Summer Vacation: Nevis, Part Two

I'll begin Part Two with our tour of Nevis churches.  Old churches and cemeteries are always fascinating and you can learn so much about the history of an area by visiting them. I've always thought a wonderful photo-essay could be written just on tombstones and the tales they tell. We so enjoyed visiting these three churches and were fortunate to be able to go inside two that are intact and still hold services.

The first we saw was St. Thomas Anglican Church and School. It's the island's oldest church and was built in 1643. The gravestones in the old churchyard have so much information on them, are in pretty good condition and it was a learning experience wandering around. The setting of the church is high on a hill with a wonderful view. The church itself contains stone memorials (set in the floor) to Nevis's early settlers. We especially liked the stations of the cross. The artwork was wonderful and very well preserved. Don't you love the baptismal font? "Suffer Little Children" written on the base.

The second was Cottle Church, built in 1824. It states on a placard in front: "The first church in the Caribbean built for all people, regardless of colour, to worship together."

The last church we visited was St. James Anglican Church, built in 1750. A placard here states: "This is one of only three churches in the Caribbean to have a black crucifix." You can see a photo of it below. There was an exquisitely carved lectern in the shape of an eagle. I took one close up of the top and you can see it in the distance in another photo.
And that's our wonderful driver, Dale, in the last photo. He was an amazing font of knowledge about the island, its history and even its flora and fauna. We spent an entire day with him touring the island.

Now that we've toured the churches, I hope you're feeling hungry, 'cause I'm going to move on to restaurants and I'll start with the hotel,  Four Seasons. They had several restaurants. 

Coral Grill was their most elegant (and expensive) restaurant, featuring fresh seafood and exquisite cuts of meat. We had relaxing dinners there a couple times.

Mango, a less formal restaurant, sits on a jut of land that overlooks the ocean towards St. Kitts. Located right on the beach, it's a charming and rather romantic place to dine at night.

There is an Italian restaurant, Neve, also open only at night. We didn't eat there, but this is where breakfast is served in the morning (And where the sous chef gave me their recipe for coconut yogurt... I posted it a while back. Recently, they were nice enough to email me the Caribbean Muesli recipe which I will post soon.) and when there was bad weather, the beach restaurant would close and a bountiful buffet lunch was served at Neve.

 The final photo was the Cabana restaurant near the beach. Very casual. We either had lunch there or ordered lunch down on the beach under our umbrella.

We most often chose to eat away from the hotel because the island's restaurants are varied and fun to visit.
Let me start with two on Pinney's Beach, both a short walk down the beach from the hotel.....Sunshine's and Double Deuce. Both funky. We went to Sunshine's years ago when it was in a different location. It really swings at night. Great bbq!

Double Deuce is the other on the beach and has the best burgers you'll ever taste. I know, it looks pretty beat up from the beach, but the food is excellent.

And two of our dinner favorites. First, Bananas.
Bananas was lovingly built by owner Gillian Suiter-Lowe in the style of the old Caribbean Chattel houses. (She lives in the back.) Walaba shingles, wooden shutters, Island stone floors and a wrap around rustic galvanized porch, together with chandeliers and old iron day beds lend a “shabby Chic” atmosphere to the restaurant. Great fun, Gillian is a super friendly owner and the food was excellent.

The second, Gallipot. Fab seafood here!

Another wonderful restaurant, a touch more elegant, was Golden Rock Plantation Inn. We had been there years ago and we were astounded at the refit.  Pam Barry's great-great-great-grandfather built this estate in the early years of the 19th century; Pam and co-owners artist Brice Marden and his wife redid it completely. Pam is an avid environmentalist so there are nature trails throughout the mountainous 96 acre property. We wandered around and found the property splashed with reds and greens, looking quite like a contemporary art installation which played off the historic elements. A truly beautiful setting, good food and so unusual. Brice Marden happened to be there that night, Tracy knows him so they had a lovely chat. (That's me in the red dress. I match the decor!) I might mention here that most of these restaurants are also hotels or inns, so I added links if you're interested.

One night, Tracy and I went to Montpelier Plantation, set in a sixty-acre estate 750 feet up in the hills of Nevis. We we were fortunate to get reservations in the sugar mill;  I enjoyed this dinner the most, the setting was unusual and charming and the food excellent and well presented, but Tracy is not much of a meat eater and did not enjoy the main course of filet of beef. It was a set menu the evening we were there.

