Hold onto your hats – lots of photos ahead.

To be perfectly honest, I get overwhelmed when it’s time to write a post as I have taken thousands of photos. Thousands. Many on the big girl camera, many on the iPhone. It depends on whether I want to lug around the heavier camera on any given day. Trying to sort through them in some sort of coherent way can be daunting!

Short and sweet: We have had the most glorious week here in Paris. I cannot express how deeply I have fallen in love with this city. If we could swing it, Don and I would move here in a flash. I’m perfectly serious. I love the people, I love the energy, the beauty, the everything. We’re already planning a return trip for next year. We’ve been going constantly, though, and we’re tired. Today is the first day we’ve pulled back and deliberately taken it easy because we know we’re traveling to London tomorrow and we wanted to recover a bit before crossing the Channel.

I’ll share some of what we’ve seen here – there’s more to share in a couple of days and, frankly, if I wanted to, a month’s worth of posts to write when I get back. I so want to share my thoughts, what I’ve learned, what I’ve discovered about myself, what we’ve discovered together…

We’re very, very sad to be leaving here. We don’t want to. Not one bit. But London beckons.

Here we go:

First our hotel – which will always be our hotel in the future. It is a little gem; warm, intimate, lovely.

Our room.

You know that I love little lamps. They are everywhere here. On the dresser, on the desk, in the breakfast room.

If I could spirit this one away with me, I would. I really love it.

This is the breakfast room, which is in an old wine cellar. (Best lighting in the world for photos of aging us, by the way. It’s very kind. I’ll share more later.)

Every morning, we come down and Nora serves us café au lait and fresh croissants and a baguette with butter and jam and yogurt and compote. Heavenly. We had Nora take a picture of us on our anniversary and she must have passed that information on to Veronique and the staff because when we entered our room later in the day, this was waiting for us:

Don doesn’t drink and I rarely do, but I had a sip or two in honor of our 20th. We were so touched by this generous gesture. (The empty bottle is going home with me, as well as the card.)

Part of the Louvre. If only my boxwood looked this good,

More of the Louvre and the famous glass pyramid. Inside:

There she is. She’s stunning. Photos simply cannot do her justice. I stared and stared and stared. Yes, she’s smaller than you might think, but not as small as this picture seems to indicate.

Venus de Milo.

Winged Victory. I took a picture up close, as well, but I love this one.

A discussion for another time: Why does everyone think they have to immediately take a selfie next to the Mona Lisa, or the Venus de Milo, or Winged Victory? It’s incredibly annoying. How about just looking and pondering the art itself?

So much more; Da Vincis, Raphaels, stunning works everywhere.

From the Musée d’Orsay, so many gorgeous Impressionist paintings, but these stood out for me:

Monet.

And this large Renoir. I love this painting with all my heart. I love Renoir. (We visited the place he lived in Montmartre which is now a museum – more on that later.)

Fantasy: We live in a apartment in one of the buildings along the Seine. We walk along the Seine every morning and evening. That’s not asking too much is it?

We visited Shakespeare and Company, the famous English language bookstore that was founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919. In its first location, it was a home-away-from-home for Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and and James Joyce. It was closed in 1941 when the Germans occupied France. It was reopened in its current location in 1951 by George Whitman, who ran it for years. It is now run by his daughter.

There are beds among the stacks for those in need, especially writers who don’t have much money. They stay there and help out in the shop.

It’s just across the river from this:

Glorious. And packed with tourists.

Notre Dame is on  Ile de la Cité. We also walked around the second island, Ile St. Louis.

A memorial on a building on Ile St. Louis.

In memory of 112 inhabitants of this building, including 40 children, who were deported and died in German Camps in 1942.

Unspeakable.

On the Right Bank, the Bastille memorial, on the spot where the Bastille was stormed.

Me taking pictures on the Right Bank.

The oldest bridge on the Seine, the Pont Neuf.

And a hint of things to come in a future post: we took a night cruise on the Seine last night and saw this:

Unbelievable. A ‘gasp’ does not cover it.

Okay. That’s it for now. I have so many photos of buildings and details and the Marches aux Puces (the flea market) and Montmartre.

Tomorrow, the Eurostar to London.

Happy Sunday.

