Paris : here comes the snow

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  Paris, France – Notre-Dame de Paris under the snow

Snow ! Though some might see this year as a year of calamity for Paris, I welcome it with utter joy and excitement. After the flooding at the beginning of the year that created some pretty unusual and mesmerizing sceneries along the banks of the Seine river, this week has brought new delightful sceneries to take into picture with snowfalls that were generous enough to give Paris a white immaculate dress.

Of course, when the weather forecast said that on Thursday morning, the sky would be clear, I decided to wake up much earlier than usual in order to go and take pictures of my favorite place in Paris, this time under a white blanket of snow : île de la Cité.

The weather was nice indeed, but also very cold, so much so that most of the pavements had become an ice rink where I slid on my heels a countless number of times. But this wasn’t enough to stop me, and as soon as I left the subway station at Hôtel de Ville, I rushed to Pont d’Arcole, which is one of my favorite spots in Paris, to admire Notre-Dame de Paris under the snow.

With its black slate roof covered in white snow, Notre-Dame de Paris looked magnificent, almost like a real-life reproduction of a fantasized Paris in a snow globe, like the ones you usually find in touristic Christmas markets here in Paris. Since it was early, people hadn’t yet trampled on the thin white layer of snow that remained on Pont d’Arcole, which joins Hôtel de Ville to Île de la Cité. In the distance, you could see that the sun would soon arrive, with the clouds turning bright red. All already looked perfect.

And then, the sun rose over the horizon, and the buildings started to glow with yellow and warm light. The snow on the roofs and on the ground suddenly looked whiter than ever, and brighter. For a moment, you could feel as if Paris was keeping its breath with awe in front of such a majestic view.

Of course, it didn’t last long, and when the sun reached a higher altitude in the sky, almost all the magic was gone. People started to get out of their homes to reach their workplaces, cars and trucks began to hum in the streets, and it was time for me to go to my office. But I left with a very beautiful memory of Paris at sunrise under the snow, and six photos to share with you here.