Another old favorite we remembered from our last trip was The Hermitage. It is one of the oldest Nevis Hotels in operation. The great house was built around 1700 from the rare Nevis hardwood Lignum Vitae. The house has always been in use, as a hotel, as an artist studio, as the head quarters for the Minister of Agriculture, as a rich planter’s home, and as a poor planter’s home. I didn't get a photo of the dining room, which was out on the screened-in patio, but you can see the period furnishings, like antique china and oriental rugs, that decorate the main house. Food was excellent here as well.

One we missed this summer was Nisbet Plantation Beach Club. It closes mid August.  A lot of restaurants and hotels in the Caribbean close down mid August and September. So I hope you won't miss it if you go as we remembered it well. It has a lovely history:
This resort is where British Navy Captain Horatio Nelson met Frances “Fanny” Nisbet, niece of the President of Nevis and widow of Dr. Nisbet, owner of Nisbet Plantation. Nelson and Fanny quickly fell in love and were married on March 11, 1787 at Fig Tree Church on Nevis. A key stone found in the ruined windmill bears the family initials and the date 1778. It was first a sugar plantation and later a coconut plantation.
In 1950 Mary Pomeroy bought the plantation and eventually made it into a resort. Nisbet Plantation and Golden Rock became the first Nevis hotels. Ownership has changed several times and it is now owned by David Dodwell. The photo below is of their dining room: The Great Room.

Last, but certainly not least is Miss June's.
Miss June is an institution on Nevis AND an experience. She has an outlandish collection of hats....all over her bedroom. And when I pulled out my fan (it was really a hot rainy night and restaurants are not air conditioned on this island), Miss June grabbed my arm and led me over to a drawer which, when she opened it, contained 50 fans at least. An amazing assortment.
Dinner at Miss June's is rather like a house party. Guests assemble around 7:30 p.m. for cocktails, and dine at 8:30 p.m. at a formal table set with crystal and fine linen.  Drinks are in the living room, appetizers served at the table (whatever it was, it was nearly inedible) and then a buffet is set up along a wall. Miss June proceeds to describe every single dish and believe me, it takes a while. You name it, it was there.  Caribbean, Asian, and European  dishes (even mac and cheese) all accompanied by wine followed by coffee, liqueurs, port and brandy and of course, a dessert...as I recall, strawberry ice cream. 
 Years ago, with our British friends, we giggled our way through the evening. The guests at Miss June's make or break the experience. This particular night, the guests were not fun nor very interesting. Unfortunately. Because if you're not laughing, you're thinking about the food, which is not fabulous. You have to go with a sense of humor, that's certain. That's Miss June in the pink and blue check dress and my daughter behind her in white. I wish my photos of the line-up of food had turned out better because it was something to behold.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed wading through this lengthy tour of Nevis. We had lots of fun. And I regret not posting photos of food we loved, but every single food photo I took was terrible.  :(
Stay tuned, because the very next post will be the Four Seasons recipe for Caribbean Muesli!

Summer Vacation: Nevis, Part One

This vacation post is a long one, so I'm going to divide it into two parts. The first part today is  about the island and our hotel. The second post will be about the churches and restaurants.

We flew from Miami to St. Kitts and then took a 45 minute ferry ride to Nevis. Let's start with the pronunciation of the island. It ought to be Nevis, the "e" sounding like the e in never. But everyone, islanders included, call it Neevis, with a long e.

Nevis is a volcanic island in the Caribbean, located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago. It's seven miles long and 5 miles wide with a population of 11,000 and the capital is Charleston. 
Nevis was first sighted by Columbus in 1493; an island settled for more than two thousand years by Amerindian people. The current name Nevis was derived from a Spanish name meaning "our lady of the snows", probably referring to the white clouds that usually cover the top of Nevis Peak.

The island of Nevis is divided into five administrative subdivisions called parishes; each parish is shaped like a pie slice. The first part of the name is the name of the patron saint of the parish church, and the second part of the name is the traditional common name of the parish.The five parishes of Nevis are:

Saint George Gingerland
Saint James Windward
Saint John Figtree
Saint Paul Charlestown
Saint Thomas Lowland

Nevis retains old world charm with 18th and 19th century stone buildings and refurbished plantations and great houses scattered about the island. The island is also known by the sobriquet "Queen of the Caribees", which it earned in the 18th century, when its sugar plantations created much wealth for the British. We had dinner one night in an old sugar mill on Montpelier Plantation, which you'll read about in Part Two.

