DAY 2 of a week in Paris - Monday
Le Louvre et Champs-Elysées
- BREAKFAST: la patisserie below the apartment
- Le Louvre
- LUNCH: Angelina tea salon. 226 Rue de Rivoli (between Rues d'Alger and de Castiglione)
- Tuilleries - TODAY'S POST
- Madeleine Church & Place de la Concorde
- Place Vendome
- Arc de Triomphe - view
- Champs-Elysées
- DINNER: La Boutique à Sandwiches. 12 Rue du Colisée (between Rue de Ponethieu and Ave des Champs-Elysées)
- Buddha Bar (8 rue Boissy d'Anglais, near Place de la Concorde)
In most of my trips to Paris, I have sought to stay near the center of the city so that every day's jaunts end up back here, at the Tuileries gardens. It's beautiful in the morning, as the sun rises behind the Louvre, and it's more beautiful in the evening as the sun sets behind the Arc de Triomphe and the obelisk at Place de la Concorde (the direction of the top photo).
At the end of a long day of walking, I feel like the fellow in the statue above - utterly spent and ready for sitting in one of the green metal reclining chairs by a fountain.
There is great people watching, especially the kids who rent toy sailboats and push them around the pool with their sticks.
Of course the flowers are fabulous, as are all the flowers in Paris. I've noticed year after year that the garden designers around the city do unique things each year. One year I was surprised and pleased to see thistle in the Luxembourg gardens. Wonderful!
But each visit there have been irises.
You can buy an ice cream.
You can sleep in the shade.
You can bring your lunch and eat with a friend.
Above is me, and below is my sister Nancy, in 1997, the year our mother passed away with Alzheimer's. We treated ourselves to two full weeks in Paris - my first visit since I studied abroad in college in 1975.
I can't say that after resting in the Tuileries we necessarily felt like doing Pilates, but it was nice to watch this lady doing hers with the Louvre in the background.
I leave you with this final sketch by Fabrice Moireau, from his book Paris Sketchbook.
Paris Time
13 comments:
I wondered when we would be getting back to Paris! I missed it so! Lovely, lovely views! And no dirty-faced children either. :)
That sketchbook is amazing! I would love to see the whole thing.
You and Nancy both looked beautiful and sad at the same time. It's hard losing your mother.
Thank you, and I missed it too, Susie. Had to find energy - and here it is! I was quite a bit like that first statue these last weeks, as you know.
My brother and his wife gave us this beautiful book the summer after Don and I went to Paris for our 25th anniversary. I will continue to post photos from it when there are sketches to fit the posts. Moireau has sketchbooks of New York, the Loire Valley, Paris gardens, Venice, and others I believe.
Evocative...thank you Ruth....
Thanks, Braja.
So here I am, a week late and several francs (oops--Euros!) short...susie is right, you both look beautiful and sad. Such a terrible, terrible thing to have witnessed so closely. Such a lovely, if bittersweet, escape...
I'm enjoying your revisit to Paris...a lovely gift to yourselves ...time with your sister...I've been wanting to take my sister to Italy - her dream vacation - but now she is too ill...
..oh the statue doing Pilates! very funny!...
Love that Pilates pose!
The Paris Sketchbook watercolor is great!
What a great idea to restore your spirits in Paris.
It was just what we needed, DS, and we didn't really know it until we were there.
Oh, Oliag, I am so sorry.
Dutchbaby, Moireau's sketches are fabulous, and there are several more books too.
How wonderful -- My friend is about 15 minutes from there, and I'm so eager to see it in person!
Jeanie, how great to meet you today, right on my campus, what a small world. And now you're off to this city, and I can't wait to hear about every little thing when you get back.
I revisited Paris after my first year of teaching in 1997 - Lordy, can it be that long ago already? - and the moment I stepped into Jardin des Tuileries I was home. What beauty! It was also very relaxing. We bought baguette and wine and stayed until the sun set writing in our journals, reading and watching the people. I consider this to be one of my favorite places on earth and I NEED to get back there. Lucky for me your post brought it all back.
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