Paris

Picture: Station St. Lazare, Monet
Living in Switzerland means living in the heart of continental Europe. Ironically, this geographical fact is less reflected in political terms. Switzerland, respectively its people, have decided to approach the European Union in bilateral treaties and step by step, issue by issue. Thus, flying from Switzerland to France still means crossing a real border, smiling innocently at customs officers, which is ok for me. It is another factor more letting me know immediately that these 50 min spent aboard an Air France aluminium tube are the time frame needed to beam me into another cultural frame. I used this beaming machine last Friday evening. And arrived happily in Paris, where a couple of oysters waited for me close to Gare de l’Est together with some Bordeaux Blanc. Thus, the first evening was perfect, and already let me forget entirely about a week constantly at the edge of a cold and a lot of work. Arriving from the happy little town at the foot of the Alps, you immediately realize the imperial grandeur of Paris, where simple long distance trains are called Les Grandes Lignes, where every second street is named after one of many Napoleon battlefields in Europe and where a simple piece of meat with vegetables turns on the menu card into an assembly of words that even after 9 years of French lesions you still do not understand but it sounds like dozens of chefs de cuisine have worked on its final assembly.
As this is a perfumery blog, I feel obliged to focus a little bit my Saturday in Paris: I will therefore not go into my shirt shopping details, but will spend a few words on perfumes. After a vast crowd of paper strips and perfume bottles has passed by mid afternoon, my friend asked me whether this universe of perfumes does not trouble me. We happened to be at the booth of Joe Malone, standing in front of an army of perfume bottles, all nicely labelled, all smelling "correct”. I answered that in the contrary, with every paper strip more, I see how and where my creations may fit and I feel the urge to add Tauer compositions to the galaxy of perfumes. Of course, my friend wouldn’t even think about this question while at Guerlain’s, Champs d’Elysée…. There, in these beautiful rooms with hundred years of perfume history right in front of you, there you immediately realize that the perfume universe is infinite and has room for us all. Continued tomorrow….