 Nevis is also of particular historical significance to Americans because it was the birthplace and early childhood home of Alexander Hamilton.

For the British, Nevis is the place where Horatio Nelson was stationed as a young sea captain, and is where he met and married a Nevisian, Frances Nisbet, the young widow of a plantation-owner.

It may be a small island, but one thing you'll never be is bored. There's so much to do: hiking (you can even climb Mt. Nevis), sailing, golf, tennis, a lovely botanical garden, scuba diving and of course, beaches. There are any number of beaches, but the longest is Pinney's Beach, where The Four Seasons is located. This resort also has three lovely pools (one for adults only), several restaurants (we'll discuss these in Part Two), a golf course, tennis courts, spa and workout room; in other words, everything anyone could possibly want. We had a room overlooking the ocean. (That's my daughter in the first photo with Mt. Nevis in the background....she had her hair braided!...and my youngest son with my daughter in the final photo.)

The island is awash with green vervet monkeys. It's said they number 4 times the population. While they didn't seem to encroach on the space around rooms, beach and hotel grounds (how that was avoided here I can't imagine as on other islands in the area they actually come down to the beach and steal food and drinks away!), there were lots of them on the golf course. One afternoon, we took a tour and look what we found (some of them had been cavorting around on the golf course greens but took to the trees when we came along).

They may seem cute, but they are pests. They eat everything so it's almost impossible for anyone on the island to keep fruit or vegetable gardens, which is a shame in a climate like this. The monkeys' preferred trees are mango and another called a genip tree. It bears an interesting fruit; I'd never heard of it before. We broke off a branch and tried the fruit. It's quite small and when you bite into it, you find a large round seed covered with a slightly furry fruit layer. There's nothing substantial about the fruit and all you can do with it is suck on the seed. It's sweet and no wonder the monkeys like it. I did too!

A little about flowers: one of the most common was Coralita, a twining vine found growing everywhere. It's really considered a weed, but the pink or white flowers are very numerous and make a conspicuous bed of color. Look how it's taken over this old house! If you look closely and you can see the pink flowers. (There's a close-up of Coralita in the slideshow on the Botanical Garden below.)

Another interesting tree is the cherry tree....and it's not what you think. This particular cherry tree yields a sticky fruit that was/can be used as a homemade glue. There's a photo of that tree in the slideshow too. 

The flamboyant is the national tree of Nevis, with long, brown seed pods  that are shaken like castanets to make music. In Florida we call it a Royal Poinciana. The red blooms are something to behold and we are fortunate to see them blooming everywhere in the summer.
 

And before I forget, let me tell you about the goats and sheep. They wander about freely in fields around the island. Lots of them. The sheep don't have the heavy wool coats we are accustomed to seeing; we were told it was because of the year-round warm weather. You can barely tell the difference between them. How? Goats: tails up. Sheep: tails down.  :)

One afternoon we visited the Botanical Garden. It was lovely, very well kept and had one of the nicest gift shops on the island.

Did I mention Tracy and I had been here before? In 1996. Oddly enough, one of the things we remembered best was a trip to the race track. Yes....they have a race track. It used to be open on holidays only, not terribly well organized and when we went years ago, one of the horses dumped his jockey, took off across the field next to the track and wasn't found until the next day.  :) We had gone with a British couple we had made friends with and spent an afternoon of fun and laughter. I'm sure we lost every cent we bet too. Not too many tourists know about the races. Anyway, things are much more organized now, a serious business....fun, but not nearly as much fun.  The track has covered bleachers now and they actually smooth the track out in between races. The same jockeys are used race after race, so there's quite a wait in between races. All the same, a trip to the race track is not to be missed if you're fortunate enough to visit Nevis when the horses are running. Food and drinks are for sale (as well as betting) and everyone brings their family and makes an afternoon of it. As you can see below, many of the local women sport Kentucky Derby-type hats!

Our driver, Dale, showed us a drag track and said drag racing was quite a popular sport here and then a cricket field, which stood practically in the center of Charleston city. Needless to say, cricket is a big sport on Nevis. Unfortunately, we didn't see a match, even if I could understand the rules, which always have left me in total confusion!


