Before leaving Carcassonne, we did a little bit of work around Rob & Helen’s apartment and took photos (which I’ve included below and encourage you to consider a holiday rental). An eight-hour ride into Paris allowed us a very restful day watching the French countryside with farms and vineyards and many tiny villages.

Our last week in France was spent in Paris where, even with the cold weather and rain, we were again enchanted with this amazing city. We’ve visited twice before – always in the spring – and now saw the City of Lights in a different way and at a different time of year.

We rented an apartment here but after being spoiled with everything you could need at Helen’s and Rob’s in Carcassonne, we were very disappointed in how poorly equipped this place was.

The location, however, was amazing and we could walk everywhere within minutes: Notre Dame Cathedral, the Seine river banks, the Latin Quarter, Les Halles, Places des Vosges, museums and even the Eiffel Tower.
We skipped many of the traditional tourists spots – Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, the Musée d’Orsay – as we’ve seen these before and instead went to L’Orangerie, the Centre Pompidou, the Jewish section (what’s left of it), the Tuilleries gardens (bare), as well as all of the frou frou shopping districts (just walking through, no shopping).

We spent a morning at the Orangerie museum that contains eight of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies as well as many other pieces of art. The huge Water Lilies were installed in what was formerly a building in which the king’s orange trees were kept to protect them from winter weather. When Monet painted his masterpieces it was with the knowledge that they would be installed in these gently curved rooms with natural light pouring in.

The paintings are so wide and arc towards you so that if you stand at the center your entire vision – including peripheral – is filled by the painting. This optical illusion makes you feel like you are at Monet’s garden pond at Giverny and experiencing what he did when he painted them.

We visited the Jewish Historical and Art Museum and walked through the Jewish quarter of Paris a few blocks away from our apartment. The streets are closed to vehicles on Sundays and so the place was so busy with people we couldn’t find anywhere to have lunch. There were many interesting Jewish businesses: a printer, a jeweler, a deli as well as many bakeries and restaurants. There remains one active synagogue – a conservative temple and we saw many of its members out walking around the neighborhood.

To see see the full image, click on the picture (a new window will open):

WHAT’S NEXT: We now have our plane tickets all the way through to Wenzhou, China: first, we fly to Bangkok and then to the southern beach town of Krabi to spend a week at Ao Thang; then a week in Bangkok, a week in Hong Kong (for visa process) and then we move to our new home in Wenzhou by early February.

NOTE: My “This Expat Life” & “Writing on Wednesdays” blogs are on hiatus until we settle down in Wenzhou in February 2010. Between now and then, I’ll be writing only about Baby Boomers Traveling. Hope you enjoy coming along with us.

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