Grace (who I met through this blog!) lives in Paris and met up with us for a meal one evening in a favourite traditional bistro on the banks of the Seine.
Grace it was wonderful!
She also recommended the Musee Montmartre which was amazingly quiet though just a couple of minutes walk from the crowded steps and packed restaurants around Sacre Coeur. It was warm enough to enjoy coffee outside in what was Renoir's garden.
And sunny enough to create beautiful shadows..
A gem. There is even a vineyard..thank you Grace.
We chanced on a fabulous florist where bouquets the size of a table were going out of the door and whole branches of cherry blossom and fully grown and flowering clematis in pots were on the pavement. They kindly allowed me to take photographs (lots!) and I was astonished to see Iceland poppies for sale as cut flowers for the first time.
It must take a lot of skill to condition these delicate things
.
There were also refugee families in the Metro - a woman sitting on the ground feeding yoghurt to her baby, a young family carriage-hopping clapping and singing in strange rap/african/eastern european rhythms with hard voices - a young man and woman and a boy who may have been 9 or 10. They may have been parents and child or they may have been siblings. It was hard to tell.
I had buried my purse deep in my backpack, safe from pickpockets on both occasions.
The local street in Montparnasse, tiny parks and gardens and playgrounds, artworks and posters in the Metro - the lesser sights of Paris (or any city) can be fascinating too.
The prize in this competition was to sleep in the Louvre! We were too late to enter..Do you have any special memories of Paris?
More after the Easter break -