Paris Archives - Page 2 of 5

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

April 16, 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 (and for most people, I suspect), 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 ... 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...

And let's put an old rule to bed for at least a while... For years, we were all given ... 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

December 18, 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 ... View the Post