“What is Paris like?”

recent question from a friend upon learning we have spent a week in Paris.

First impression: Paris has changed for the better since I was here last in the summer of 2004. Protected bike lanes line the major streets, and the streets now have far more bikes than cars. The bikes make no sound, so watch where you step. Lots of electric bikes are available for rent. The Metro, never more than a 10 minute walk from anywhere, is still fast, clean, quiet, and comes every 4 or 5 minutes. I cannot fathom why Miami’s Metro service is so noisy – it doesn’t have to be that way.

My cousin Judy still has her atelier where she makes baroque stringed instruments. Her website is http://judithkraft.net – you’ll get a warning that the site is not secure because the web protocol is not https, but it is safe to visit.

Our Home Exchange apartment in the 7th arrondissement is on a narrow, one lane street, just wide enough to squeeze one car down it without knocking down the sidewalk dining. People walk in the street, including parents with strollers, so no drivers go fast.

Our apartment itself is curious – narrow and vertical, spread over 4 levels. I manage to strike my head on the ceiling of the staircase entrances, while Gray has no problem. Otherwise it’s comfortable. It has a courtyard where I water the plants. A mouse ventured into the apartment, saw us and left promptly, not to be seen again.

Nextdoor on one side is an excellent Vietnamese restaurant where the waitress wears a black tee-shirt that reads “Purdue Mom”, while nextdoor on the other side is a preschool “Petite Académie. The sign is particularly sweet.

Up the street is the Troll Café where people hang out on the street drinking beer but leave no trash. Down the street is a covered market with excellent cheeses and meats at superb prices. Next to the covered market is an open air market. Peaches are ripe and aromatic. We ate a lot of peaches.

The neighborhood compost container, airtight, is around the corner.  A short walk on the main street nearby takes us to a cash machine, a supermarket, pharmacy, a gluten-free bakery, and a park.

At the lunch hour, the neighborhood park fills with groups of tweens from the nearby school, but you may not bring your rhinodoodle.

Every evening, dining out is a new delightful experience. Good wine is inexpensive, so I have to be careful.

One night we joined my cousin and her husband for a concert on a barge in a wide canal. An Armenian jazz pianist, Lucy Kahnyan, played her own compositions, accompanied by a fabulous percussionist whose name I cannot relocate (he was really good).

We visited a new neighborhood of high-rises in the 17th arrondissement, each different and interesting, adorned with terrace gardens, green walls, solar panels, and paintings. At the ground level is an extensive park of trees, small playing fields, walking paths, cleverly designed playgrounds, a skateboard park, benches of course, and an extensive array of shallow ponds comprising an artificial wetland where we saw assorted waterbirds and carp.

Children were everywhere, having fun with balls, climbing the innovative play equipment, watching the fish, and zooming around the kid-scale skateboard ramps and half-pipes on small scooters. As it came on 6 pm, children thinned out, replaced by joggers, home from work.

Our last day we visited the National Picasso Museum, which houses Picasso’s private collection – his works that he wouldn’t or couldn’t sell and his own collection of works by Matisse and others.

Now we have relocated to Lagrasse, a tiny medieval town in the south of France, staying with friends, former FIU colleagues, in their beautiful apartment with fortified stone walls four feet thick.