The defeatists on the Seine already thought they had finally been proven right in the pandemic when Paris travel life almost died out. "Paris will never be the same again," Le Nouvel Economiste lamented in May 2020, when the French capital seemed at times to have died out in the lockdown.
Wrong: As the city slogan "Fluctuat nec mergitur" says, Paris may fluctuate from time to time - but without ever sinking. The terraces may be a little less crowded than they used to be, the traffic jams less dense; in addition, Rue de Rivoli is now traffic-calmed. But who would complain about that?
On the contrary, the city has used the calm of the first Covid year to put the finishing touches on a few new hotspots of Parisian life. In mid-2021, entrepreneur François Pinault opened his powerful contemporary art collection in the former Bourse de commerce. For city wanderers, it's right in the middle of the imaginary museum mile between Musée du quai Branly, Musée d'Orsay, Louvre and Centre Pompidou.
The restored Hôtel de la Marine on Concorde Square is still almost an insider tip: Since the end of 2021, the city palace has been presenting an equally spectacular collection of art treasures from the Qatari Sheikh Hamad. The former seat of the French Navy displays authentic Ancien Regime and Second Empire rooms. Café Lapérouse, which exudes the atmosphere of a posh Viennese coffeehouse, is morphing into a new meeting place for Parisian trendsetters. No, the city on the Seine is not going down anytime soon.