For The Toronto Star: Why a Canadian loves Paris in the fall

Jul 29

Jul 29 For The Toronto Star: Why a Canadian loves Paris in the fall

All photos Vivian Song

Sept. 17, 2016

PARIS —I’ve always held a special affinity for Paris in the fall.

While Parisians mourn the last days of summer and return begrudgingly to the city after their month-long holidays, I wait patiently for that first fall morning, when the weather turns, definitively announcing the season’s arrival.

More than five years ago, I boarded a plane in Toronto and landed in Paris, and I fell under an enchantment which, I believe in hindsight, was produced by the bewitching effects of autumn, when the city takes on a dream-like quality that happens at no other time of the year.

I can say that with confidence after having borne witness to five years of the four seasons in Paris.

It wasn’t supposed to last this long. My original intent was to spend a year in France and return to Toronto recharged after living “la vie en rose,” a project I wrote about in the Star in 2010.

But in the days and weeks after arriving in mid-September, the autumnal skies, the rain-soaked cobblestone streets, and the way the gold-leaf trees cast a soft glow along the Seine seduced me, and I knew I had to stay.