from Paris

So what would you do if you only had one day in Paris before returning home? (To a place where the forecast forebodes a high of 1 degree F on the day after your return?)

Toward evening, after a full day, even by my standards, I say to Ed – let’s get back. It’s getting cold. It is, after all, in the 40s, and there’s a misty drizzle of sorts. Not great for more walking. And we did walk. In fact, I say, as we get on the metro – we have twelve stops before we get back to our hotel stop.

Twelve stops? He asks. Did we really walk that far? Stops. Let me count them. We stopped first for breakfast, then at a store where you looked at clothes, then for an apple tart, then to look at the Thinker, then at the market, then at the Eiffel Tower, then across the river from the Eiffel Tower to look at the view back, then at another clothes store, then at the café for lunch, then at that Monet Museum. That’s only ten stops.

Than man thinks of unique ways. But, let it be his way. I wont post all ten – you don’t want to see me examining with longing the clothes at Maje or Et Vous and you certainly don’t want to see me yet again eating a chocolate croissant at Les Editeurs, where I nearly always have breakfast when I am in this city and nearly always post a picture of it. But the rest? Stroll along if you wish, after a brief introduction to Paris, recounting yesterday’s late arrival.

So, yesterday: we arrive. We’re cheap. No taxi for us, no. We want to walk to the Metro that will take us directly to our hotel area. Walk. With bottles of wine rattling around in Ed’s tote bag and in my suitcase. So we walk. From Gare de Lyons, across the bridge, to Gare d’Austerlitz. A mere nothing if you are unencumbered.

Pause for quick photo – there, in the distance is the familiar.





In the evening, we go back to a place I haven’t been to for years. It’s tiny, it’s good, it’s modestly priced and it has and always has had an appetizer that I love: endive tatin.





Okay, now let’s get on to Ed’s recollections of our stops today (with a couple of freebies – photos in transit from one stop to the next). Nothing extraordinary, or especially insightful, mind you. Paris for me is beautiful in the most prosaic, predictable places and happenings. It’s what I look for when I come here.

No. 3 for an apple tart on Rue du Bac.





No. 4 at the Rodin Museum




(after)




No. 5 at the market on Rue Cler (serious about cheese)





No. 6 at the Eiffel Tower. Because it’s on the way. And because it’s the Eiffel Tower.




(after: the boat, the car on the boat, and the metro above ground)




No. 7 on the other side of the river, looking back at the Eiffel Tower.




No. 9 for lunch. He told me to ask for ketchup. I obliged, but explained to the waiter that it was for him.




(after)





No. 10 at the Marmottan Museum – with all those Monets.





There you have it. A day in Paris.