Paris Archives

Paris Part 2: Lots of Art, Lots of Street Art, and More Good Food…

January 30, 2020

I remember where we ate dinner Tuesday night!!!!

(it's the small victories, right?)

We stopped at Breizh (pronounced brezzz) Cafe for crepes in the late afternoon, because... well... we were hungry! And these crepes - if you eat both a savory and a sweet one - will hold you over for at least 1 meal. This café is very trendy - lots of tourists - and you often have to stand on line to get in. We got lucky and wandered in because we were eating between traditional meal times. It's worth considering, since this is a really tasty place. That said, you can find good crepes in about a million places around the city, including the people standing behind a crepe griddle, handing crepes over to eat while ... View the Post

Paris Part 1: The Most Simple Travel Capsule Wardrobe Possible, and Lots of Good Food…

January 29, 2020

I'm back! And it was glorious... Any time I get to spend that much uninterrupted time with Belovedest is going to be great, but this trip was truly special. Today and Friday I'm going to try to share some of it with you. If you're planning to go to Paris any time soon, I've got some suggestions, and if you can't make the trip, travel along in your imagination!

We left mid-day Saturday, with stunningly cheap tickets on Aer Lingus, the Irish airline. This of course meant that we connected through Dublin, which was quite simple. The most difficult part for me was wanting to just stay in Ireland! But Paris beckoned...

What did I wear for this epic 2 day trip? Why, my argyle cardigan of course! (This isn't ... View the Post

Notre Dame de Paris

love,

Janice ... View the Post

When You Pack the WRONG Stuff, or “I Blame Lake Michigan”

May 30, 2018

The vacation was beautiful. Except for an unpleasant, but very brief, encounter with my fibromyalgia, this trip could not have been more perfect...

But I packed... not ALL wrong, but largely wrong. And I blame Lake Michigan!

Hear me out - in Chicago, if you live near the lake (and I live literally 100 meters from it), the weather is always colder than advertised. So when someone tells you that your forecast is... say 75 degrees... you draw a mental picture of what that means. In this neighborhood, it means coolish - a cardigan or light sweater is appropriate.

Which, if course, is NOT how that temperature feels when you're away from a very large body of water that keeps the heat suppressed for much of the ... View the Post

Shopping, Eating, and just Looking Around in Paris, October 2017

October 11, 2017

One of the interesting things about having fibromyalgia is that I've started to ignore pain. Some days, if I'm going to get anything done, I have to just "man up" and get on with things. (is there such a phrase as "woman up?" I've been known to say that I'm going to "babe up" from time to time...)

However, ignoring pain can get you into a spot of bother. Like when you get back to your apartment and find that one of your socks is full of blood, and that a few of your toes have magically turned into steak tartare...

Third day in Paris, we're donating 2 pairs of shoes, and going shoe shopping! Lucky for me, there's an Arche store just around the corner from where we stayed, and they proved to be exactly what the ... View the Post

What are the Shop Windows Trends in Paris – October 2017

My shop window photographs didn't come out well at all this trip - it was either too dark, or too sunny and you could see more of me than you could of what I was photographing. But I took lots of notes, so I can still share a lot of what I saw!First up, rest assured that when you get to visit Paris, you don't have to dress up like something madly fancy - most of the people we saw on the streets were wearing the original Vivienne Files Common Wardrobe of jeans, sneakers, simple tee shirts and sweaters, with a snazzy scarf! That's such a change in the last 20 years or so since I first visited. Once upon a time, you would never have worn sneakers, nor jeans...

Just as we had on our last visit, we're still seeing lots of grey jeans, and tons ... View the Post

Reviewing what I Packed for Paris, September/October 2017

October 6, 2017

Well, this is interesting... At the relatively last minute, Belovedest persuaded me to take my larger suitcase (I'm still not quite sure why...) so I ended up packing a few more things than I had intentionally intended.

