All year round, Paris is considered the city of romance. It's no surprise, then, that lovebirds flock here from around the world for Saint Valentine's Day. There are English-speaking couples everywhere at the moment: strolling along the Seine, kissing in cafés, maxing out the credit card at Louis Vuitton.
The lovey-dovey couple still need to tread carefully down those boulevards, though. Restaurants and hotels, predictably, have upped their prices. And the male of the species would be best advised not to book a table at the Crazy Horse, the famous burlesque cabaret - the current star attraction is Pamela Anderson.
If you live in the French capital, it's unfairly easy to treat your chérie on Valentine's Day. Simply take him/her outside the door, and voilà! You've whisked them off to Paris! The brasserie on the corner where you have your lunch: an intimate little restaurant in Paris! Look up: the Eiffel Tower is glittering - just for you, mon coeur! And so forth.
Cynicism aside, the cinematic grandeur of the place is what makes it so conducive to romancing. Even after years of living here, you can still find Paris dramatically beautiful. Just a glimpse of that beautiful Haussmannian architecture or those art decoMetro signs can transform the dullest working Wednesday. On the streets of Paris, skipping and fluttering is a natural condition of the heart.
And the city has a history of epic romances, from the ill-fated Abelard and Heloise of medieval times to the costume drama of Napoleon and Josephine up to the existentialist passion of Sartre and de Beauvoir. 'Amélie' (left) defined the modern image of the Parisian love affair - tour guides bring couples to the key locations of the movie, such as Sacré Coeur and the Canal Saint-Martin. And even the current Sarko-Carla soap opera, long tiresome to most people here, seems to the rest of the world so romantic, so glamorous, so... Parisian.
Love affairs, of course, are often doomed and tragic. Strolling down the boulevard, you may step in something (a constant hazard in dog-infested Paris). That little restaurant rips you off like the dumb tourist you are. And what's that eyesore on the skyline, that lump of metal like a vinegar bottle?
Such a sad ending seems to have been the experience of one Irish lover in Paris - here's Neil Hannon singing about 'The Frog Princess':