Paris in February 2006 - 1st vs 5th Arrond?

[therese]

World's worst tourist? Not hardly, or if so, you have company. Your day sounds like my ideal day in Paris, with a few minor differences.

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Well, sometimes I skip the half day of sightseeing in favor of a few hours in a cafe. Or two.

[John Talbott]

Your day sounds like my ideal day in Paris, with a few minor differences.

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Nah, I have major differences; up at 6, the usual Amurican exercise stuff 'til 7, breakfast with les Matinales and Euronews (recorded) and Telematin, work, then lunch and the rest I agree on, except for the dancing (which, as a geezer I don't indulge in, except on/in Barcelonetta).

[Margaret Pilgrim]

My ideal touring day is a half day of sights (so, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM), nice long lunch, post-prandial stroll, nap, light dinner (at home or out), concert/dancing/show, drink/snack afterwards, home to bed.

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Your ideal day is completely logical. Ours follows different lines: Up and out before 7am if we are going to an early venue, if not laze in until perhaps 8 or 9am, call for breakfast in our room. Return for coffee if we chose the earlier option, if not, head out for shopping and chores. Either have a light lunch out or return to our room to raid our larder: pate, cold cuts, cheese, fruit, wine. Out again to investigate new territory or to greet old friends, back for a snack and nap. Dinner is our evening entertainment. What can I tell you? At our age, by 10pm we don't have a lot of dance left.

[follonica2]

World's worst tourist? Not hardly, or if so, you have company. Your day sounds like my ideal day in Paris, with a few minor differences.

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Well, sometimes I skip the half day of sightseeing in favor of a few hours in a cafe. Or two.

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I stick to the morning to "do" museums, sites,etc. I've learned the two-dish tango for eating out in Paris. Either an entree/plat or plat/dessert, with wine, of course. That way I can do two nice meals a day without "hitting the wall". Afternoons are more free form. However, I have discovered splitting a bottle of champagne after that post-prandial walk does tend to wreck the rest of the afternoon .

[therese]

However, I have discovered splitting a bottle of champagne after that post-prandial walk does tend to wreck the rest of the afternoon .

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True. But then you wake from so sound a sleep that you can go out and stay up late. Just make sure you drink lots of water.

I realize that I left out some crucial information: what did I bring back?

So, starting with beverages...

1. A type of pastis I'd not tried before, Plantanis.

2. Calvados Pays d'Auge, labeled both Baron de la Briere and Pierre Huet. I'd planned on getting Calvados in Normandy, but somehow the thought of dragging it around with me while we toured, and then home on the train, was a bit daunting.

3. Pimm's. I get Pimm's at home, so nothing particularly unusual or exotic about it. I'd gotten it as a backup at the same time as I picked up something I'd never tried before, Gloss de Suze. The latter is labeled as being cherry and ginger flavored, and I was expecting some faint fruit notes against a bitter background. Instead it was, well, unbelievably foul: cherry cough syrup, and not very good cherry cough syrup at that.

I got Fi to try it. Ask her what she thought of it.

[therese]

Other stuff I brought back:

All sort of downmarket candy, including

Kinder milk chocolate bars filled with that stark white creamy stuff. The label says "+ lait, - cacao", and it cracks me up.

A range of Haribo items: gummy Schtroumpfs (as expected), green apple and licorice chewy candies (better than I thought they'd be), and raspberry sweets that are sort of like very dense marshmallows coated in hot pink sugar (sort of disgusting), assorted mixed wrapped sweets.

Pierrot suckers, both fruit and caramel.

I bring most of these to work, where they are immediately inhaled by my co-workers. I used to bring much cooler sorts of candy and cookies back from trips, and they tended to sit around a lot longer, presenting a serious risk of overconsumption to me, who had to walk by the treats table regularly.

[bleudauvergne]

Therese, I am really enjoying your accounts. Reading this through makes me wish you had stayed in Paris much longer just so I had more of your vignettes to read. Thank you.

[therese]

Reading this through makes me wish you  had stayed in Paris much longer just so I had more of your vignettes to read.

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You are not alone in this sentiment, Lucy, believe me.

I generally spend a bit more time shopping when I travel, as I'm generally traveling for work and so don't have long stretches of time to devote to things like museums. But since I prefer to glean the "feel" of a place from everyday life it still works, as I eating out and sitting in bars and cafes is actually integral to my work.

I always go to grocery stores, even if all my meals are already arranged and my hotel room has no means of storing food, as it's a great indicator of the general population's diet. The amount of floor/shelf space a market devotes to a particular type of item is particularly informative: breakfast cereal is an area that's expanded a lot in European markets in recent years.

Even if I can't take advantage of too much in the way of fresh produce, dairy, or meat, I generally manage to find some sort of dry good items that I can use at home. This time I bought a box of anise-flavored candy. As oppose to the bulk candy that I buy to take to work, this one features a pretty picture (a scene of seduction, actually, a common motif for candy boxes) on the box that I'll keep to use later:

[therese]

The other things that I usually look for are kitchen linens, usually dish towels, but occasionally tablecloths or napkins. Using them reminds of the trip, and since I spend so much time in the kitchen it's a more effective reminder than some sort of bibelot might be.

This time I got fairly boring towels at Monoprix (because I simply didn't have the time to do any real shopping at all). So instead of showing them I'll show you a really cool tablecloth and napkins that I bought last year in Venice, on Burano. They feature a very cool technique called faggoting, also sometimes called drawn work. The pictures are from Thanksgiving 2005.