Tag: Bastille

Paris Photos

More past Paris photos.

A lovely interior of a lux florist.

The Luxembourg Gardens with the Pantheon in the background.
View of Paris from the Pompidou.

The memorial column at Batille.
A typical French breakfast. This was a first restaurant meal, on a terrace, after a year of covid confinement.

My mother has always been known for her fashion sense, her clothing, her makeup and her jewelry. Before she died she gave me one of her rings. It’s really not my style, and is almost like what they used to call cocktail jewelry designed to go with flashy, sparkly dresses for parties. I wear the ring every day now in memory of her. It is a large square pink stone. Women compliment me on it all the time. On a recent trip to Mexico, I found instead of just shops full of Mexican crafts like sombreros or art, there were jewelry stores everywhere with the owners standing out front trying to tempt you inside. One of the men noticed my ring and complimented me on it. I told him that I wasn’t sure what kind of stone it was except that I knew it wasn’t a pink diamond. He took a close look at it and told me it was a pink topaz. I didn’t go into the store to look around as my mother would have done, but I was very happy to know what it was.

Day and Night

Once I am home, it’s very hard for me to leave at night leading to few night shots. I’m always sort of amazed by what I see when I happen to be out in Paris after dark.

Restaurants look a bit magical with their lighting.

The column at Bastille looks even better in its night time light.

Cocktails taste better at night too.

Many mornings we are out walking in the Promenade Plantée with great Autumn light.

Seen in Printemps. I was looking for a light coat to wear now when I should have been looking for one months ago. I am always to late for what I want and what I want is a Burberry trench coat but I am genetically wired not to spend a lot of money on clothes. 1600 Euros for a coat? I just can’t do it. So I looked for a knock off but after two hours I gave up.

The best part of the day is when I went to their top floor to look at this magnificent stained glass dome.

 

(This post was written in October before we went to Canada and the States.)

The Marais

On Wednesday I walked all the way from our apartment to the Marais, about four miles. It’s been windy and I hate the wind, so I decided to make up for missing my early morning walk. I wore my jogging shoes with my jeans and off I went. There were still gusts but it wasn’t too horrible.

Mimosa have started blooming in Provence and you can find them for sale at florists.

Interior of the florist shop with a great selection of beautiful flowers.

I reached the Bastille area and saw the reflection of the column there in the windows of the Bastille Opera House.

I then reached the Marais with the fantastic architecture of the Place des Vosges.

A colorful corner.

Inviting seating but a bit to chilly for me.

Run!

The Paris Marathon was this Sunday, an absolutely beautiful day heralding, hopefully, warmer temperatures and more blue skies. I’ve never done a marathon, although Maurice has done many. He even did a 50 K once. I did a 10 K one time and decided it’s not for me. Running isn’t either, really, although I have tried to be a runner. I think I’m going to be a walker mostly. Anyway, it is very inspiring to see those runners. I think it’s neat that there are professionals but also amateurs in the same race. I watched the beginning of it on TV and was amused by one guy who took off like the wind in front of everyone and took a selfie with the runners behind him, mostly from Kenya, who would win the race, so he had one photo of being in the lead for a few seconds. There were, as always, some people in costume, men in tutus, batman and a flamingo.


I love seeing Paris from high above. This shot is from my TV showing the Arch de Triumph.


The race has begun going down the Champs Elysees.


They have done a massive and very expensive overall of les Halles, a shopping mall that they put in place of a historic, huge street market.


I waited until the runners reached Bastille and headed there myself via the metro. There is a growing amount of dust behind our TV screen which I can see in these photos. We unscrewed about 50 screws to get the TV apart hoping to be able to get to the screen but couldn’t find our way in. I guess we will either have to take it in to be professionally cleaned or buy a new one. It’s over ten years old.


Here it is in person.


Reflected in the windows of the Opera Bastille.


I guess he was waiting for the race to be over so he could start cleaning. Mostly the streets were full of plastic water bottles the runners dropped after drinking.