Ladee's Travels

  A Paris View I’ll Have to Remember Years ago, on an earlier trip to Paris, I went to the top of the Montparnasse Tower . I remember looking out over the city from high above the streets and taking some delightful photographs of Paris stretching toward the horizon. There is something wonderful about seeing Paris from that perspective. From the top of Montparnasse, the city becomes a tapestry of rooftops, boulevards, monuments, and tiny pockets of green. And, of course, one of the great advantages of the view from Montparnasse Tower is that the Eiffel Tower is actually in your photographs rather than underneath you. So when I returned to Paris this year, I naturally thought, I should go back. I was already in the Montparnasse neighborhood and decided to check the observation deck’s opening hours before making my plans. I am so glad I checked. Instead of finding today’s hours, I discovered some disappointing news. The Montparnasse Observation Deck Is Closed The observation ...

  My Paris Home Away From Home After the long flight, the drive in from Charles de Gaulle, and my first glimpses of Paris through the car window, there was one destination that suddenly became more important than all the others: My hotel room. There would be plenty of time for Paris. First, I needed to find Room 306. And the very friendly front desk staff could allow me to check in early! First, a little French elevator lesson The elevator provided one of those tiny reminders that I really was in another country. In France, the ground floor is 0 , not 1. The next floor up is 1, and so on. There is even a -1 below ground level. It is a small difference, but travel is filled with these little moments when something completely ordinary suddenly requires a second look. And then it was down the quiet, rather dramatically dark hallway in search of 306 . Room 306 — found! There is something wonderfully satisfying about finally seeing your hotel-room number after a day of traveli...

  And Then, Suddenly, It Was Paris The drive from Charles de Gaulle Airport had already given me quite an introduction. We had passed harvested fields that could have been Pennsylvania, tangled roadside vegetation, graffiti-covered walls, highways, office towers and construction cranes. It was interesting—but it wasn’t yet the Paris most of us carry around in our imaginations. Then, almost imperceptibly, things began to change. The highway disappeared. The buildings moved closer together. The streets narrowed. People appeared on the sidewalks. And suddenly I thought: Ah. There you are, Paris. The transition begins with trees My first glimpse wasn’t a monument at all. It was green. A substantial iron fence ran alongside the street, and behind it was a surprisingly dense wall of mature trees. In front were bicycle racks, a rental bike and one of those wonderfully ordinary Paris streetlights. It was a quiet transition from the sprawling highway landscape we’d just left beh...