Paris is experienced by trekking its wide boulevards and long, narrow streets from one end to the other, and examining the undersides of its old stone bridges.

No, the city where I have lived for thirty years does not come to my mind at the mention of Paris. I think of the handsome youth who set off the Trojan War by abducting the beautiful Helen. We don’t know if the Paris immortalized by Homer actually lived, but what is certain is that the Parisii lived on an island smack in the middle of the River Seine in the Roman period. Historians suggest that Paris, which is not only the capital of France but one of the world’s most beautiful cities, derives from the name of this tribe. But if you ask me, the city’s essence nonetheless bears traces of an attractive and beautiful woman’s body. Otherwise the climate would not be so mild, the buildings so harmonious, the lands watered by the Seine so fertile. What I wrote about Istanbul in my book ‘Bogazkesen’ holds for Paris as well: “The climate is gentle, the water clear, the sun dazzling and the river green because a woman’s body forms the stuff of the city.