I’ve been reading, watching, drinking, and puzzling my way through the city for Paris in July and for my book a day challenge. Let’s see where I’ve been since Sunday…
We watched the 2011 movie Hugo and I tried some Chateau de Segries 2019 Cotes-du-Rhone from France for Paris in July. We hadn’t seen the movie or read the book about the orphan boy who could fix things and lived at a train station. The movie was good as was the full-bodied wine. I didn’t have a full second glass since it’s 14.5% alcohol. My body doesn’t handle red wine as well as it used to! It only took a few days to empty the bottle 🙂
I’ve also included a few pics taken from where we stayed our last night in Paris. Such beautiful views.
While the boys played in the river I took Lonely Planet Kids Paris City Trails for a northeast Ohio nature walk. I loved this book! It’s 100 pages of beautifully laid out facts with stories and photos. A few quick, fun facts from the different spreads shown.
“No ladders and buckets are needed to clean all the pyramid windows (the Louvre)- every three weeks the job is done by a remote-controlled robot.”
“Sixty-six feet below ground, in the limestone tunnels that sprawl beneath Paris, lie the skeletons of 6-7 million Parisians. The public can explore 1.43 miles of the tunnels, but that’s just a fraction of the 186 miles that actually exist.”
“In 2010, a Parisian park introduced chilled sparkling water to its drinking fountains to persuade Parisians that tap water was just as good as the stuff in plastic bottles.”
“$16 is the current fine for jumping into the Seine.” (This is shown with all of the Clevelanders in the Chagrin River)
“120. The number of bicorne hats Napoleon used during his military career.”
“The French have been eating frog legs since the 10th century. Today the French frogs are protected, so the frogs in Paris plates are often shipped in, live, from Asia.”
I finished up my morning reading book for the last month, Peace is Every Breath by, my favorite, Thich Nhat Hanh. This isn’t my favorite of his, but it was okay. This could also count for this month’s challenge because he wrote it while living at his Plum Village retreat in France, but we also read..,
Madame Eiffel: The Love Story of the Eiffel Tower. I adored the illustrations, all back and white with highlights of pink. The story was okay, but after realizing it had no basis in reality I was confused 🤨 Don’t let your kids read it and think it’s true like I did.
And if you’re still reading, the photos are from outside Pompidou Center. We met our friends there because it was close to our last hotel. There was some crazy stuff in there. We were there a few hours before moving on, but I still remember vividly some of the installations, they were that bold and, some, disturbing.
I wanted to play Azul last night but Gage wanted to work on the Paris puzzle as a family. Last time I showed you the Eiffel Tower and now you get a peek at another “piece” of the puzzle 😄.
I also listened to this story collection by Jojo Moyes while working on the puzzle and running a few errands. I loved the longer first story, a novella really at 151 pages. It’s about two people finding each other at the wrong time. But can there really be a wrong time for true love? Nell falls in love with Paris and Fabian and goes back to England after their weekend romance, but is that the beginning or the end? I’m not telling.
The rest of the stories were entertaining, but brief, and mostly forgettable. Still, I liked the book as a whole even though I’m not a short story fan.
Paris fun to be continued…
Stacy's Books 
Your dedication to a month of Paris activities and reading is remarkable! You have thought of so many ways to find Paris where you live.
best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
I have so many ideas and so little time to implement them 🙂
How fun! I’m not a fan of short stories, either, but I may give the Moyes book a try. That looks like a fun puzzle! I haven’t worked on one for a few months, but I typically don’t during the busy summer months.
I think the Moyes book is worth it, even if only for that first, longer story.
I’m so envious how disciplined you are when you decide to do something. (I on the other hand have been a quitter from an early age…beginning with Girl Scouts.)
Ha! We’ll see if I can maintain this same enthusiasm for the whole month. It’s early.
I’m enjoying this meme and the recommendations given for reading. If only I could get to them all.
I know! I keep adding books to my wish list, knowing that I’ll probably not ever get to them, lol.