I dare anyone to shout out a name of a major European city that wasn’t founded on or near a major river or waterway. London has the Thames. Budapest has the Danube. Rome has the Tiber. Paris has the Seine.
There are 37 bridges in Paris that cross the Seine. The Pont au Change is only one of them. It connects the Right Bank with the Île de la Cité. There have been numerous bridges on this site and records show that Caesar’s troops destroyed a bridge here in 50 BC.
How many times have you visited a city you’ve always wanted to see, and allotted, a certain amount of days only to find out once you get there that you can see everything in half the time?
Yet there are other cities that it doesn’t matter how many times you return there is always enough things to do, to learn, and experience.
That is the uniqueness of Paris.
There aren’t that many cities in the world that you return to for the twelfth time and you’re still experiencing new things. There’s London, Rome, Tokyo, and New York City to mention a few.
I would never discourage first timers to Paris to disregard the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, or a boat ride on the Seine. Any other city and they are called, “Tourist Traps” – not in Paris.
