Paris

 We were strolling along the street in the fifth arrondissement when we saw a building that said ...

the poet Verlaine died here and Earnest Hemmingway lived here

I was quite surprised and delighted by this discovery, because one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs ... You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go ... contains these lines:

situations have ended sad, relationships have all been bad, mine have been like Verlaine and Rimbaud's ... 

We went shopping in Galeries Lafayette. Carolynn and Cliona went into one of the stores and Hedley and I went into the basement of another.

If the love of food is a religion, then this was the Heaven that awaits all good gourmands.

Later, hungry, we went looking for a good but inexpensive restaurant and discovered Casa Cosa.

Compared with les grandes brasseries, it was an unprepossessing eatery, but we entered on a hunch.

It was a good hunch.

The place was warm., the staff inviting and the food excellent.

It was a great find and one we will remember whenever we return to Paris.

Later that night, we joined the throng in the Montmartre version of that Parisian iconic eatery Boullion Chartier.

 

It was heaving ... and we were prescient to get there early.  As we were leaving, a large crowd had spilled onto the street in a long queue.

It'd been more than three years since our last trip to Paris.

I certainly hope it won't be three years before our next one.