Last week, I got back from my dream vaca­tion… 10 days in Paris. Of course longer would have been bet­ter. It seemed like I was just get­ting the hang of it about the time we had to pack our bags and come home. We rent­ed an apart­ment in Mont­martre with a kitchen so we would­n’t have to eat all our meals out. I found the rental on line and it turned out to be owned by some­one here in Cal­i­for­nia, and a very good choice. The own­er left all sorts of tips in a note­book, so we learned the lay of the land fair­ly quickly. 

We went to the famous flea mar­ket, right in our gen­er­al neigh­bor­hood… the largest flea mar­ket in the world that cov­ers sev­er­al blocks; vis­it­ed some of the land­marks in Paris; toured the Museé D’Or­say and the Muse­um of Dec­o­ra­tive Arts; famil­iar­ized our­selves with the local shops that sold all dif­fer­ent kinds of food and wine; walked all around the area where we stayed, which includ­ed Sacre Coeur and crypt, Au Lapin Agile, Clos Mont­martre (the remain­ing vine­yard in Paris), and jazz venues; and checked out the Eif­fel Tow­er, vin­tage and thrift stores, the Tui­leries Gar­dens and Notre Dame.

Only decid­ing to go a month before­hand, sort of on a whim because of my boyfriend’s birth­day, we had our work cut out for us brush­ing up on our French. I got­ta tell ya though, one of the high­lights of the trip was walk­ing home one evening after going to the ‘phar­ma­cie’ and being asked for direc­tions. I was able to give them… in French, then Eng­lish, as I asked and she sound­ed as though she was from England.

I took rather a lot of pho­tos. Some have said I could sell some of them. That’s a thought… maybe I could start sav­ing for my next trip to Paris. {smile}