signals, but I appreciate the infrastructure. Pedal-powered/electric delivery vehicles of all kinds.

We had an unusual walk on the highway beside the Seine that is now closed to cars and open to pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters. A friend had invited us for a stroll by the river, but the water level was so high that part of the riverside path was closed. We ended up in a former highway tunnel. It was well lighted and ventilated, covered in graffiti (some of it sanctioned), and we emerged after more than a mile feeling faintly bemused but impressed.

Other environmental initiatives include copious recycling opportunities. Reusable food containers made without plastic (glass, pottery). Places to put Christmas trees when the season is over. Green roofs.

We could go on and on. But these everyday things keep us coming back. This was our twentieth visit to Paris as a couple, and we hope for twenty more.

And let us not forget…geraniums grow in the winter.

Feel free to suggest other things that you appreciate in the comments section.

Text by Philippa Campsie, photographs by Philippa Campsie and Norman Ball. Photograph of Metro sign (below) from Wikimedia Commons.

*The year that I was a student in France, the Metro cars all had signs on the windows for the seats nearby, reserved for “Mutilés de Guerre, Aveugles Civils, Invalides du travail et infirmes civils, Femmes enceintes, Femmes portant un enfant de moins de quatre ans sur les genoux” (people with war wounds, persons who are blind, people with work-related injuries or other infirmities, pregnant women, women holding a child of less than four years old on her knees). The wording has varied over the years, but clearly many passengers have adopted the tradition of giving up a seat to someone else from a young age.