Paris Syndrome: When the City of Dreams Collides With Reality
For decades, Paris has existed in the global imagination as something more than a city. It is sold as a mood, a promise, a cinematic fantasy. Cobblestone streets glowing under golden streetlights, lovers lingering by cafés, artists sketching beneath the Eiffel Tower, a place where beauty feels effortless and romance floats in the air like perfume. Films, fashion campaigns, travel brochures, and social media have refined this image until Paris feels almost unreal—too elegant, too poetic, too perfect.
And then some travelers arrive.
Instead of soft accordion music and postcard serenity, they encounter traffic-clogged boulevards, rain-soaked streets, overflowing trash bags during strikes, hurried crowds, graffiti-covered walls, language barriers, and a city that—like any major metropolis—ca...
