“I’m flying,” shouts Vivian gleefully from a vintage swing in Paris’ Jardin du Luxembourg. Next to her, other children in old-school, pay-to-play swings — the sort shaped almost like teeter totters, complete with flaking paint — call out similar homages to life as they joyfully flit towards the clouds, most of the kids squealing in French. My daughter, Vivian’s mother, stands next to me while I push my granddaughter on her first swing ride through the Parisian skies. The moment feels surreal. Incredibly. it seems like only yesterday that I pushed Lizzy — said daughter — high into the Parisian heavens at this iconic park, her swing, retro even then, soaring above the park’s multiplicity of pleasures: the marionettes, the toy sailboats on the lake, and the old men playing chess or boules. (Not to forget our perennial favorite attraction: the ancient carousel with its timeworn, carved wooden animals.) I look back at Lizzy while nearly three-year-old Vivian giggles and begs: “More. More.” What I feel at that moment is a kind of deja vu, a confusion of happy memories that might even be me remembering myself on this swing. But, I think it’s more the full circle of the moment, that sense that I’ve shared something dear to my heart with my daughter. Together now, in celebration of a place we love (and have traveled to together many times), Lizzy and I bring Vivian into the fold. It’s our own secret Paris club — and Vivian has become the newest member.
Undeterred and not tempted (at this moment) by new exhibits at museums, the latest TikTok trends (think giant croissants and such), or even Bon Marche in all its deserved glory, we simply spend the whole day at the park. Where others might shop the glamorous Right Bank brands, knock about in the little galleries in St Germain des Pres just off Rue Jacob, sip Champagne at Cafe De Flore, or head to Versailles for a queenly time, we simply linger in the park for hours. There, Vivian romps on the playscape, eats a Croque Monsieur from the green-painted hut, watches a puppet show, and sails her boat so intensely with the provided stick, she throws a few vessels out of play. Amongst the locals, also here on a bustling Saturday, we do all the things that children love at this prodigious, city-defining park. Immersed in the essence of Paris, amongst throngs of sweet families, we play at being Parisian — if just for a day. But, our mission remains clear. We want to awaken Vivian’s love for a city we adore. And, Luxembourg Park has the moxie to get the job done.
It doesn’t hurt, of course, that we’re staying at Hotel Lutetia, the only palace hotel on the Left Bank. Utterly unique, full of history, this white folly-like building, built in 1910, marries Art Nouveau with Art Deco in a fantastical combination of spellbinding architectural elements. Walking in, one can almost hear bygone regulars in action — Josephine Baker crooning, Matisse sketching, Gertrude Stein reciting poetry, and Hemingway mixing them all a martini to keep the night alive. Now the Paris hideaway of Francis Ford Coppola when he’s in town, the hotel has named a film- artifact-laden suite (replete with rooftop terrace) for him. We’re in slightly less grand digs, but only just. Our suite has Eiffel Tower views and Vivian peers out the window pointing and telling us that Madeline lives nearby. Note: all three generations of us swoon over the massive bathtub, carved in situ from two ton slabs of Carrara marble. But the le dernier cri turns out to be the kids’ amenities that range from a stuffed fox to a toddler-sized bathrobe to a table brimming with toddler-tempting candies, creme-filled pastries, popcorn, a chocolate sculpture shaped like a dog, and fresh-squeezed juices — literally our own sweet shop. For Vivian, this gastronomic spread — along with chocolate crepes buried in Chantilly creme — nearly rivals the ride in the swing.
In the end, the gift of travel is the way that an experience, though completed possibly even decades earlier, continues to flourish, staying alive in our memories. As we change and grow, that long-ago adventure doesn’t diminish but instead, it becomes mythic, more powerful than when it occurred in the first place. That’s the part we yearn to share with people we love. It’s the blood jet of travel — to borrow from Sylvia Plath. Not static, that enlivened adventure begs to be repeated, to be passed on to our own children — and if we’re lucky, like DNA, to their children, as well.
Featured image courtesy of Hotel Lutetia