Cerise loves #Paris! Come #travel with me! Part One!

Saint Chappelle built by
Louis IX
an exquisite elaborate confection
in mid Paris

So many of you know I DIG history. I love, love, heart it and try to give everyone a flavor of the Real Deal in my Regencies and my Medievals.

But I also luv to travel and when I do, I soak up the real deals and find those kernels to put into my novels.  Always when doing that, it is soooo vital to refrain from telling all—or as hubby puts it, NOT hang the draperies. (As in, I don't want to know the color, the texture of the drapes unless, of course, they are the green velvet drapes in Scarlett's drawing room and she has no clothes with which to tempt Rhett...and you get me!)

So. In that effort to entertain you with my travels...and later my stories, I have just returned from 2 glorious weeks in Paris. Two. WEEKS.
Yes, ma cherie e mon cher, I went, I saw, I ate, I walked, I lost 2 inches....

But here for your reading pleasure are a few introductory tidbits, for your eyes and heart and soul's satisfaction.

I will take you with me in the coming days on my travels via my copious pictures. With their historic significance attached. Some of which I will use in intriguing new ways in my forthcoming novels for your pleasure.

Laduree, Restaurant on Champs Elysee
where they also make Macaroons

So do return here!

Basically, what did we do in our two weeks in Paris?

Well! We went out of our rented apartment in Montmarte every day. EVERY day. Rain or shine. Ran between the rain drops, soaked up the Metro and the bullet train experiences and went to a different exciting place. Cathedrals, castles, palaces, chateaux, museums, city places, and yes, restaurants for hot chocolate that coats your tongue with creamy goodness and cafe au lait that does the same.

Escargots. Lamb. Onion tart. (Really? Yes!) Linguine with escargots, shallots and truffles in a divine cream sauce. And yes, and there is more!

Charles de Gaulle
astride the Place de la Concorde

Pictures?
Here is a wild sample!
Feast!

You know who is buried here!
Napoleon, of course!
Gives me chills every time I see this.
Was I alive then? Did I know him?

This stunning church is not in Paris.
And this picture is not from this year's trip but last year's.
I love it for its unique place in history.
This is the church in a little town in the Argonne forest.
Know it?
Called Varennes, this town was also headquarters to General Pershing in the Great War.
This church was the one in which
Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette sought refuge from the Revolutionary rabble in 1790.
The townspeople turned the royal family over to the Parisians who took them back to Paris,
locked Louis up separately from his wife and children whom they put in the
Conciergerie, in the same building as Saint Chappelle (above).
From there, they took her to the guillotine.
A sad little church.