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By Roger Cohen
Report from Paris
If the Olympics made Paris a midsummer night’s dream, perhaps the Pont du Carrousel is its heart, a dimly lit bridge over crystal clear waters, a merry-go-round of incarnations as the weeks passed.
The wide bridge spans the center of Paris, running from the Quai Voltaire on the left bank of the Seine to three arched openings overlooking the courtyard of the Louvre on the right bank. It has been a place where lovers can linger and runners can avoid, selfie lovers can take and Parisian walkers can succumb to awe.
There are few better places to have a drink in the city. The Grand Palais and the Eiffel Tower rise to the west. To the east is the dome of the French Academy and, in the distance, the Notre-Dame Cathedral, now almost restored after the 2019 fireplace. The clean, cleaned river is constantly changing, choppy after a shower, glassy.
France has been in a bad mood for much of the summer. Then, two weeks ago, the Paris Olympics began, replacing social division with patriotic rapture, dissolving departmental barriers into bridges of understanding, none of which is more unifying than the Pont du Carousel, at least for now.
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