Paris Archives - Page 2 of 5

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

A Big Parisienne Advantage: Costume Jewelry, April 2016

April 15, 2016

While I know that some of us don't wear and don't like costume jewelry, there are others among us who cheerfully indulge when something makes our heart sing. And Paris is the best place I've ever been to buy costume jewelry.In the US, the "fashion" jewelry industry is dominated by the 4 "department store" brands (which shall remain nameless), and thus we have to do some creative searching in order to find something out of the ordinary. But in Paris, it's a different story. Want a pair of earrings that look like pansies? Easy... a bracelet that looks like a row of ducks? I can find that... earrings that look like gorillas hanging from your ears? check the Diwali store just south of Notre Dame; they were in the ... View the Post

Paris Graffiti and Street Art, April 2016

You might not fully appreciate my love of good graffiti, but I walk a LOT in Chicago, and never get to see anything nearly this witty or just plain well-executed. The graffiti in Chicago is that same tired, self-aggrandizing and incomprehensible "tagging" that's some variation of initials or names, written large, and badly...Okay, this guy was NOT graffiti, but I think someone sitting outdoors, playing a harp, qualifies as street art of the very finest quality!

Some of the graffiti is just small pieces on a wall (sometimes quite HIGH on a wall); and sometimes, you see a bike driving out of the building. Very Harry Potter-ish...

The first image was seen quite a bit, and was apparently part of the sponsorship project for the ... View the Post

What Women were Wearing in Paris, April 2016

April 13, 2016

Well okay, not what everyone was wearing, but what caught my eye...

Belovedest OF COURSE knows what I'm doing when I'm looking at people in Paris, and he's turned out to be an invaluable partner in spying patterns and noticing the garments that seem to be worn by 10% of the people we see.

First up - grey jeans! We couldn't tell if these were black jeans that were well faded, or if they were jeans that were grey by design. At any rate, we saw them often, and generally they weren't skin-tight. We saw virtually nothing cropped, but quite a few jeans were rolled neatly at the ankles, exposing jazzy socks...

Toothpick - J. Crew; blue/grey – MM6 Maison Margiela; tapered – H&M; classic – ... View the Post

The Highlights of Our Paris Vacation

Yes, honestly, I looked down at our feet, and the wee heart-shaped pebble was right there between our toes... It was that kind of vacation!

It really was one of the best trips ever - everything fell into place for us to a degree that's almost impossible to describe. We had 20 minutes of rain (during which we stood under an awning and discussed the rest of our day), we ate like crazy people, discovered some new (to us) cocktails, did some excellent shopping, and walked about 10 miles every day. Despite the mad amounts of eating and drinking that we did, I lost weight...

The first highlight - we got to see the Paris Marathon. As runners (well, in my case, as a fast walker/runner), seeing the elite runners at the head of the ... View the Post

Paris 2015: Food, My Hotel, and more about What They Were Wearing

December 22, 2015 First up: food!!!

I personally find it pretty difficult to eat badly in Paris; if you go someplace where you only understand a fraction of what's going on, and where there are lots of people from the neighborhood, the food is bound to be at least acceptable.My last day, I was wandering pretty aimlessly near the Marais, and I spotted a nice looking restaurant, so I decided (since it was nearing 1 p.m., and I was peckish), to stop in for lunch. The formule (set price menu) looked interesting...

A lovely woman seated me, and gave me directions to the toilet. When I wandered back, bemused, she explained that the door slid rather than swung! On such small details swings (or slides?) many a ... View the Post

Paris 2015: Street Things, and What People Were Wearing (part 1)

December 21, 2015 Something I lose sight of, between visits to Paris, is the fact that there is so much really great art on the streets. This trip, I was enjoying the various lions I saw ornamenting and guarding the buildings!

While there were a lot of Christmas decorations all over Paris, they weren't as ubiquitous as they are here in Chicago. But some of them were really spectacular - worth the trip just to see them...

I saw some decorations that I thought were in questionable taste. I'm not crazy about fake snow under any circumstances, so flocked trees have never been my preference. But this just felt over the top:

And I took a couple of pictures that really ... View the Post

Paris Store Windows, December 2015

Oh, did I window shop....But before I get to that, I have to answer a question someone asked, before I forget: What about my hair care needs when I travel?

This is it. I shower in the evenings, and then untangle my hair again the morning, re-dampen it, and scrunch it with my hands. Stick in a headband, and I'm done! I haven't got a lot of patience for primping; if I had to blow dry my hair every day, I'd shave my head....Makeup = lipgloss, and of course I'm wearing sunscreen. Done.

I have to suggest an very small, empty spray bottle to almost anybody who's going to fly. Yes, you can buy those Evian spray bottles that are going to outlive us all in a landfill, or you can get one of these and refill it after you go through ... View the Post

The Streets of Paris, December 2015

I had a wonderful time, no hesitations, and no conditions or qualifications apply.

Were things in Paris a little bit different? Yes, a little bit. As I said yesterday, my flight was very "uncrowded", so I anticipated smaller crowds, which was indeed the case. Maybe the thing that I noticed first was that there were French flags on display in unexpected places, including quite a few hanging from the windows of apartments in the city. In some cases, the flag was just a sheet of paper with the flag printed on it, taped to the window. I didn't see thousands of them - this wasn't something organized - but that made it all the more striking and moving when it was seen.

One of the things that I ... View the Post

Getting to Paris from Chicago (and back again), December 2015

December 16, 2015

If you're considering going to Paris soon, DO IT! If nothing else, the trip over was MUCH easier than it's ever been before, in my experience. A lot of people on my flight were no-shows, which meant that lots of us had a ton of space. On both of my flights - to and from Paris - I had a window AND an aisle seat all to myself. On the trip over, some people had ENTIRE middle sections (three seats wide, maybe 4?) in which to stretch out and sleep somewhat comfortably.

I know that a lot of this is the result of no-shows, because I seriously considered upgrading my seat on both legs of the trip, and decided not to because of cost. When I viewed the seat maps online, they showed that there were very few free seats on ... View the Post