It's official. We love Paris. But it took us a while and a few visits to get there, and we did have a rocky relationship with Paris: on one hand, it is clearly one of the most beautiful cities anywhere. On the other hand, we always had some kind of experience in Paris that made us less appreciative of its beauty. Like getting our iPhone grabbed from your hand on the street, followed by a running chase, followed by a police chase, for instance. (The police chase was actually kinda cool.) But we have kept coming back and always gave the city of lights another chance. 

Coming from Prague, the sheer size of Paris can get overwhelming: a single week is not enough to even begin to understand how big the city is and how different the districts are. Throughout our visits, we have noticed a shift. At the beginning, we saw parallels between Paris and Vienna: the Belle Epoque charm, the monumental palaces and so on. During our later visits, and as we gravitated towards Marais as our district of choice, we have started to see similarities to Berlin: bright New Balance sneakers, fixie bikes, baristas that look like ZZ Top roadies and Australian university drop-outs. Yes, Paris has turned hipster. And we kinda like that.