Ascent Sotheby's International Realty • Vail, CO • 2014 Catalogue RESIDE® Magazine︱Summer 2014 | Page 13

PARIS
TOUJOURS
T R AV E L S P O T L I G H T

I

IYNA CARUSO

n the corner of an old square on La Rive Gauche is a locust tree planted

Of course, as anyone who’s been

400 years ago. The tree’s upper branches were lost during shelling in

to Paris knows, it doesn’t take the

the First World War. Still, it manages to bloom every year. It is known

opening of another great restaurant,

as the “Lucky Tree of Paris,” and legend has it that good luck comes

museum or flagship store to be lured

to those who touch its bark.
Yet anyone finding himself in the City of Light has already been favored

by fortune.

back. Its seduction is ubiquitous,
even—and especially—down to the
s i m p l e g r a c e of a q u i e t s q u a re

“Paris is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful cities on Earth,” says

a l o n g t h e S e i n e . P a r i s , l i ke t h e

Alexander Kraft, CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty France & Monaco.

plaque in front of the luck y tree

“This gigantic, breathtaking ensemble” of wide, tree-lined boulevards and
elegant neo-classical architecture “remains remarkably intact, and I never

reads, is remarquable.
Remarkable.

tire of just walking around, looking at buildings and soaking in the incomparable atmosphere.” Kraft owns a pied-à-terre and spends a week in the
city every month.
Paris is a capital city with a capital C for culture, couture and culinary
arts. But don’t say cliché. Despite its oversized rep