After a visit nine years ago, I returned to the Hôtel de Fleurie for a visit this January.  It was like I never left.   This small, three-star hotel is located on the left bank.   There are a lot of reasons I like the Fleurie, many of them sentimental.  Please take a look at my review to see if this Parisian boutique hotel might be for you.

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We just completed a wonderful week-long trip to Paris.   Including myself, there were 17 of us (10 from California, two from Virginia, and the rest of us from New York).    I think the thing I was most satisfied with is that our travelers not only “toured” Paris but they “discovered” her.   Of course we had planned itineraries of things to do and places to see.   But our travelers went further than that.   They interacted directly with the Parisians.  They did things not on the “script”.   For instance, they discovered a special museum in the Sorbonne that I have never seen described in any tour books and met with the curator.   Others found out about a chorale rehearsal in the Cluny and attended that.   Some of us went to a reception at Église St. Sulpice.   Of course everyone loved the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Versailles, and all of the “standards”.  But I think in the long term, it will be those impromptu discoveries that they made that will stand out in their minds the most.

Read more of my blog.   I will tell you more about our good experiences and what we could have improved upon regarding our winter trip to Paris.

Today is “get-away” day.  A dozen of us are flying back to California, Virginia, and New York.   Two are staying behind for another night in the City of Light.   Two more will go back to California in a week.

I am writing this blog on American Airlines flight 121 on its way to New York’s JFK airport.   We lifted off on time and flew over the city of Paris at precisely 6 p.m.   The fellow sitting in the seat next to me said  to me, “look over there, right past the wing”.    It was the Eiffel Tower in its glittering light show.  What a sight from 7,500 feet.   I hope my friends on the ground were watching from Pont Neuf.

I’m writing this on a rainy Paris night.  I am looking out my window at the Eiffel Tower.  Her beacon is above the clouds and the rest of her is glittering in the night.   This trip has been more than about the museums that we have seen, the restaurants we have dined in, or the monuments we have visited.  What is more important about this trip is the friendships we have made and the enduring memories we will have about Paris.

The weather has reverted back to its old damp, cold self.   Yesterday the sunshine woke me in my bedroom at about 7:30 a.m.   At 8 a.m. it is still dark as night outside as the cloud cover obscured the sun and my view of the Eiffel Tower.    After a strudel at the Patissserie Viennoise with my final cup of hot chocolate (they are closed on the weekends), I meet my Energizer Bunnies of a travel group who are ready to go for another day in Paris.   One half of the group decides to make the trek to the Marais.   I accompany the  others over to the Pantheon, Eglise St. Etienne du Mont and rue Mouffetard.  

This is a day where I have my worst meal ever in Paris and then one of my best ever.