Bethany In The Big City : Facts and fabulousness

I finished my book this week and I was very sad to have come to the end of it. I was reading "Paris, Perfect Gems of City Writing", a collection of extracts about Paris, life in the city and its weird and wonderful inhabitants. I love leafing through guide books and finding new things to see and do and discovering the best a city has to offer. However, another great way to fully discover a place is to read novels or pieces of writing about the city, set in the city or by one of the city's residents. The same can be said for films. So, over this past year, I have been compiling a list of all my favourite films and books that use Paris as its subject, as the never-ending viewpoints on the city are infinitely satisfying to discover.

The following extract for me depicts so perfectly and so simply the diversity, uniqueness but also sense of familiarity and tradition in the sense that all over the city in a million different cafes, bars, shops and houses there are a million different and unique people but they are all united by their living in the beautiful city of Paris.

"number of squares: 670

number of streets and boulevards: 5,975

length of public highways: 5,959 kilometres

number of municipal buildings: 318

number of fountains: 536

number of public monuments: 40,000

number of shops: 62,546

number of buses: 4,364

number of bus routes: 275

number of bus stops (banlieue excluded): 1,754

number of taxis: 14,900

number of traffic lights: 10,800

number of cafes: 2,050

number of hairdressers: 2,845

number of beauty parlours: 67

number of funeral parlours: 157

number of pigeons: 60,000

number of dogs: 200,000

number of public conveniences: 498

kilometrage of visitable underground tunnels: 300

number of individuals resident in the city of Paris: 2.1million

number of private households: 1.1million

length of history: more than 2,000 years (excluding the pre-historic era)

possible number of individuals who have ever lived in Paris or just passed through, each with their own histories: ... countless"

Colin Jones "Paris: Biography of a City" from "Paris, Perfect Gems of City Writing"

This extract paints a much more vivid picture of the city that I could ever dream of doing but it makes me very happy to think of myself as one little part of the city, contributing my story, in my own, unique way.

This is Paris through my eyes.....well camera-lense,