Bonne Nuit Chopin

Now that we are “metro pros”, we headed out to find the famous Marche aux Puces (Flea Market). There are two flea markets – the first one is rows of soccer jerseys and cheap crap – very disappointing. But I remember seeing advice to hurry through the first bit, so we did that and found the real one. Full of amazing antiques (and not so antiques) of every sort and description. We didn’t buy anything, but one of us had a wonderful couple of hours browsing.

Afterwards, we returned to our little covered mall and had the most fabulous quiche for lunch. We are a little bit obsessed with our little mall – you feel like you are outside on the sidewalk, when you are actually inside. Of course, there are plenty of outside seating areas in Paris – virtually every restaurant has one teaming with morning coffee drinkers and late afternoon happy hour drinkers – but they are still the “smoking section”. There are still a lot of smokers/vapers in Paris. And in Italy, they are still using their phones while driving. These observations remind us that we really have come quite a way in these areas. Nothing like walking through a poof of “gitane” smoke to remind you that it’s nice not to smell smoke pretty much anywhere in Vancouver these days.

Since we were fasting today (!), we decided to have the most decadent desserts we have ever had.

After the required nap (for obvious reasons), we headed to the Trocadero side of the Eiffel Tower. Partly to get a new perspective an partly to see the lights come on at 8:00. Here are the different views of this impressive structure:

Like a Lay’s potato chip – I can’t pick just one.

We also saw four more brides today (and have I mentioned that throughout our trip we have seen a lot of covid babies? We are also here during Fashion Week apparently, as there have been lineups to two events at the venue in our little mall. Not to mention that apparently tonight is Nuit Blanche – with events, exhibitions and concerts happening all over the city between 8pm and 2 am. Which would probably explain the heavy police presence we have seen everywhere today.

But have no fear dear readers . . . we are safe and snug in our little bordello room at the hotel Chopin. We’re getting to old for all this excitement. Tomorrow is the last day of our trip and other than me getting an hour or so alone to shop, we have nothing that we have to do. Which suits us both just fine.

Bonne nuit tout le monde . . .