Paris in the Spring 2025

Today (Monday) was simply gorgeous weather here in Paris - sunny, about 60 degrees F (still not used to that Celsius stuff or Google Maps reporting distance in meters!).  In the morning, Jeff, Leigh, Cheryl and I ventured to Rue Montorgueil, well known as a food and market street.  And, no disappointment as it was lined with restaurants, cafes, bakeries, fish stores, cheese shops, wine shops, produce stands, and flower shops.  Parisians go to markets like this for their food needs, all in different stores lining the street.  There's no Kroger here and that concept would be foreign to them.  But, Monday is, for some strange reason, a day when many of these shops were closed.  We did manage to go to Patisserie Stohrer, the oldest pastry shop in Paris with its beginnings in 1706.  Unbelievable choice and freshness so we bought a nice sampling there, as well as flowers, vegetables and fruits from other stores. Our nephew, Ray Creamer, and his partner,...

Today marks the start of Round 2 of our trip to Paris as son, Jeff, and daughter-in-law, Leigh, arrive - not from America but from London on the Eurostar.  They love Jenny, Dave, and the girls so much that they, first, flew to meet them in London for a couple of days before leaving there today and taking the train through the Chunnel (on my bucket list) to Paris and arrive shortly.  We plan on having dinner at La Grande Coulbert where we had lunch with Connie on our first day here - it was elegant and delicious French food and drink. Since we had the morning open and me feeling about 90% of my normal self, off we went to Le Petit Palais (across Winston Churchill Avenue from its bigger brother, Le Grande Palais).  It was built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle and now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine arts.  The other facades of the building face two other Parisian landmarks:  the Seine and the Avenue des Champs-Elysees.   Every time I see the l...

Saturday started out as a rehash of Friday . . . I just felt like crap.  I was disappointed that the hangover of my exhaustion from yesterday continued as I was prepared for a day exploring with Cheryl, including getting her a "surprise".   So, about 11:30 a.m. I willed myself out of bed, got dressed, and tried fooling her into thinking I felt better.  To get her to go, I had to tell her my surprise - a trip to the jewelers across from La Procope where we had lunch on Monday (remember Napoleon's hat?) and she had spotted a sleeping beauty turquoise ring that she had her heart set on.  With her birthday coming up in about 3 weeks, it seemed like just the right present. We metro'ed there and by the time we got there, I was wiped out from the steps in and out of the metro, but putting on a good face.  We got the ring and then set out on foot for what I thought was the Pantheon just down the street in the Latin Quarter.  Mais non!  It turned out to be...

Our Thursday started so well - breakfast at Eric Kayser, Artisan Boulanger with a wonderful croissant and coffee, and then we metro'ed to Le Marais, a historic district known for its charming streets, art galleries, museums, and vibrant culture including its rich Jewish and LGBTQIA heritage, located in the southeast of Paris. There we went, first, to the Centre Pompidou, a large exhibit hall that features a rooftop view of the city. Unfortunately, we were early (at 9:00 a.m.) and they didn't open until 10 a.m.  As a general rule, places (especially stores) open later here, often not until 11:00 a.m. or even noon.  So, we walked about 20 minutes via Google Maps (wonderful software) to the Place des Vosges. The Place des Vosges is the oldest planned square in Paris, and was a fashionable and expensive square to live in during the 17th. and 18th. century, and one of the main reasons for the chic nature of Le Marais among Parisian nobility.  It is one of five royal squar...

We started our Wednesday (day 4) with a healthy American breakfast (sort of) here at the apartment - scrambled eggs (American) with some super tasty croissants (French), and were pretty leisurely eaters since we didn't have to be down at the Louvre for our tour until 10:15 a.m. We're about a 15 minute walk south to the Louvre and got to the Arc de Triomphe du Carousel at the west end of the Louvre complex right on time at 10:15.  There, we met with our City Wonders guide, Eric, and started promptly at 10:30 for our 3-hour tour (somehow, those words are ringing in my ears as the theme song from "Gilligan's Island", but this trip was much happier than theirs).   I almost feel like a local after today's excursions.  I say that because I knew exactly how to get to our meeting point  without  Google Maps, and when we later came back from a slightly different location, I could've similarly found our way back on my own.  It feels nice and after only four days...

Never too old for an adventure, I (re)learned today that I can do pretty much anything!  The ladies went off this morning at 8:00 a.m. to Citypharma and left me for a grocery store run - on my own - in a foreign country.  Seems so small but I bravely trudged down the street expecting the worse as I entered Monop, the nearest grocery store.  I'll be daggoned if they didn't have everything I needed - coffee pods (we were out), TP (almost out), a baguette (they only last 24 hours), and even swapped out the bananas I had chosen for better ones as I was ready to cash out. The French lady checking me out started with a question in French to which I calmly responded "Je ne sais parle Francais" (I don't speak French) to which she gave the warmest, most disarming smile as if to say "No problem".   Out I marched and passed a bank on the way home as I had been looking for a bank-attached ATM to get some Euros . . .my ATM card worked just as it should although I did...

Sunday night was our visit to Moulin Rouge, the famous cabaret show in Montemarte, now open since 1889.  It is best known as the birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance.  I'm sure this has something to do with that saying from my previous post about once the doughboys (in WWI) saw Paris, there was no going home!   It was in a large ballroom, elegantly decorated.  I saw on arrival that those who ordered dinner plus  the show had the best seats.  We were there simply for the show after a very nice dinner at a nearby brasserie with the highlight being the 12 snail (langastino) appetizer we shared.  Our table at Mouln Rouge seated 6 so we shared it with three young women from the Netherlands.  As one of them said after we exchanged pleasantries, "Worst seat, best people"! The show lasted about 90 minutes and was a healthy splash of Cirque de Soleil and Bob Fosse thrown in on top.  The participants (about 20 or so) were men an...

 Our first full day in Paris started early as we wanted to be at the 8:30 a.m. Mass at Notre Dame, and we were ready after a good, hard sleep last night.  A little skittish about taking the Metro and being there on time, we opted for the certainty of good ole Uber, and they were right on time delivering us to the doorsteps of the magnificent cathedral in the heart of Paris. When we arrived, we could see two lines, one much longer than the other with signage that said "Without Reservations" while the other one had no discernable signage.  We first opted for the longer one for a few minutes until someone advised us the much shorter one was "Mass Only" and that was the signage they put up just as they opened the doors at 8:15 a.m.   What a beautiful space Notre Dame is - fully restored and so clean and bright - and what a wonderful Mass delivered by French priests.  Of course I understood very little of what was said but the rhythm was certainly familiar.  And...

I am reminded of that old saying from WWI about the doughboys seeing Paris and never wanting to go home.  We're probably not quite there yet as our arrival was, first, uneventful and, then, eventful. We went from Columbus to Boston uneventfully, and the first two hours of our journey to Paris were uneventful as well.  About two hours in, I was sleeping relatively soundly (thanks to the accoutrements of Delta One class and its lie-flat bed) when I heard a ping and an announcement of "If there are any certified medical personnel on board, please ring your call button!".  My life partner Cheryl had her call button ringing before the announcement was completed. Turns out a 62 year-old woman in the back (steerage class for snobs like me) had fallen and hit her head and began vomiting.  Cheryl raced to the back with the grateful flight attendants following her like the mother goose, and found their medical supplies woefully lacking.  For awhile, I was thinking we'd be...