Monet

I finally made it to the Monet Exhibit at the Grand Palais. It has been the biggest art event of the year and tickets have been sold out since the beginning of the show. If you don't have advance reservations, you can still get in if you are willing to stand in line for two to four hours.

What a treat when my friend Sophie invited me to join her for a visit using her press credentials! We went straight to the head of the line.

The exhibit is a major retrospective of Monet's work over 60 years of a very prolific career. It includes many of his most famous paintings along with others seldom seen in Paris.

Here are a few well known images on display:








To take a complete virtual tour, you can go here.

More snow in Paris

Wow, it is really snowing today! I decided to head over to Luxembourg garden to take a few photos. It was worth getting cold and wet. This is very unusual for Paris.


It didn't stop this jogger, though.


And of course the kids love to have snowball fights.

Holiday sparkles

I signed up for a photography workshop to practice capturing holiday decorations. Good! I can learn some new tips and techniques for taking pictures at night.

However, I felt out of my league when I showed up with my simple point-and-shoot while others were experimenting with shutter speeds, color settings, and focus.


First assignment - the giant Christmas tree inside the Galeries Lafayette.


Then, outdoors to check out the store windows. Little kids liked the toys in the Galeries Lafayette windows.


While the windows of the Printemps appealed to a more mature audience.



I have no cool special effects to show off - but I'm still happy with my pocket-sized Sony camera.

Lucca reunion

My Lucca traveling companions will be having a reunion this weekend - getting together in Boulder on Sunday evening to eat, drink, look at photos and reminisce about our trip to Lucca in September. I'm sorry to miss the party.

One of our memorable stops near Lucca was to visit Terre del Sillabo, a vineyard owned by Carla and Giampi Moretti. Carla conducted our tour, explaining how the valley soil and microclimate is particularly suited for growing sauvignon blanc. The day we arrived, she and her husband and a handful of workers were going through the vines one by one, trimming and removing individual grapes that had been damaged by too much rain.


The hills above the house are better suited for chardonnay grapes which are much hardier and easier to grow.


Their production is small, only about 1,500 cases per year.


I have one bottle left from this visit. Maybe I'll open it this evening and toast to my wonderful traveling companions back in Boulder.

Chez Francis

I go to the Cabane à Huitres at least once a week. It's almost like home to me. My platter of oysters always contains a couple of extras and I never pay for more than one glass of wine. No, there's no romance going on. Francis and his wife Régine have been happily married for 45 years.

Where else can you drop in for lunch or dinner at a friend's place four days a week? Lunch or dinner, I always end up chatting with my fellow diners and I always come home happy.

Morning snow

Just a light dusting of snow here in Paris this morning, but a great day to visit the Andre Citroen park near my apartment.

Snow in Paris

I went to the Jeu de Paume this afternoon to check out the Kertész photography exhibit. So many opportunities here in Paris to learn from the masters! However, I didn't see the entire exhibit. It's snowing today and as dusk arrived I had to rush outside to take advantage of the snow, the early evening light, and the big ferris wheel that's been set up in the Place de la Concorde. Here are a few photos from just a short while ago . . .



Tuileries garden and Louvre in the background - seen from the ferris wheel:


Eiffel tower seen from Concorde:


Champs Elysees


And finally . . my bus goes right past the Eiffel Tower. Those aren't stars in the sky, they're snowflakes captured in the camera flash.