Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
THEThe water flows blue and transparent and the marbles shine like mother of pearl. After the restoration, the Trevi Fountain is more beautiful than ever and I understand how it strikes a chord with tourists who, turning the corner of an alley, find it majestic and poetic in front of them.
Naturally, no improvement can ever erase the added charm that has made it famous throughout the world. AND we always seem to spot Anita Ekberg in an evening dress calling Marcello Mastroianni to join her in one of the most sensual scenes of The sweet life.
Cities are made of paper and film. There is no corner of the world that has not been a source of inspiration for writers and directors: a virtual map of signs and memories that we retrace with our imagination on every journey and gives us a feeling of belonging that no guide will ever be able to match.
But in this sentimental game of references and quotations Paris has no comparison. Perhaps because, thanks to the Malraux law, it was one of the cities that, despite gentrification, it kept entire neighborhoods intact preserving old bars, clubs and restaurants: in every brasserie you seem to see Inspector Maigret with his pipe and in every alley one of Dumas’ musketeers appears.
The City of Light will always have a surprise for you, even if it is now invaded by single-brand chain stores that have stripped the world’s metropolises of all flavor.
Walking around Paris with a special guide
You just need to follow your passions, and that’s what Flavia Capitani, almost as obsessed with Paris as I am, did in a very tasty book, In Paris with Serge Gainsbourg. On the streets of the revolution with Jane Birkin. The booklet is part of a rich series by Giulio Perrone publisher that explores places and cities following the life and works of the great artists of history.
“In Paris with Serge Gainsbourg. On the roads of the revolution with Jane Birkin” by Flavia Capitani (Giulio Perrone Editore).
The cursed singer-songwriter and his muse are the perfect couple to discover more or less famous corners of the French capital in a pilgrimage that touches all the arrondissements because Gainsbourg loved his city madly and lived it to the full, perhaps at night more than during the day, telling it in his songs, in films and in the adventurous excursions between restaurants and nightclubs immortalized by paparazzi flashes.
Together with him and Jane, with the expert guidance of the author, we cross the streets of Paris to the beautiful Montparnasse cemeteryhis last destination and place of pilgrimage for a large group of adoring fans. But if you want to visit his famous house-museum on rue de la Verneuil you have to book a year in advance. I haven’t succeeded yet.
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