Friday. Oct 19

A week of relatively routine events. We didn't do as much as we have earlier on because of

A brief day by day listing here with some photos and descriptions.

Monday, Oct 15
We spent the afternoon replacing our depleted chocolate supply. We tried a different place that we had visited last year. Got some good stuff and some marcarons. We also had afternoon tea at the Café Flore which is near to and very similar to Les Deux Magots.

We also went to the FNAC which is a large chain of department stores that deals only with media: books, CD's, DVD's, mobile phones, and all kinds of audio visual equipment. We bought a couple of books because we had finished those that we brought with us on the Nooks. It's a wonderful store to browse around in. One level is just books, another CD's and DVD's. In the evening we went back to Astier, mainly for the cheese tray that we showed you earlier.

Tuesday, Oct 16
We had lunch along the Saint Martin canal with a friend of ours who works here in Paris but is originally from Ireland. It was nothing more than a café  but the food was good, as was the company, and we spent two hours catching up.

Wednesday, Oct 17
We spent the afternoon at the Paris Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) at two different exhibitions. One was called Paris As Seen by Hollywood. It had exhibits and clips from 100 films that had something about Paris; eg, An American in Paris, Charade, Casablanca, the Merry Widow, Gigi, and many more. A very good exhibit. An equally good one was about the deportation/ saving of Jewish children during the Second World War. Completely different in tone and subject matter from the first exhibit.

On Thursday we went up to see the Paris Opera House (Salle Garnier). We plan on seeing it more thoroughly later with a guided visit. Something I have never done in 40 some years I have been coming to France. We stopped off at the famous Café de la Paix across from the Opera. Guess what we did there. In the evening we had dinner at my favorite bistro, Chez René. I have been going there for over 30 years and still love the daily specials that they have there: pot au feu, boeuf gros sel, blanquette de veau. It's also for the nostalgia involved.

Friday, Oct 19

Dreary day with some more rain so we just hung out, sat in the Café Sancerre on the corner, and relaxed. Can't site see everyday!