Shared Illusions

Here’s how this leg of the trip, RI to Paris, started: our flight on 5.8 was canceled.  Charlie received a message on the 7th, around noon. We then had a choice of flights that night at 7, 7:20, or 10:20. Given we still had laundry to do and get from Jamestown to  Boston,  we elected the 10:20 flight. That meant a change of seats. We were in the last row. Still the flight was fine and I slept more than I usually do on a transatlantic flight. I watched Conclave – also mixed review. Maybe I’ll write about it later.

Highlights of yesterday after arriving at the hotel at 2pm. We went directly to Notre Dame. A horde of people,  a line a mile long. Plus a crowd vying to buy breads and pastries at a large tent.

Early May and Paris is hopping. Every tourist boat is full.

We couldn’t get skip-the-line tickets for Notre Dame, so opted to walk around. Visited Shakespeare and Company bookstore/reading room, founded by Sylvia Beach, and frequented by Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce (Sylvia was first to publish Ulysses), and other literary luminaries.

We wound our way back to the Cathedral-just in time for 6pm mass. No line! Heard about the white smoke in Rome. Got to tour at leisure. It’s beautiful-not too dazzling white as some have claimed. No weird lighting as others wrote.

Today, May 9, I took photos of the outside.

Yesterday we discovered Le Tour de Saint-Jacques, a traditional starting point for the Chemin.

We returned to the Plaza in front of the Cathedral by mid-day today and didn’t have a long wait in line to get bread from the best boulangers in Paris. Yesterday there was a competition. Unfortunately I don’t know who won. But the croissant (buttery, flaky) sandwich au jambon, pain au chocolat, and brownie were scrumptious. We sat by the Seine in the sun for lunch.

Just behind us on a wall we saw this:

In the afternoon we went for beer at Scilicet (Latin, meaning namely) also by the Seine.

Okay. Aside from the canceled flight, the only other negative is our hotel for these next 3 nights. So noisy. And breakfast 5€ more than last night’s hotel, which also had a bigger room, a queen bed, and was quiet. So now we have this comparison. The place we booked last minute is so much better than what we booked months ago. It has good reviews but it won’t get one from me.

Other than that disappointment,  it’s been great! Really loving Paris this go round, after not liking it so much in July ’24. That’s a nice surprise. I’m reminded that I wasn’t so pleased with Budapest in July.  Lesson: stay out of big cities in July!

And now it’s almost midnight, so I should try to get some sleep.

À plus!