Yes, I was only 3 days in the City of Light. And on two of them I ran into the same woman, who recognized me from waiting behind us in line at the stroopwaffel stand in AMS. (Luca says this only happens to me!) Seriously crazy coincidences but when I got on my train to Paris, the woman sitting in the seat behind me said she recognized me as she’d been in the 40-min line behind me and Luca. I of course did not recognize her but in my defense, she was very bundled up in that line (hat and scarf) so it was hard to see her face. Then on my first full day when I had to run to grab a lunch before my timed-ticket entry at the Musee d’Orsay, I was standing in line to order (it was kind of a cafeteria style place that my tour guide had suggested) and she was right in front of me!!! So we decided it was fate and we had to have lunch together. 

It was relatively quick as I had to dash off to my museum, so we didn’t chat THAT much, but Neha was on a long tour to Paris from India, also traveling solo, and had taken a quick side trip to AMS. Crazily she was even staying in the same arrondisement as I was, just one stop further down! Small world!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My Eurostar train left a few minutes late but made up the time and of course just as the train pulled into Paris it started to drizzle. (The scenery, btw was a bit dull. Mostly farmland.) By the time I  managed the metro (thankfully Luca showed me a trick to easily buy tickets on my phone’s apple wallet) and got to my hotel stop, it was a full downpour. 

But it was maybe 530 and I wanted to do something, so after unpacking, I set out to walk the neighborhood and find some food. I was in the Montparnasse neighborhood, which is less touristy and it was of course too early to eat by French standards. I ended up going to a local grocery (more like a Target that has a grocery — monoprix) and browsed the groceries (which I love to do when I hit new countries. It’s fascinating). It was relatively crowded and I realized I hadn’t taken any of the spare bags I had from my hotel room. Nor did I take one of their umbrellas. Anyway I bought a few things — key was a bottle of Bordeaux, some mousse canard and Roquefort cheese. (And a few bananas which I was chastised about by the cashier because I needed to weigh them — and the machine was only in French. Ah well I managed to figure it out and the lady was nicer to me.) Of course I realized at this point that I’m going to drop everything in that heavy rain (was most worried about the wine of course) so I also buy a cute monoprix bag (apparently it’s a thing) but there was no price on it. Turns out it was basically $10 (8 euros) — almost as much as my on-sale wine and 1/3 of the price of my shopping! Oh well, it has come in handy and I’ll be gifting it to Jan in Florence so I don’t need to carry it home.

OK this is a lot on my wet shopping adventure! Needless to say I had a nice snack in my hotel room though I had to ask the front desk to get me a corkscrew. (A huge disadvantage of not being in an Airbnb — I had a mini fridge but no utensils!) I thought I needed to detox from all the drinking with Luca but one needs wine in France. Though that wine was strong! I seriously had to push myself to drink 1/3 of the bottle each night (just over 1 glass these days)… because of course I wasn’t going to throw any out! 

In any case, I spent part of a day doing a “free” tour of Paris with a Colorado rancher’s kid who was clearly gay and has a dream to open an Airbnb in France.

And I had decided to re-visit the two major museums — the Musee d’Orsay and the Louvre, which I had last visited in 1984 when the impressionists were in the Jeu de Paume and the Louvre was pyramid-less. (I AM old!) BTW when Amy and I were there, they kept having pesky strikes and we ended up going to the Louvre with maybe a half hour til close, so were racing to see our top 3 — winged victory, Venus de Milo and of course the Mona Lisa. 

It was time to give them another chance. (When I visited briefly in 1993 I only did the Picasso museum.) I had bought the tickets while still in the US — before the Louvre jewelry heist — and fortunately they only closed the museum a few days, before I arrived. 

I did the two museums on different days, each on the day they stay open late, hoping to avoid huge crowds. I spent over 3 hours at each. There’s a lot there! Not sure I avoided crowds but actually they weren’t awful, except the really famous stuff. In fact I was slightly late to both my scheduled times (they say you have 30 mins after your set time and I stayed within that), so I sort of jumped lines because my time was earlier than folks who had queued up early for their time slots. (Lesson learned — be late and buy tix in advance! I didn’t wait at all really.)

I also went to the Notre Dame on the evening it was open late (after my Orsay day) and that did work — it’s always free and you usually stand in a very long line but I basically just walked through the cordoned off lanes and never stopped until I got in. That said, the huge disadvantage of going to a church with stained glass windows after dark is that you cannot appreciated the windows! But I didn’t want to return and wait in a long line so I missed something special. 

