I landed in Paris around 6am on Thursday morning to begin what would end up being a three-month stay in Europe, although I didn’t really know that at the time.

Flying in from Singapore, I breezed through passport control at Charles de Gaulle. While waiting for my luggage, I struck up a conversation with a French guy called Jerome who’d been on my flight. My French is spotty at the best of times but, between that and his reasonable English, we managed to make enough conversation before our bags arrived and we went our separate ways.

I caught the train to Gare de l’Est, checked into my hotel and went exploring. It was still really early so not much was open, but I found a pistachio croissant and a coffee and sat enjoying them while relishing the fact that I was in Paris.

I strolled down towards the Porte Saint-Martin, then past the Musée des Arts et Métiers, stumbled across the Église Saint-Eustache, Fontaine des Innocents and Fontaine Stravinsky, and eventually reached the Centre Pompidou which was closed for renovations, but the scaffolding could have easily been mistaken for being part of the building.

With only two days in Paris, there wasn’t a lot I felt I had to do. I’d been before and had already seen most of the big sights. But high on my list was swimming in the Seine.

My aunt in Australia had expressed horror at the idea, but I’d checked with my cousin, who lives in Paris, and she assured me it was fun and not at all likely to give me dysentery.

Meanwhile, Jerome messaged to say he was staying in Paris for the weekend and asked if I wanted to catch up. I suggested we go swimming in the Seine at Bercy that afternoon. He agreed.

I did some work at a nearby university library before meeting him at 2pm. I was conscious that he was doing most of the heavy lifting linguistically. I have been “learning” French for quite a number of years by now, but I’m still terrible at understanding it when people actually speak it. Often it just doesn’t seem to go in.

Nevertheless, between my French and his English we managed to make ourselves understood and headed to Bercy, one of a number of designated swimming areas on the Seine.

You can’t just jump into the river wherever you like – physically you can, but it’s not advised – so instead there were these areas with pontoons and facilities for changing, showering and storing your things. Whether you can actually swim depends on the conditions that day, including the quality of the water.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t checked the website before we left. I didn’t even know the swimming status was published online.

So we arrived at Bercy to find the whole thing closed and deserted. No swimming for us.

Instead, we went for a drink and chatted for the next couple of hours before heading our separate ways.

The next morning I had a booking for Notre-Dame Cathedral. I wanted to see the restoration after the 2019 fire, and I was glad I’d booked because it meant a slightly quicker entry.

I did the circuit and listened to the audio guide, although I think I had been expecting something much more dramatic which diverged noticeably from what had been there before. Having last visited Notre-Dame about 20 years earlier, I didn’t really notice much difference. Sacrilege, I’m sure.

Afterwards, I wandered along the Seine and discovered the Bras Marie swimming area absolutely buzzing with people. I took my chance! I went back to my hotel, grabbed my bathers and towel and returned to the river.

Look, it’s still river water. Getting splashed in the face was slightly unsettling – would I get amoebic meningitis?  – but it was also fun — and cool, in both the literal and figurative senses.

And as I overheard someone nearby point out, it was actually quite historic. Swimming in the Seine hadn’t happened for about 100 years so floating around in the middle of Paris was definitely something. 

I still drew the line at putting my head underwater. I watched someone else do it and even now occasionally wonder whether they became extremely sick afterwards.

I sunbathed on the deck between a couple of dips and stayed for about an hour, very glad that I’d done it.

The rest of the day was spent strolling the streets, finding places to eat and going to the gym ­– €20 for a one-off visit! – before heading to VendrediX Sur Seine that evening, a gay event on the banks of the Seine.

I danced until about 1am, when I decided I should probably leave before I completely wrecked myself ahead of my train to Luxembourg the next morning. Paris had been a very brief stop but at least I’d swum in the Seine.