paris

A few weeks ago, I got to go to Paris to see my mother.  It was a really nice visit, and the weather was gorgeous and spring-like and perfect.  There were leaves budding on the trees and sunny days just perfect for walking around parks and visiting museums.  My first day there, I went to the Luxembourg garden, wandered around Place des Vosges and visited my favorite free museum, the Carnavalet.  It houses one of my favorite paintings, and I like to go visit it, although this time the painting was off on exhibit somewhere else, which was disappointing.  It still is fun to look around the museum, which is all about Paris, and then spend some time wandering in Le Marais, with its ridiculous shops and crowded streets.  It was fun spending time with my mom, too, and in the evenings after she'd finished work, we'd ride the metro somewhere and go walk around some more. I think that night we tried to go to to Tuileries, but we got there about half an hour before it closed, and of course they weren't letting anyone in.  So instead we just wandered in various directions and eventually ended up on the Champs-Elysees.   The next day I spent almost entirely at the Louvre, which is ridiculously huge, and somehow exhausting.  I kept looking for places to sit down because for some reason I just couldn't handle standing up for hours on end.  Afterwards, I wandered through the Tuileries garden and then met my mom at the train station to catch the TGV down to Avignon.

top: Paris metro / the puppet theater in Luxembourg garden / trees in the garden
middle: beautiful day in Luxembourg garden / people enjoying the sun at Place des Vosges / at a cathedral
bottom: last one from Luxembourg garden / inside the Louvre / in Tuileries garden

The end of March is definitely a perfect time to visit Paris.  It wasn't too busy, the weather was perfect, and everything was really beautiful. My mom had rented an aparthotel in La Defense so we got to cook breakfast and dinner.  I also picked up some random desserts from a patisserie near Saint Germain and they were obviously delicious.  It might be one of the best things about visiting France: eating baguettes and going to patisseries and all the other delicious food.