I always seemed to be running to an appointment so I didn’t have a really great, relaxed, French meal. The cafeteria place with Neha was cute but I had an obsession to have a croque monsieur and the guide suggested Bo&Mie as quick (you can get out in 45 mins — it’s all relative), in the vicinity, and have my sandwich. He hit the first two but not the third, sadly, so I just had a quiche (w salad and a dessert and drink – a seriously good deal) and a bite of Neha’s pork filled baguette! Thus the next day’s lunch, my last, was reserved based on my sandwich being on a “best-of” list, and its proximity to my two appointments of that day — one at Chanel and the other at the Louvre. 

It was of course the most expensive place (À L’Épi d’Or) given the neighborhood and also the chef’s (Jean-François Piège) other restaurant is Michelin-starred. Who knew. I basically got a grilled ham & cheese sandwich!!? But it was good and a couple of nice French men at the next table actually struck up a conversation with me — they advised me to go to a galleria mall next door because I might see Christian Louboutin walking around (not that I’d recognize him — then they showed me his photo and told me a story about his chinchilla jacket and SHOES). His office is there and he often gets his coffee locally.

About Chanel. I had decided I wanted to buy a bottle of eau de perfume for my gf, Jan, who’s letting me stay in her apartment in Florence. She’s admired my Coco Mademoiselle and her husband got her a bottle in Chicago — but she’s traveling to Italy 3-4x/year and those perfume bottles are heavy! So she needs one in Italy. And when in Rome… or in this case, Paris … it was time to buy from the mothership!! Turns out there are many Chanel stores in Paris. But there is only ONE original store at 31 Rue Cambon, where Coco herself used to work (live?) upstairs. When you buy from this store, it’s the only one in the world where the bags are white and show the address instead of the classic black bags.

The Internet said to make an appt; I found a “scent tour” before my Louvre appt. They’re on the north side and I’m on the south, but I metro’d up, there was no line (yay to off season), I had my appointment email, and they were efficient and polite. I was “madame’d” out the wazoo! Since I knew what I wanted, it was relatively quick though I also decided to get myself a little “purse spray” that’s supposedly a limited edition (though I’ve seen it everywhere since). It’s a slightly stronger scent (Coco mademoiselle Intense) … that I can attach to the outside of my purse with the little included chain. Idk. It’s cute but I don’t see me doing that. However, when in Chanel… But I had also been thinking of getting a ring (called Coco Crush) — I blame my obsession with Wang YiBo since he’s a Chanel brand ambassador! According to the internet it’s cheaper to buy in France but we’re not having a great exchange rate; I guess if I get the VAT back, it could compensate. We’ll see. That said, to get the VAT paperwork, they needed my passport which I didn’t have; they needed the original, which I always leave in the hotel and couldn’t accept the copy I carry. I was leaving the next day so had to metro back to my hotel after lunch. Sigh.

A bunch of running around. But at least I could leave my packages at the hotel, not in a locker (or on my arm) at the Louvre. I was a little worried about carrying the showy bags but when they brought me my packages, while they were beautifully packaged, and Jan’s gift-wrapped, they put everything into a totally plain black recycled-material bag. Absolutely no Chanel on the outside! As my SA, Yves, said, it was their discreet packaging. So some people walked out with huge Chanel bags but some of us just had a discreet unmarked bag (or two!). Final internet comment— apparently if you buy enough, you can ask to take a photo of the stairs that Coco used when her place was upstairs. I did not ask… I’m not into Chanel fashions, just the perfume (and now I guess my ring tho it’s plain and ridiculously overpriced. Oh well you only live once!?).

Finally, after the Louvre I took a walk down on the Seine — I had considered a boat ride or, in my neighborhood there’s the Montparnasse tower, where you can go to the 56th floor and see the city all lit up. It’s an ugly building and for that reason a good place from which to take photos because it won’t be in them!

But I had to do packing and finish that last bit of wine, so I headed back and decided to get up early so I could visit a local cemetery (NOT the really famous one where Jim Morrison and famous French people are buried) … 

Of course it was pouring rain my entire final morning.  But at least I grabbed an umbrella for the 15 min walk to the local cemetery.  

And in walking back, found a cute street market where I bought a few snacks for my train ride to Torino. 

Meantime in the future I would try to spend time in the other cool (not necessarily historic) neighborhoods. And clearly I did not do the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomph, etc., this time, although I did them 40 years ago — but didn’t feel I needed to do them again. I managed to run through the Luxembourg gardens and area around the Sorbonne (Latin quarter, so called because it’s the language of the educated not because there were ever Latinos there!?) on my walk to from Montparnasse to the center. But I definitely did not feel like I had a relaxing French time where I could soak up local flavors. Too much time in lovely museums!

I’ll end with some photos I took of famous areas from a higher floor in the Musee d’Orsay.