Recently I was walking through Paris to meet a friend on the Left Bank. On the one hour route from my home in MontmartreI stopped by for a croissant at a favorite bakerywalked along the Palais Royal, passed the pyramid of the Louvrecrossed the Seine. After coffee, the walk home was in reverse. I did a few errands as I got closer to my apartment: vegetables and radishes at our local store grocerya crispy and warm baguette at another boulangerie, a bottle of sparkling wine at the caviste. Pausing to adjust my grip on the bags at the foot of the stairs leading to the Sacred HeartI made the inevitable climb up.
Walking has always been my primary mode of transportation in my adopted city. When I first moved to Paris in 2015, long walks helped me understand both the city and my place in it. Later, walking simply became part of my days, its rhythm and easy movement both practical (when I have to get to a meeting) and meditative (when I need to overcome writer’s block).
Then, in March 2020, I got sick with COVID-19. Months later, I was still in bed, a rolling list of symptoms running through my body: brain fog, exhaustion, body aches, pressure in my chest and lungs, tachycardia (a fast heart rate), difficulty breathing, loss of smell and taste, dizziness, nerve pain, headaches, light and sound sensitivityhair loss, short-term memory loss, and more. In the early days and weeks, even the simple act of walking was impossible. The reach of my previously strong, reliably healthy, 33-year-old body was reduced to the circumference of a bed frame. I crawled from bed to bathroom and back.
Three months later, I called a friend and asked her to walk with me to the nearest store. My attempt at normalcy lasted five minutes when it should have been a leisurely ten-minute stroll. We sat down on the cobblestone street, her hand on my chest, my heart racing at a frightening rate.
After four months, on the kind of blue-sky day that makes things feel possible, I tried again. This time I succeeded further, a triumph, even when, 20 minutes from home, my legs began to tingle in a way I had come to recognize as my body reaching its limit, a harbinger of relapse. I spent the next week in my bedroom again, with sunshine streaming in and the symptoms back in full force.
When I first moved to Paris in 2015, long walks helped me better understand the city and my place in it.
In the healing months and years that followed, I slowly learned to listen to this new body. I resisted the subtle and not so subtle signals. I fell into trying to do things that used to be standard questions. I lived in and through the fear that came with the unknown future. I pleaded for myself over and over again to doctors, to friends, to my own expectations. I learned rest.
Four years later, exercise has become a benchmark for my recovery. While I often need a set rest period when I get home from a long walk, I no longer have to save energy to run to the store. I climb the stairs to my apartment with the same sweaty ease as before I got sick. I don’t have to immediately weigh the sacrifice of Y when I say yes to X. Even though my strength is different, my body feels more me again—both in motion and in rest. When I immerse myself in the meditation that accompanies a long walk through the city I am fortunate enough to call home, I no longer take for granted those steps or the many other forms of movement that this resilient body can once again handle.
When I walk through Paris I am never alone: this is a city meant to be seen and experienced along the way. When I walk through the Place de la République or The Dome at the Tokyo Palacethe sounds of skaters move with me, their wheels and boards whirring and clacking on ancient cobblestones and marble. Bikers commute along both the roads and a growing number of cycle paths, friends and strangers bending over to lock their bikes before sitting down in a café to aperitif—to celebrate another day of successfully navigating the streets of the capital.
This relationship between Parisians and the urban landscape is the central concern of How Paris Movesa series of community-focused stories about social change in France through the lens of the 2024 Summer Olympicswhich will take place from July 26 to August 11 at various locations on the mainland France and in French Polynesia.
When I walk through Paris, I am never alone. This city is meant to be seen and experienced on foot.
These reports come from writers in the heart of Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb of the capital, and even Tahiti in the South Pacific. Juliette Gache highlights Paris’s reliance on cycling as more and more parts of the city are pedestrianised, while Leontine Gallois speaks to children and adults learning to swim in Saint-Denis, the historically underfunded suburb that will host the Games’ major water events. Megan Spurrell delves into the lives of the local people of Teahupo’o, Tahiti, where the Olympic Games pose a threat to the fragile environment. Jennifer Padjemi speaks to leaders in the French hip-hop world to dissect the “sportification” of breaking (aka breakdancing, the latest event at Paris 2024), and Tom Nouvian introduces readers to the skaters of Paris, for whom skateboarding is more than just an Olympic event: it’s a way of life.
Reading these stories, I am struck by the way that physical activity and its many forms—on wheels, in the water, on foot—are deeply ingrained in the heartbeat of this country, and will remain so long after the Games are over. Movement is indeed embedded in our daily lives—in Paris and beyond: not just as a necessity or a survival skill, but as a way to connect with others and the world around us. (After all, what is travel if not movement?) These stories beautifully capture the communities that are the heartbeat of this city and this country. May they touch you, too. —Rebekah Peppler
Rebekah Peppler is a Paris-based Condé Nast Traveler guest writer, cookbook author, recipe developer, and James Beard Foundation nominee. She has written three books on French life: Aperitif, A tableAnd SouthFor more of her writing, read her monthly newsletter about Paris Selected.
Cycling in the French capital is a double-edged sword, Parisians believe: it is a source of freedom, but also a daily burden.
Joann Pai
As cycling overtakes car use in the French capital, Parisians say the city’s spirit is ready but its infrastructure isn’t. Will new bike lanes built for the Olympics help ease that tension?
Read the story here.
Members of the Paris hip-hop scene fear that breakdancing’s inclusion in the Olympics is another attempt to gentrify their art form.
Joann Pai
Breakdancing, or ‘breaking’, will always be ‘on the streets’, according to breakers and dancers who see it as an art form first and a sport second. Some even argue that breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics is their freedom, equalityAnd brotherhood.
Read the story here.
At La Baleine, a public swimming pool and center nautical In Saint-Denis (pictured), the local community is actively organising itself and finding ways to improve the swimming skills of its young people – and adults.
Joann Pai
Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb with the worst swimming proficiency rate in France, is hosting aquatic events for the Games, including diving and water polo. The community hopes the new pools will be a resource they can call their own in the future.
Read the story here.
Paris is developing into a city for skateboarders, as evidenced by the thriving skate scene in public places like the Bastille and the arrival of places like EGP18, an indoor skate park near Porte de la Chapelle.
Joann Pai
You can bet that the 2024 Olympics, before or after Paris, will flock to places like the Bastille, République and the Palais de Tokyo to do kickflips and shove-its with the city’s skaters, who have become an indispensable part of Parisian urban life.
Read the story here.
While Teahupo’o, Tahiti, is a thematically appropriate location for Olympic surfing, the stakes are high for the local surfers, the village and the surrounding area.
Ben Thouard/Getty Images
In a small fishing village in Tahiti, Olympic surfers will brave the world-famous Teahupo’o waves and compete for gold. But at what cost, to the environment and the community?
Read the story here.
Credits
Writers
Juliette Gache, Léontine Gallois, Tom Nouvian, Jennifer Padjemi, Rebekah Peppler, Megan Spurrell
Photographer
Joann Pai
Chief editor
Mat Ortile
Editors
Lale Arikoglu, Charlie Hobbs, Shannon McMahon, Arati Menon, Hannah Towey
Main visual elements
Pallavi Kumar
Supporting images
Andrea Edelman
Lead social media
Erika Owen
Social media support
Kayla Brock
Audience Development
Abigail Malbon
Read more from Condé Nast Traveler’s coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games here.
Originally published on Condé Nast Traveler
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