Blogs from Paris, Île-de-France, France, Europe - page 345

today was a leisurely super hot day. heard it was 93 degrees. its so fricken hot even at nine am. we started the day off by taking a long bus ride to the piere lachoise cemetary where jim morrison, oscar wilde, and other famous people are buried. that cemetary is huge. you can easily spend all day in it and i wish we could have. i like being among the undead. we witnessed a priest spreading the ashes of someone. oscar wilde's tomb was kewl but sad. people put lipstick kisses all over it and on it was a depressing quote about how the outcasts always moarn and the moaners are always outcasts. so sad. took lots of pictures there. mostly of spooky looking statues. i was surprised with how many jews were buried there. oh ... read more

Hi all, Well this will probally be my last entry. We are back in Paris now and we have one night here before heading home tomarrow. I can't believe that three weeks have gone by so quickly. We had a good time in Volos which is the city we decided to head to after Mykonos. We were going to head to another island but that didn' t really work out. Jared really wanted to do some rock climbing while he was here since he carried his gear all over Europe. The airlines sent his bag back to the youth hostel in Athens. So we decided to go back to Athens, pick up his bag and do some sight seeing on the mainland instead of the islands. We heard from several people that there are great things ... read more

Last night we walked over to the Louvre to see the Pyramid and the gardens of les Tuileries. Inside the courtyard of the Louvre and within the gardens it is very peaceful and quiet. Wandering around Pere-Lachaise Cemetery this morning we found the graves of many famous people, including Georges Bizet (just for you, Maddie & Arden!), Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas, Colette, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Georges Seurat, Richard Wright... We looked for Maria Callas but couldn't find her. This cemetery is huge - 110 acres - and is absolutely filled with graves. After lunch, we headed to the Catacombs to cool off! It's been very warm here, mid- to high 80's, and of course much more humid than we're used to. The catacombs in Paris are about 20 m underground - ... read more

2006-06-10 Dear Friends: Well, the big day is almost here. Today is Saturday, June 10th. Tomorrow (after only one more sleep!), I leave for my adventure in Paris. I am so excited. A million things are swirling around in my head. I’m almost packed and I am spending some quality time with Mr. Puff because it will be a long time between his kitty kisses. Eighteen days…imagine! My friend, Judy, and I have been chatting regularly - just like schoolgirls. And as our departure became closer, the mood of the calls became more and more elated while the list of things to do seemed to grow instead of shrink. Judy has been in phone contact with our hotel on occasion to verify that all is okay. The fact that the World Series Soccer Game will be ... read more

Dan had been looking forward to today's visit to the Marche aux Puces (Flea Market) for a long time. It did not disappoint. We started out the day at a market on the southern edge of Paris, at Porte de Vanves. This is a decent sized market, with dealers setting up their tables each weekend, almost all seemed like professionals who do this on a regular basis, with a few "yard sale" type set-ups on the fringes. There was a wide variety of merchandise. We arrived just as the dealers were setting up and found some items to bring home as we browsed. A few dealers were willing to negotiate prices, but not the majority. Mid-morning we headed home to drop off our findings and then headed to the markets north of Paris. These markets are ... read more