Wednesday, October 10, 2007



The plan for today is to have breakfast, shop at the nearby Charcouterie/Boucherie and the Patisserie for picnic fixin's.

Then take the metro over to the Place de Concorde and stroll the rue de Rivoli for gifts, souvenirs, and a French chapeau for rel. We will then find our way to the Luxembourg gardens for a picnic. Returning to the hotel to nap, read, refresh and then to dinner with Tara and David.

Sounds like a full day;)

Another of the things I like about France is the existence of specialty shops; bakery, bread shop, butcher shop, delicatessen, grocery, cheese shops, etc. The night before our picnic excursion we were walking around the neighborhood and came upon a delicatessen just a couple blocks from the hotel and just down on the next corner from the bread shop where we buy our breakfast croissants every morning. After looking around, we told the proprietress that we would return in the morning, which we did and laden ourselves with wine, cheese and quiche. After buying a mini baguette from the patisserie we embarked on the metro for Place de Concorde.

At Place de Concorde we skirted the Tuileries Garden and proceeded to browse the shops on rue Rivoli.


Everywhere you turn in Paris, or France for that matter, there is a reminder of the World Cup of Rugby. Here a giant Ferris wheel is set up in the Place de Concorde.








Looking to the Louvre through a corner of le Jarden de Tuileries.

Hands across the table, while the lights are low....

A sculpture in the Tuileries.







Rivoli was a gusty, blustery wind tunnel this day. That, together with the fact that we were quite early meant that there was still minimal tourist traffic, but that didn't make it any less kitschy and commercial. We did find a scarf for D. to ward off the chill and a chapeau for rel. D. bought 4 pencils for the grand-daughters for 10 euro. We stopped for a cafe at a bistro just a few doors from "Paris Excursions,"(Jacob, this is the same coffee shop where we had coffee the day we went to Normandie. They've remodeled it and made it more tourist appealing, but the cafe express is still superb),and then made a hasty retreat to the metro and on to the Luxembourg Gardens.

While the RER train will take you right to the Luxembourg Garden. the metro leaves you with a decent walk. Taking the metro we elected to do the walk, and again were able to amble through the byways of Paris nosing out little treasure spots to ogle.





I'd forgotten how many photos we took at the Gardens, and since I need to go out and run 2 miles right now, I'll make this day a two part post, and do the rest this afternoon...God willin' and the creek don't rise!

2 Comments:

Blogger Churlita said...

What great photos. I miss those specialty shops too. When I lived in San Francisco, I could get such great stuff from all different kinds of stores.

2:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The ferris wheeel! I love going up on that. It is over eight stories high!

3:34 AM  

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