Some people make ordinary places feel extraordinary

A plain Paris street corner, a paper bag of bread and cheese, and a gold tower that goes off like a match at the top of the hour.

Our hour there

We bought bread, a wedge of cheese and a bottle on Rue Cler and carried them, clumsy and still warm, to the corner of Rue de l'Université and Rue Saint-Dominique. It was nothing, really. A street corner, a shuttered doorway, a man walking a very small dog. The sky went that deep ink blue, and the tower stood gold over the slate roofs and chimney pots. I had read the time wrong, so we stood very still for ten minutes, sure it was about to sparkle, while it did nothing at all. We laughed until the cheese slid out of its paper. Then it went off, all of it at once, and you turned to look at me instead.

You two can expect blue hour about twenty-five minutes after sunset, when the zinc roofs turn the same colour as the sky. Stand on the north pavement and the tower sits right between the buildings, as if the street had been drawn for it. At the top of every hour after dark it sparkles for five minutes. The rest of the time it just glows, and the corner goes quiet again. A lamp, a doorway, the two of you. The view is famous. The corner is ordinary. The person beside you is what changes it.

The last sparkle is at eleven, and the lights go off at a quarter to midnight. Come in late September, October, April or May. July and August bring heat and queues.

♡ We tried to time a kiss to the very first flash, missed by a full minute, and kept practising at the top of every hour until the lights went off.