Stay tuned for Part Two......

The End of Our French Polynesian Adventure: Taha'a

No...this isn't where we've just been, but it's the last post on French P0lynesia. The Nevis post will be coming soon.

Our final island, Taha'a (pronounced Ta–ha-ah), was recommended by the travel agent. We shouldn't have listened. It was lovely and so was the resort, but definitely a mistake for a mom and daughter to have spent so much time there. I'm glad we saw it, but it was another honeymoon resort and on this island, we ran into some American-hating British. Quite overt they were about it too. We also weren't terribly happy with the service...a superior attitude, which, at these prices, was quite a mistake. 

Do I sound like I'm always finding fault? Well, here's some good news: for once, the food was wonderful.

Taha'a

There's no airport on Taha'a, so we landed on Raiatea and took a 35 minute boat transfer to our hotel, Le Taha'a Island Resort & Spa, the only Relais and Châteaux destination in French Polynesia.

Raiatea and Taha'a are two islands enclosed in a single barrier reef. Taha'a, slightly smaller and less populated than Raiatea, has a population of around 4500 people. Taha'a is the only island in the Society Islands that can be completely circled by boat inside the protected lagoon. Taha'a's nickname is the "Vanilla Island"- because of it's constant rich aroma of vanilla. In fact, the Island boasts a full 80% of all Tahiti's Vanilla production and is also inundated with pearl farms. Because we had already visited both, we didn't go on any tours here.

On the map below, notice where Le Taha'a Resort is located...on a motu, upper left

Our resort's main selling point is its location on the small, stunning islet of Motu Tautau, off the coast of Taha'a. (Taha'a itself is just 34 square miles.) The resort faces the island of Taha'a on the lagoon side and offers an unsurpassed view of Bora Bora island on the ocean side.
You can walk 100 yards into the water here and still be only knee-deep. The surrounding waters are also advertised as "calm" which, unfortunately, was not the case while we were there.

We adored our overwater suite...it was the most elegantly appointed of any resort we visited. The woodwork was beautiful. I tried to take photos of as much of the paneling as I could. Everything was very nautical, even the entrance to the lobby, which you can see in the slideshow....an outrigger canoe with sail. Another fun little aside: guests in overwater suites can request breakfast brought to the room by canoe. No, we didn't do it, but we saw it being delivered quite often to other bungalows. It was quite a lovely ceremony, actually.
And yes, that's a glass floor for viewing fish at the foot of the bed.



There are three restaurants (important, since there's nowhere else to eat), tennis courts, a lovely swimming pool which I ended up using each day because of the wind. It may seem that there's no reason to leave the resort (which we didn't), but a visit to mainland Taha'a may be your one chance to see what French Polynesia was like before it got so popular; locals say this island is what Bora Bora was 20 years ago.

The resort’s indoor-outdoor main restaurant, Vanille, is named after the fragrant brown beans that are cultivated on Taha’a island. We ate breakfast there every morning and it was a delight. For lunch, we always ate at La Plage--“the beach”-- which served light fare like sandwiches and salads. It was located near the pool area. In addition, Manuia Bar was located beside the pool and they whipped up cocktails, juices, and smoothies.

We had two choices for dinner: Vanille or Ohiri, their upscale (and shockingly expensive) restaurant. The food at Ohiri was fabulous. We had a couple festive buffets at Vanille which were lovely.

The bar had entertainment each night which was most enjoyable. One night, while enjoying a buffet at Vanille, there was a floor show. Part of the show was an extraordinary man covered with tattoos. Face included. Not a square inch of skin left unadorned. (That I could see anyway. :) ) He was quite famous in these islands. I've forgotten his name and I wish I had taken a photo, but it was dark and the tattoos would never have shown up. I remember him climbing an extremely tall  palm tree right to the top directly in front of us, using nothing but his feet and hands.

Tattooing is an important part of the culture of the Polynesian islands. South Pacific Islanders have been decorating their bodies with symbolistic art for many hundreds of years, if not thousands... In fact, it's popularly believed among historians that the first and oldest Tattoos known to man were from the South Pacific Islands, (probably the Marquesas). Originally, tattoos indicated genealogy, rank and wealth as well as strength and ability to bear pain. Twelve year old boys were tattooed to prove they were men, while girls were tattooed to indicate sexual maturity. Tattoo artists had an honored place in society. 
(No, we didn't get one!)
 

