Books and Sagging Roofs

1 April 2008

Today is the first day of April and our Cartes d'Orange are good for the next month. We certainly got our value out of them today using them to go to the Alliance Francais and then back and later on the busses. All in all we had six trips which would normally have cost 1 euro 50 each so the Cartes look as if they will be very good value!

We decided to go and take a look at the Alliance Francais just in case seeing it would have the effect of changing Virginia's mind. We both found the place rather cold and unwelcoming which probably confirmed Virginia's sense that it was not for her. This trip she prefers to improve her spoken French and French culture in cafes, bars and brasseries around the city. After spending a short time at the Alliance we made our way to the San Francisco Book Company which is an English language book store specializing in paperbacks. It is small, but densely packed with books and we found a couple of things that we thought we might enjoy.

The walk to the bookshop takes one past the Luxembourg Gardens which are just coming into spring. They are utterly magnificent, and just across the street from the gardens we saw one of those wonderful little streets that are so characteristic of what Paris must have been like in the middle years of the nineteenth century.

Today we had lunch at a rather nice brasserie and were amazed at the size of the meals people have in the middle of the day. Three courses and wine seem to be the norm. For those who don't know it, the mid-day meal and the evening meal in restaurants are often exactly the same but significantly cheaper at lunch time. We, poor travellers from and ancient land, had lighter meals.

Just outside the brasserie on an island in the middle of the street was an open air sweet shop. Virgina felt right at home having been brought up in a sweet shop.

We came back via Abbesses which is a very pretty area and has some interesting architecture. One of our favourite buildings looks as if someone sat on the roof as it sags, rather dramatically, in the middle.

The rest of the day was pretty much taken up with household chores. Even in romantic Paris, the City of Lights, one still has to do one's washing and ironing!