(continuing from Milk internet _ 16Sept) One has to keep thinking of clever and stupid titles for these things so I suppose this is somewhat of an analogy for the stained glass at Saint-Chappelle which I finally got to see today. Obviously after the last security realisation that I had my Swiss Army knife with me this has virtually been completely left at home in my bag, which somewhat defeats the purpose of it in terms of availability for miscellaneous tasks. On the other hand I am not entirely sure that I have actually had the need for it at any time. Anyway after the usual travelers laundry exercise in the morning (if you don't keep up with it, it won't keep up with you) I was actually out of the Hotel at about noon. Rode ... read more

from a Milk net cqfe nr sorbonne on screwed french keybd! ) 16Sept This was mostly all about relocating myself from Montparnasse to Montmartre which was the Monday exercise. As usual I went down to the corner bakery and had my normal pastry and café au lait breakfast. The owner of the Hotel gave me a tip as to where there was a really good piece of Montmartre which was only a couple of minutes away. Although I had been in this general direction I had not been to this actual location which was a simple sidestreet called Square Montsouris - the Parc Montsouris is at the end of it. However the street is completely full of very atmospheric 3 storey houses with ivy growing all over them and that sort of thing. It is so ... read more

this one is about touring the obscure! This is going to be partly at least about the exercise of going to the end of the train line, to somewhere where you would perhaps not otherwise go, and just see what you can see (aka Mr Mink doctrine of "accidental tourism"). In this case the the choice of the end of the line was not completely bizarre -- in fact it is simply a question of following my favourite metro line, line 4, from Porte d'Orleans which is where I am staying south of Montparnasse to the northern end of the line at Porte Clignancourt. This does of course have the advantage of not having to change lines anywhere. And believe me if there are various choices of "correspondance" (line change) some places are better than others ... read more

This comes from the corner boulangerie at 10.30am Friday - decided to type by "hand" so to speak to ensure that the blog about yesterday is relatively short, and the pictures long, so to speak. Yesterday started sunny, so much so that I finally left the hotel in shorts - and sandals. A decision which was reversed about 100m. down the street when it strated to rain. Although I had a roll up nylon parka in the camera bag decided that I did not want to spend the day slopping aorund in sandals and wet feeet if this was going to keep up - which it did! So back to the hotel for more sensible attire. Then the Metro to Varenne which is the closest to the Musee Rodin. Fortunately no big queue to get in ... read more

bon jour encore une fois a Paris. I will be brief as it is already 1 AM, and I did not get in until about 12.30 after a metro expedition back from the Eiffel Tower region in the 7eme. I had wondered how full the hotel was as most of the room keys seem to be on their hooks - but realised tonight when only my key, 13, was on the hook that it means that everyone is sensibly OUT (doh!). I walked down there from here, but as I did not leave the hotel until virtually 5 PM, despite having breakfast at 9:30 AM, it was a very slow start to the day. I decided to walk down to get more of a feel for Paris so to speak. Certainly the Blvd's are interesting with ... read more