I follow the crowd. Climbing the spiral stairs up from deep beneath Montmarte at the Lamarck/ Caulaincourt Metro stop, I am happy to be a baggage-light traveler.

Traveling light is my signature. I always have the smallest backpack, fewest number of bags, least amount of superfluous clothing of anyone in any group. My goal is to carry everything on the plane, no checked luggage. I have it down to a science and, over the years, have found the perfect bags to meet that goal. Baggage-light means arriving at De Gaulle with a small daypack and a cabin-sized rolling bag ready to walk, however far, up however many steps to reach my destination without hailing a taxi. The trip into Paris from De Gaulle on public transportation was a breeze, on the flat or escalators, taking me from Gare de Nord to line 4 to line 12 arriving at my destination in just under an hour. Perfect.

Back to that spiral staircase. By landing number five, I am struggling with my baggage-light load and think I may not make it to the top. This upward journey started with three straight flights before the spiral even began. I was already panting at the second turn and praying that the end was near on the fourth. The good and the bad about a spiral staircase is that you can’t see that end.

The architect of those stairs must have known that five turns are all a body can withstand because that fifth landing was the last. As I proceeded to the exit gate, exhausted but happy to have made it and relieved that the return trip would be down, I watched a large number of people disembark from the elevator. Who knew?