Impressions of Paris

Paris is Marge's favorite place, but for me, there are pluses and minuses.  

Minuses:
   Smokers: We have seen more smokers than I have seen in years. They apparently can't smoke in public buildings, so they congregate in front of buildings so as you walk by some buildings you walk through a cloud of smoke.  A number of times there have been smokers walking in front of us, making us walk in a cloud of smoke, which is really bothersome.

  Crowds: Despite the recent terrorist shootings, there are crowds in the shopping areas, so we had to continually dodge others. I much prefer more rural/smaller towns & cities.

Pluses:
  Patiseries: Normally I just window shop at bakeries, even in Paris where high caloric sweets are a high art.  At both of the places we stayed at during this trip, there was a nearby patisserie with innumerable sweets that tasted as good as they looked.  It took a lot of willpower to limit myself to 1 treat each day.

Patiserie near our Airbnb apartment

  Bike helmet: While we were in a coffee shop, resting during a long walk, I saw a bike messenger wearing a nice looking helmet with a feature I have never seen anywhere- a built in flip up visor that would obviate wearing the cumbersome clip on sun glasses I normally wear for sun protection.  Using google, I researched it and found a bike shop that had it in stock. Although it was very expensive, with Marge's encouragement, I bought it.  

Casco Speedairo Helmet

  Christmas Decorations: Since we were in Paris in the early part of December, we checked out the decorations at the big Galleries Lafayette store.  

One of many display windows

Multi-Story Christmas Tree

  Gehry museum: Although I'm not a fan of museums, I do like museums designed by Frank Gehry.  They are like big modern, shiny sculptures.   We saw one of his latest creations, the Luis Vuitton Foundation museum (which has been open for about a year) during the first part of this trip.

New Frank Gehry Museum