Paris is a city for walking. The central part, with all of the wonderful sights is easy to walk around, but if you confine yourself to it, you miss many of the interesting streets and parks that are to be found all over this magical city. Today we took the Metro to Parc Monceau, an exquisite late-18th century part of the smart Second Empire district full of opulent mansions in which the truly wealthy live.
We are not sure if the French are really fitness fanatics, but if the number of joggers in the parks is any indication, they are! There must be particular paths they follow because in Parc Monceau, they all seemed to be going in one direction down certain paths - well almost all; out of the hundreds we saw, we only had one running in the opposite direction. Either a true individualist or a very confused runner.
Parisians are heavy smokers. It doesn't matter where you go or what you are doing, smoke is bound to abound. It is particularly annoying when you are sitting down to a meal whether in a bistro or a restaurant and all around you people are lighting up. Still, I guess it goes with the territory and one has to grin and bear it. I do wonder about comparative statistics on the amount of smoking and the levels of lung cancer.
We were also curious as to whether or not there was some sort of programme where the eyes of children are checked when they start school. There seem to be more youngsters in glasses here than in Australia, the UK or the USA. If such checks do exist, it seems like a very good idea.
After a few days of gloriously mild weather with the trees in bloom and the flowers looking lovely, we have just had a thunderstorm with a rather substantial drop in temperature.
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