Another great travel article from the NY Times.
In this stage-set Paris, the monuments still brilliantly illuminated,
it is easy to imagine an earlier time when the city streets were
quiet: the German occupation. Photographs from that period show empty
streets, solitary pedestrians, and grand monuments jarringly out of
sync with the humiliated city. Like now, lines of grim-faced customers
stretch from the few open stores.Thousands of affluent Parisians have left the city. Up to a quarter of
the people who were in the city at the time of confinement have left,
according to some estimates. The Paris of the 1960s, far more
economically diverse, seems to be back. Around Montmartre, where
working people still live, Parisians perch at their windows, greeting
each other and just looking out; my neighborhood around Madeleine, on
the other hand, given over to luxury shops, is dead.