The first time I visited Paris in 2003, I was a young, hostel-hopping intern living in Germany on a microscopic paycheck. It still makes me smile to think about that trip: us friends carousing on the steps of Sacre Coeur with a bottle of German sekt; making a few extra bucks from Chinese tourists desperate to use our Louis Vuitton "purchase quota"; missing our hostel curfew and sleeping over at a flat full of Danish students where cheap champagne was so abundant we could theoretically brush our teeth with it; and enjoying the free dusk til dawn art festival Nuit Blanche, which was a dream for a euro-crunching backpacker. It was a fun moment in time so characteristic of carefree youth that I will always cherish.

My second visit to Paris over 10 years later felt like a lifetime apart from that trip—in a wonderful way. This time, I experienced the Paris of movies—a city seemingly built for leisurely sipping café crèmes under the spring sun, intimate wine-soaked dinners, and romantic walks through winding cobblestone streets.