As far as the diving was concerned, Tracy said some dives focused on shipwrecks or submerged caverns, but most were coral reef dives. Most of the good snorkeling took place in a short inlet that ran between the lagoon and the ocean. Photos below; these are views from the inlet towards the ocean and Bora Bora and the other towards the lagoon.

What did we remember most about Taha'a? Sadly, the rudeness of the young British honeymooners stands out. But because I hate to end our Polynesian Adventure on a bad note....I'll remember how esthetically beautiful this particular resort was and the excellent quality of the food. If you were going on a honeymoon, this would be the perfect choice.

You've been patient with these many posts...I know how time consuming it can be to read from start to finish. But I did want to share with you. We had such a delightful time at every island, each different in its own way, but Huahine reigns supreme in both our minds!

(For all the previous adventures, check the sidebar.)

Island time, here we come.

Be back the end of the month.....

French Polynesian Adventure III: Moorea

For Part One of this series, check HERE.
For Part Two of this series, check HERE

For once, we didn't need to return to Tahiti to get to Moorea. There was a direct flight from Huahine to Moorea. The trip took less than half an hour.

Moorea

Moorea, the sister island to Tahiti, is perhaps the most popular tourist destination in French Polynesia, after Tahiti. It's pronounced MOE-oh-ray-ah. Occupying an area of about 50 square miles, Moorea is located roughly 10 nautical miles west of Tahiti and you can see each island from the other easily. Many Tahitians have holiday homes on Moorea and hop over in their boats or take the 30-minute ferry. It's home to about 16,000 people. Surrounded by a well developed coral reef and lagoon system, Moorea is a 1.2 million year old volcanic island with freshwater streams that flow year-round.

From above, the shape of the island vaguely resembles a heart, with its two nearly symmetrical bays opening to the north side of the island: Cook's (or Paopao) Bay and Opunohu Bay. Moorea has no urban center, but rather the island is home to a series of small villages, such as Paopao and Haapiti, that line its shores. It's easy to visit them during a circle-island tour, which we did on our own. More about that later.

Compared to the other islands we visited, we found Moorea touristy and crowded. And here, we had our first run-in with cruise ships. The only other island where cruise ships were an annoyance was Bora Bora. 

We found the hotel situation here appalling. Remember, it's been several years since we visited so I can only speak about conditions as we found them then. We stayed at the Sheraton, now a Hilton, and if the recent photos on their site of the inside of the bungalows are indicative of the improvements since we left,  kudos to them. When we were there, the Sheraton/Hilton was the best choice; some friends from Huahine called us when they arrived on Moorea, were unhappy with their hotel and transferred to ours. I don't know if they considered it an improvement or not. 
(To be fair, if you're interested in the hotel as it now is, you might like to check Here. There is a lovely virtual tour if you click on "take a tour of our hotel" and choose virtual tour. I can't speak to the service and food however.)

And we did love our over-water bungalow.

Messy, aren't we? :) It wasn't glamorous (they appear to be very much improved now) but it was comfortable and we did have an underwater viewing panel in the floor. The nicest thing about our room was the location. 

You can see waves in the distance in the photo...that's the outer reef. It was shallow right out to the edge of the reef.  Which made for divine snorkeling. The bungalows, however, did not afford the privacy we found on Huahine. There was a cute bar on the dock, which was fun in the evenings.

So what was our objection? The food and service. One can only hope Hilton has improved the situation. We ate breakfast there each morning, a buffet, thank heaven, which is difficult to screw up too badly!

And lunch outside around the pool (which was a nightmare I hope never to repeat). This photo looks so calm. It wasn't. It was a madhouse, the food took forever and was terrible when it came.

We ate dinner our first night at the hotel; it took over 2 hours before the meal was put in front of us and it was barely edible. We never ate there again. 

The problem was, we went to 3 other restaurants and were disappointed with two of them. There was one small advantage though: we were able to get free transportation, courtesy of the restaurant, something quite common here. Rather a lengthy procedure though as everyone was coming and going at different times and from different locations. 

I remember one restaurant had some entertainment: an American couple with a guitar singing 70's songs. We couldn't believe it. All the way to French Polynesia to hear American 70's music! The other restaurant was some sort of mixture of cuisines. I don't think they knew what they wanted to be and they failed at everything. We didn't even write down the name of either restaurant, knowing full well we would never suggest anyone go there. But both were recommended by all the respected travel guides. The list of fine restaurants was pretty skimpy when we were there. Doubtless dining on Moorea has improved. One hopes.

