Marvelous Macaroons

On Tuesday I caught a bus to Le Bon Marche, the oldest department store in Paris which was nice but too expensive for me. Then I pretended to be an intellectual and went to the famous cafe Les Deux Magots in St Germain des Pres where Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre used to hang out. It was fun wandering around the tiny back streets of this area window shopping - particularly the window of Laduree, another Parisian institution, which is too pretty (almost) to eat! I bought a little box of adorable macaroons and have been having one a day with my tea - such a treat! That night we went to a nice function at the Natural History Museum where I tasted my first champagne in France (very nice) and mingled with the people attending the workshop. The canapés were divine and the tiny profiteroles brought tears of joy to my eyes. France is a very civilized place indeed!

The next day I took a bus out along the triumphal way as it is called - from the great obelisk in the Place de la Concord along the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe (although they have ruined the view back to the Arc du Carousel at the Louvre with one of those ferris wheel things). I then went to the Trocadero for a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower, which as I have no desire to climb, I am happy to view from a distance! The cold was nearly killing me so I retired to a lovely place near the Pantheon for a heavenly buckwheat crepe filled with goats cheese, honey and walnuts. Thus fortified I tackled the Pantheon and was rewarded by seeing the tombs of my favorite French authors Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Emile Zola along with Voltaire and Rousseau. I was also surprised but pleased to see a memorial to St-Exupery whose book the Little Prince I was reading to improve my French just before I left home. To that end I bought a copy of a Le Monde newspaper which will probably take me a week to read with a dictionary - quite good value for 1 euro 80! By now the sun was coming out again and I enjoyed wandering around the streets of the Latin quarter noting down some nice restaurants for future visits. I came across the famous bookshop Shakespeare and company which is situated right on the seine with an enviable view of Notre-Dame as you can see. However it is tiny and very crowded to enjoy properly - makes you wonder what it must be like in the summer!