I Love Paris in the Springtime...

When leaving Trento, which we adored, I thought, "Oh, Paris. We've been there and loved it, but it's not new to us. After all these months of new places and incredible adventures, what can Paris show us?" Well, like just about everything I've seen this year, I was truly enchanted. The weather was lovely and I spent a great deal of time walking through my old haunts, re-discovering old places and finding new ones. Miles was busy the first 2 days with a conference and we toured around together the last 2 days.

A highlight was finding Discover Walks: Free Walking Tours of Paris where I learned a lot of new stuff about Notre Dame, the Left Bank and the Right Bank.

Here are some pictures of some very familiar sites of beautiful Paris:

Opera House

Sacre Coeur

Montmartre

Pompidou Center

The front view of Notre Dame...

...and the back view

The Louvre old and new

The Eiffel Tower

Book stall by the Seine

I just love these stalls and found out on my walking tour that to own/rent a stall requires you to wait up to 8 years. You are only allowed to sell used books (and sell them at a cheaper price than in used book stores), art posters, comic books, postcards and tourist items. There are specific hours when you can be open and the stalls have to be painted dark green. Strict rules for a real Paris institution!

A few years ago, they started a new "attraction": Paris Plage (beach). They bring in sand, beach chairs, umbrellas, play ground equipment, etc. and set it up along a 2-3 kilometer stretch of the Seine River. The Parisians can "go to the beach" in Paris. Fantastique!

A small section of Paris Plage

We asked someone about going to a lesser-known area--we wanted to see something new. They suggested the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the north-east area of Paris. What a lovely place! This was a hilly park with grassy slopes. It was filled with children who spent a lot of time running around the small lake and getting drenched by the sprinklers. A particularly pretty area was the belvedere atop a small hill. We bought quiches at a nearby patisserie and ate our lunch gazing at the view. Another perfect day!

Parc des Buttes Chaumont

We had a special dinner one night at a friend's house. I met sisters Sylvie and Francoise in 1977 while we were all volunteering at a restoration site in southern France near Avignon. We've been in touch with each other annually and it was a real thrill to see them again (we last saw them in 2001 when we visited Paris with Adam and Daniel.)

Francoise, Sylvie, Istvan and us in Sylvie's home

I hate to write this, but write I must. This brings us to the end of the blog. Although the sabbatical isn't yet over and Miles and I are traveling to San Mateo at the end of July for 5 weeks (to see the family and Miles will be working at Lawrence Livermore again after a 3-year gap), I don't think my every-day activities there are very blog-worthy. I wanted the blog to be about our "exotic" sabbatical destinations, not about my routine trips to California.

Thanks to all of you who told me you enjoyed it--your feedback was just great. (It's hard to think that now I won't be formulating blog entries in my mind after every activity I do.)

We return to Haifa on Sept. 7 and will "suffer" from PSS (Post Sabbatical Syndrome). It's been one heck of a year! I'm going to end on a sweet note: Paris pastries!

"Good bye" from all the major cities we lived in this year since we left Haifa in August 2009:

Sayonara, (Tokyo, Japan), Bye (Auckland, New Zealand), Auf Wiedersehen (Zurich, Switzerland), Arrivederci (Trento, Italy), Au revoir (Paris, France)