Aurel's laurels

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All photographs are out of order. The last three are not ours.

When we arrived in Paris we got a lift from the airport in a kind of shared taxi. As two other couples had to be dropped off before us, we got a tour of Paris. The driver recommended that we go up this hideous tower at Montparnasse and indeed the views were much better than those from the Eiffel tower, which is somewhat off to the side of central Paris. Also the view of the Eiffel tower itself was great and, as we watched it at sunset, it suddenly lit up.

Earlier we had ridden on a boat, which went downstream to the islands, turned around, came back on the other side of the islands, passed the Eiffel tower and turned around again to drop us off. A kind woman I barely know, whom I had met at Starbucks had lent me her camera and I was shooting everything in sight. Unfortunately I had not read the instructions and every time I pressed the button I was only focusing. I ended up with only six photographs when I had inadvertently pressed the button all the way down.

We visited our friends in Marseilles and then went to my niece's wedding. We returned to Paris for one night before our flight home. We went to the Orsay Museum and exhausted ourselves on the impressionists. A very worthwhile museum and not expensive. The paintings were just there and you could walk right up to them and look at every brushstroke. As usual, the Cezannes made me cry. Also, surprisingly, a Renoir whom I usually find too chocolate boxy, but those young people dancing and chatting, all, long since, old and dead moved me like photos of the civil war.

In the evening we wandered through the streets near our hotel, very aware that one day later we would be back in Toronto, a very different place. Almost any Paris street is interesting.