Okay. I have no idea when this will post, mid-afternoon your time on Wednesday, I guess. It’s about 8:30 pm in Paris. We’re exhausted, as we’ve been going constantly and we’re still not quite over jet lag.

To get the negatives over with – and there are hardly any – we chose a discount airline (Norwegian Air) that flies out of our local airport because we didn’t want to have to take the bus into Manhattan, then get all the way out to JFK before we even got on a flight overseas. In retrospect, I’m not sure that was the best idea. Everyone on the flight was very nice, the vegetarian meal we ordered was delicious, but the seats were unbelievably uncomfortable. Don’s knees were smashed up against the seat in front of him. There was no way he could get comfortable and my back started complaining about a third of the way into the flight. Eventually, I found three empty seats and sprawled across them and I slept for a couple of hours. Since I’d woken up at 4 am that morning, this left me seriously sleep deprived. Don hardly slept a wink either. Because of strong tail winds we got into Edinburgh earlier than expected and we had to kill about 5 hours there before we flew to Paris and that flight left late. That’s another story for another time. ANYWAY, by the time we got into Paris we were close to hallucinating from lack of sleep. I’m exaggerating a bit, but only a bit. The combination of the hard seats and then two flights in 24 hours was too much. We won’t do that again.

Nevertheless, as we took a cab in from the airport – we were not about to do anything but get into the city as quickly and easily as possible –  we saw this extraordinary city appear before our eyes and we were thrilled. Photos will be in random order because I’m too tired to do anything else and I have hundreds of them, so it will take me weeks to share them all with you.

Hello!

Both of these photos were shot from the car as we drove into the city.

Our hotel is absolutely charming. More photos later. No, it’s not the Holiday Inn. That’s across the street.

Photos from the next day:

The Metro.

Église Saint Sulpice – Eglise means church.

And this next church is the oldest church in Paris, AD 990. Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We went inside and it’s gorgeous.

We were headed toward the Seine when we discovered the churches. Eventually we crossed over to the Right Bank to visit the Louvre, but it was closed on Tuesday. We went to the Musee d’Orsay instead. (Don’t worry, we went to the Louvre today.)

The Seine, which is beautiful and ever-fascinating.

That’s the Louvre on the right.

Love locks on a bridge. I see them everywhere. It’s a tradition started by couples who are/were in love, and they often threw the key into the Seine.

I couldn’t wait to visit the Pont Alexandre because it’s spoken of in the story of Anastasia. It turns out it was the bridge we drove across the night we arrived. It’s so beautiful.

Me on the Pont Alexandre.

Handsome husband on some steps leading down to the water.

We saw the Eiffel Tower. We want to see it at night later in the week.

We found Laduree! Of course we bought some macarons. It’s a gorgeous shop.

We ate here tonight and sat outside people watching. Cafes are on every corner. I love the pace of the city. We’ve met truly nice people, none of the rudeness we’d been warned about. Everyone has been helpful and kind and very charming.

I think this must be the most beautiful city in the world. I’ve fallen totally and completely in love with it. If I could get away with staying here permanently, I would. It has won my heart.

So far, we’ve seen the Eiffel Tower, the Musee d’Orsay, several churches, including Notre Dame, the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company (right across the Seine from Notre Dame) the Louvre, the Tuileries and we’ve done that in two days! We’re going to slow down a bit tomorrow as our feet are tired, we’re tired,  and Don’s knees are complaining.

I told Don a few months back that I wanted to buy some designer sunglasses in Paris. I wear sunglasses a lot, as my eyes are sensitive to too much sunlight. Today, we found a shop on the Rue de Bonaparte and wandered in and the next thing I knew Don was buying me a pair for our anniversary. I have a wide face (heart-shaped) and I often can’t find sunglasses that are big enough to suit my face and also fit the bridge of my nose. These are very modern and though you can’t see the color in these photos, they are a sort of burgundy with grey side pieces. I feel very Parisian in them.

Outside the shop.

And because my husband takes lots of pictures of me, another shot.

We’re having the time of our life. We have fallen hook, line and sinker for Paris. We’ve walked along the Seine and shared kisses. We’ve had romantic dinners. We’ve laughed like crazy. We’ve turned to each other to say, “I can’t believe we’re in Paris!!”

More later. I have a lot to share with you, but I’ll probably wait a day or two to share more. Miss you all, but know that we are so happy!

Happy Wednesday.