However, there was one place we went that was great fun. It was called La Bateau Restaurant, located at Linareva near Haapiti. We had read about it in a tour book. It was on the other side of the island so we had to take a cab and pay for it to wait for us. It was a houseboat.  Because it was a real boat, in the water, it gently swayed during our meal. The decor was a hoot. A lot of wood and a multitude of Tahitian decorations. The menu was on a large chalkboard and the food quite good. The evening was a lot of fun; I wish my photos were better. And finally, a poor photo of me on the right....rather blurry too. That's my daughter on the left.

One rather interesting fact: the Polynesian islands don't have a lot of natural wildlife, aside from birds and of course, marine creatures. Why? The answer lies within the origins of the islands themselves. Volcanic in nature, these islands literally sprang up in the middle of nowhere, far from any surrounding land masses. The only mammals on the islands today are those that were brought over by the human navigators who populated these islands.
With its eight mountain ridges, Moorea also boasts some of the most stunning panoramas in the South Pacific. Mount Mouaputa: elevation 2723 ft; Mount Rotui: elevation 2949 ft; Mount Tohiea 3960 ft.: Mount Mouaroa (also called Bali Hai) 2,887 feet.

In the photo above is a view taken from Cook's Bay with Mount Mouaputa (left), Mount Mouaroa, aka Mt Bali Hai (center), Mount Rotui (right).

One day we decided to rent a car because Moorea is an easy island to explore that way. The one coastal road is just 37 mi long and the best part of a day is needed to travel the road and stop off at the villages, bays, little churches, and cafés along the way and to travel into the interior to the Belvedere lookout and the marae (ancient temples). 

We stopped to snorkel at a public beach. You won't find too many tracks of endless white sands on Moorea;  the top resorts have man-made beaches. There are actually only 2 recognized public beaches on Moorea: one is Temae and the other Faimano beach. This photo is Temae beach.

 On our tour, we saw several lovely old churches. Our favorite was the first catholic Church on the island, located near Haapiti. It faces the ocean with Mont Rotui behind it. 

We stopped and had lunch at a very funky and ramshackle restaurant on the beach. We had read about it someplace. The owner was a piece of work. The food was excellent, but even if it wasn't the owner made the trip worth while. Unfortunately, neither of us can remember the name! We aren't much help, are we?
(I'm in all three photos here.)

Then we drove to Belvedere point. It is the island's highest point accessible by car. From the summit (720 feet ) there are commanding views of Opunohu and Cook's bays, Mt. Rotui, surrounding peaks, and the valleys below. On the way we saw pineapple plantations and ancient marae.

Tracy tells me the diving was wonderful, but so far, it's been a pleasure at every island. The snorkeling was actually as good as the diving on this island.
I must confess Moorea was not a favorite with either of us. There was no Polynesian charm and way too many people. We'd skip this one another time. Although there certainly was more to do if you're a tourist.

Next stop? Bora Bora.

Paris: Simply Irresistible

Anita at Castles, Crowns and Cottages is having a party. She's not only tres chic but a hostess extraordinaire. You'll love her parties....they are enchanting and imaginative. You won't want to miss this one, so go on over today and see who's invited and what fun you'll have with just a click or two. We're all going to Paris. And here's Anita's adorable button:

Isn't she talented? Such a happy drawing!

What could I possibly contribute that would be interesting to all of you AND Anita's stellar list of guests? Photos taken on our last trip to Paris, of course. Brought to you by four of us who think Paris is irresistible: daughter Tracy, son David, granddaughter Kensy and me. (Kensy's parents were not with us.)

Amusez-vous!

My granddaughter Kensy on arrival in Paris.

Simply irresistible!

Our funky hotel on the West Bank

Sacre Coeur: Ooo la la....those stairs!

Arc de Triomphe

So irresistible: Tuileries

Now where else would we lunch, my dears?

Musée du Louvre

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

So charming: Jardin des Tuileries

Quel plaisir!

My favorite: Musée d'Orsay

The Obelisk at  Place de la Concorde

The irresistible Seine and Pont Royal 

Hope you had almost as much fun as we did!
Paris IS irresistible.....au revoir!