The calmness in these pictures is misleading. Every tourist guide is guilty of that pleasure. The moment you get off the train at Gare du Nord, you’ll find that Paris is anything but quiet. The streets are crowded with tourists, residents, cars, cyclists, birds even. It smells of concrete and exhaust gases. Trash is scattered alongside the bins. Outside your window someone is having an animated phone conversation as you try to catch some sleep. From the first glance, it’s like any other big city.

And then you sit down for your first croissant of the day in some fancy boulangerie. You watch the people as they pass by. You sit down by the fountain in the Jardin des Tuileries and the water has this special kind of gray-ish green color. The balconies, oh, the Parisian balconies, with their flowers and plants. And there’s something with the light too, which I cannot explain.

Paris, as grand and majestic it’s architecture may be, is about the little things in the end. Paris est faite de petits bonheurs.