It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't really amazing, either... Realistically, I could have rated every garment that I packed with a green star as a "keeper;" all of my clothes go together pretty well under almost any circumstances, and I wore every stitch of what I packed.

But in order to force myself to actually rate things, I thought that choosing a third of the pieces as "green," a third as "yellow," and the remainders as the "red star" losers might be more illuminating.

First up, I ... View the Post

Paris Miscellany December 2016 – The Beautiful, The Festive, and the Quaintessentially Parisian

When I take pictures in Paris, I'm a little bit... reckless? Carried away? It's hard to avoid - between the excitement of being on vacation, and the EXCITEMENT of being in Paris... well, there's a lot of beauty that I feel that I want to capture. And much of it doesn't fall into any nice thematic sort of plan, so I'm just going to show you things!First - PASTRIES!!! The holidays are when chestnuts come into their own, and my favorite dessert - Mont Blanc - is topped with a TON of candied chestnuts that have been forced through a ricer. I can eat these until I am absolutely ill...

But if chestnuts don't appeal, every pastry shop window has a ton of possibilities!

Cold weather also brings the need to drink ... View the Post

Paris Street Style, December 2016, or What I saw Parisians Wearing, and in the Paris Shop Windows

December 15, 2016

Why yes, I did a bit of people watching, and window shopping, when I was in Paris! What did I see?

Sigh... lots of amazing things! One particular phenomenon that I saw on students (well, mostly students) was the plaid coat with unmatching plaid scarf outfit. The first time I saw it, I thought it was just a madly creative young man, but then I saw it again, and AGAIN...

I think it's rather cool, albeit bold. I could see myself wearing this black, white and red ensemble... For the less brazen, a plaid scarf worn with a solid or tweed coat would be a nod to this look, without going over the top!

Red plaid coat – Alcoolique; red plaid scarf – Halogen; Bluegreen & red plaid scarf – ... View the Post

Paris Street Art? Graffiti? Whatever you call it, it’s pretty interesting!

I'm still feeling a bit like the north end of a south-bound skunk (as my sainted father would have said!), but I wanted to start sharing my Paris photographs and observations with you. As you've probably noticed, I'm fascinated by the graffiti/street art in Paris. They work so HARD on it... and some of it's a real contribution to otherwise ordinary walls on ordinary streets - at least to me.

One thing that I think is significant is the degree of artistic quality present in much of this work. Even on the streets, you can't just toss any old half-baked thing out there and expect it to be accepted. High aesthetic standards!

When I first saw this wall below, I thought it was some Star Wars -ish movie poster, but when I looked ... View the Post

What to Pack for Paris? The Easiest Answer, So Far!

November 29, 2016

Yes, I got back from Florida late Sunday night. And yes, I'm leaving for Paris on Thursday....Somehow, that got past me when I was planning these trips individually! But it's going to be fine.

When planning a travel capsule wardrobe for cold weather, it's critical to start with your outerwear. During the day in Paris, virtually EVERYONE is going to see me in my coat, and only the rare person in a restaurant and maybe a museum will see what's underneath. Thus, the coat is pretty important!

For this trip, I felt like I wanted to wear my red Barbour jacket. Partly because I want a break from black, partly because it's a wonderful jacket (with two big snapped pockets that completely obviate the need for a ... View the Post

Window Displays and Other Beautiful Things, Paris 2016

This is my last post about our recent trip to Paris, so I'm going to cover a few different areas, and toss in some bizarre, uncategorizable outliers...For B and me, Paris isn't Paris without food! One of the first things we have to do when we get to Paris, (after breakfast, of course) it find some eclairs. Coffee eclairs are a food group during our vacations!

The patisserie windows in Paris are always beautiful, and there are a LOT of them; seldom do we have an "eclair emergency" that can't be assuaged in just a few minutes.

This sugar isn't just refined; it's positive elegant!

I love this - it dumbfounded me that walnut meats could be displayed so elegantly!

And those beauties on the top left are Merveilleux ... View the Post