It has been a big job sorting through all these pictures and re-living the Paris part of my trip. I will post some of my favorite ones here and if you have some time you can go to my flickr and see them all.
As a courtesy, as that is how I intended, I also made smaller sets for Sainte Chapelle, the Eiffel Tower, and Versailles. Enjoy the parts you want and leave the rest aside.
This was "the" vacation, the one I always wanted to take with the person I share my life with and isn't he awesome? He took me because he knew I would enjoy it. Wow! I don't profess to be anything but a tourist. I love the places we visited, and I do enjoy seeing the foreign and the things that are different than what I run across in my day to day lifestyle... and I don't even mind a bit of blurriness here and there.
I'll have a caption over each photo but I'll keep it short. Click on anything for the larger view.
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the Arc de Triomphe
inside the arch - beautiful
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detail on the side of it - drama
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view of the Champs Elysees from the top of the Arc - vastness
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he bought me muguet des bois on May Day - romantic
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The Louvre - It was closed and so I walked around.
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outside the Louvre
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flowers in the Tuilleries gardens
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ornate column
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weathervane
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detail on the Louvre building
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view of the river Seine
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Sainte Chapelle
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shadow of a tree on the side of the building
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gargoyles
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big stained glass window
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fountain at the Hotel de Ville on the Ile de la Cite - the little island in the river
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the Marais - my favorite neighborhood and not so touristy
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one of Picasso's sculptures
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a sphinx outside the Picasso Museum
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pastries
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chocolate - big ones
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the serene Place de Vosges
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light play of the sun through the tree
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Versailles
gilded fence around it
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window detail ornament
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Louis XiV as a young boy
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a wall covering
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part of a painted ceiling
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another painted ceiling detail and there were many
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painting of Napoleon Crowning Josephine
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one of the fountains outside at Versailles
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Eiffel Tower
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in motion! (to see this at the best size, drag it to your desktop and then open it, otherwise it is too big and if I use a smaller version, it is too small)
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Near our hotel
a trompe l'oeil
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detail on the wall of the George V metro station where posters have been attached and removed so many times
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I know how much you like to see what I bought
Perles de Soie
These are called 'pearls of silk'. They were designed and made by a young woman named Cecile Boccara.
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She is 29 years old and a fiber artist who trained with Chanel and Christian Dior. I found these in a little shop of handmade things called Silvie Guillon on the Place de Vosge at 16 Rue de Birague. No website. Everything was handmade. So many beautiful things.
I got this too. Cecile made it as well. A small dragonfly pin made of fabric, gold thread, old rhinestones, wire and some kind of glue. It is precious.
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I don't remember how much any of them were. I left without a detailed receipt, just the total.
fabric earrings from the same shop, only one pair
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and one thing that is truly commercial but oh so clever, made by Swatch in the UK, this steel and red resin daisy ring - I love it so much! They named it FUNANYA.
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and that's the end.
