Off To A Blazing Start!

Priscilla & Natasza on the balcony

It's been a whirlwind of a few days for us here in Paris. We arrived on Wednesday, September 22 and got to our flat at midday where we were met by Natasza, the agent for our flat. Her abundance of energy more than compensated for our jet-lagged persons. She gave us the rundown on our flat and the area around us. I suppose I should now give you the overview of our flat.

The flat at 2 rue Charles Baudelaire is large by Parisian standards. We have two bedrooms, a living room and dining room, an excellent kitchen, and one bathroom. The view out our balcony is beautiful. We get wonderful late day light on that side of our flat. The street directly in front of our building is pedestrian only, so this flat is nice and quiet.

Our building is right around the corner from our favorite market in Paris, the Aligre Market. There are food stalls in the covered market and then every day there is a street market that runs for a few blocks. Our friend, Claudia Cabri, has a food stall in the covered market. That's where we first met her two years ago. We enjoyed having a little catch up with Claudia. I picked up her vegetarian lasagna and a couple pieces of polenta cake for our first dinner in Paris. It was all delicious! Everything at the market is incredibly fresh. For our first breakfast, I stopped at a favorite bakery, Blé Sucré, for pain chocolat and a baguette, and then I picked up some fresh melon, mango, and strawberries at the street market.

In the afternoon we met our friends Ellen and Jean-Pierre at the Galerie Miranda, a gallery specializing in photography. A friend of theirs, Gerard Dalla Santa, had an exhibit of his landscape photographs showing there. I enjoyed his work. As I told him, his photographs from the Burgundy region and Pennsylvania were honest.

After enjoying a coffee with Ellen and Jean-Pierre, we headed back to our flat to get ready for our evening plans, the Jamie Cullum concert at the Salle Playel. Priscilla's eagle eye allowed us to score a pair of tickets to this sold-out concert. Jamie is one of our favorite performers. He is a pianist and singer whose work is a bit hard to categorize, but if forced to I'd say his work is a fusion between jazz and rock. Jamie's Paris dates are his first concerts since before COVID hit. We made it to the concert hall area early enough to grab a delicious light dinner at Bencco, an Italian deli. The concert was outstanding. I'm sure it will go down as one of the highlights of our time here.

Today is a lazier day for us, after getting in several miles of walking yesterday and taking the Metro a number of times. Since we arrived on Wednesday, I've been out a few times in our neighborhood with my camera. I'll close out this post with a slideshow of photos from our neighborhood.