Here’s the opportunity for you just to meander about the city with us. In the sun and rain, early or late, happy or … happy.

Yes, Paris has a whole lot of ordinary suburbs like all urban areas…but, you know, in the center of Parisian history, where we visitors hang out, it is so not ordinary. It is beautiful, and like no other city…and I have been to most of the world’s great cities, all spectacular in one way or the other. In my most humble of opinions though, nothing quite matches Paris…and you know I love practically every place, rather indiscriminately it’s true, but not like this city.

This outpouring of love is probably getting a bit nauseating, so let me just get on with pictures and the random note or two.

I searched some months before the trip to see what would be happening in Paris the latter part of September, and we were extremely lucky. At least that’s how I felt about getting to immerse ourselves in what is possibly my favorite visual arts genre—surrealism, in that amazing site of the world’s contemporary arts, the Centre Pompidou.

We had the ever-fascinating Seine riverfront to wander along almost every day.

There was a fashion week promotion—grand banners covering historic buildings here or there. We braved the semi-elegance of the Galeries Lafayette.

Also, Teresa found a Parisian thrift shop, called Fripéries in France.

And I walked up a long stairway in the rain.