We’d seen it from the Arc de Triomphe, the wide berth of Champs-Élysées, the food court on the top floor of the Galeries Lafayette. But tradition dictated that we see it in-person, too. You don’t need to read honeymoon blogs to understand why any trip to the City of Lights wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the world’s most iconic symbol of love—but I’d strongly recommend it. “Just a glance,” writes one traveler, “can make you fall head over heels for it.” Another declares: “it is the best spot to confess your heartfelt feelings to your loved ones.”

I’d started to see the signs before we even sat down for breakfast. Glass-encased newsstands with fold-away shutters, graffiti-strewn streetlamps, pewter-green archways that spanned a canal the color of rusted pennies—like the Gowanus of my youth. Compared to Union Square, the only thing that felt out of place at the open-air farmer’s market in Bellevue was a man dragging a watermelon behind him in a milkcrate. The café where we had pistachio pastries—protein, naturally—featured a décor that would have made Williamsburg blush: Street Fighter II Turbo booted up on a battered Minolta monitor, a French cookbook composed entirely of recipes for preparing tofu.

I’ll come right out with it: we didn’t see the Mona Lisa.