. This visit is for savoring Paris : walking to wherever fancy strikes , sitting in any park or café that looks inviting and eating as many baguettes , pastries and other delectable things as my budget -LRB- and figure -RRB- will allow . `` Sleepless Night '' When I arrive , `` Purple Rain '' is the talk of the town . It 's the first weekend of October , so the streets of Paris are extra crowded for the annual Nuit Blanche -- White Night or Sleepless Night -- when museums stay open until dawn and organizers promise `` surprising and unusual '' art installations all over the city . One of them invites visitors to pick up a clear plastic umbrella and walk through a courtyard as rain machines and mauve lights make it look like they 've stepped into Prince 's hit song . I start each of my few days in Paris with champagne . It 's right there , chilling in an ice bucket in the corner of my hotel 's breakfast buffet every morning , not far from a pitcher of milk . Guests sip from their champagne flutes as casually as from
Paris -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- When you 're in love in Paris , you show it with a lock . A combination lock , a bicycle lock or , most commonly , a simple padlock -- hundreds of them -- all inscribed with the names of lovers and clinging to the chain link railing of the Pont des Arts , the Bridge of Arts , the keys romantically tossed into the Seine flowing below . `` Without you , my life does n't make sense , '' one of the locks reads in French . `` Walter and Tammy engaged , '' another announces to the world in English . You might easily miss the modest pedestrian bridge with the shiny accessories in the tourist rush to find historic Pont Neuf or the ornate Pont Alexandre III , but I am taking it slow on my second visit to Paris . There are no museums on my itinerary and no mad scrambles to fit in all of the city 's famous sites . I 've already seen the Mona Lisa , been to the top of the Eiffel Tower , gazed down on Napoleon 's tomb and admired Notre Dame