PARIS

What excitement to be on a plane to Paris! I didn't have much of an idea what and how there was to see, I just knew that on my birthday we were going to visit the "Louvre"! 

It was an idea that had been on my mind like some childhood fantasy, never really intending to actually see it, and at 75, Sallye (who had been there twenty years earlier), thought it a great idea ...so off we went!

 I hadn't realized how significant Napoleon was to the culture, and architecture in particular! It is over-the-top gaudy, glitzy, and glamorous way; and still  breathtakingly ornate in its statues and buildings that have held together since the time he was in power.

 We saw most of the 'First time visitors to Paris sites" … Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower (that was of course fantastic), the Arch de Triomphe, Sacre-Coeur Basilica, and topped it off with a train ride to Versailles, the palace that was the seat of power at one point and home to King Louis XIV.

Staying in a charming flat in the Bastille area offered easy walking to shops to stroll along the Seine River as we searched to find our next meal. It's a casual, artsy area with accessible cafes and cool places to eat and to just watch the world go by.