Thanks to everyone for your support. You all do such a great job of covering the classic sites that everybody must see that I am glad to be able fill a little niche that not many other people are covering. (However, this report showed more monuments than I usually show!) :-)

I so enjoyed the trip...we stayed at Le Grand two years ago and had a great time. I love all the terrific foodie shops around Place de la Madeleine. And, I also think Opera Garnier is the most gorgeous building in Paris!

thanks, kerouac!

I'm wondering about the Franprix location. I don't recall seeing it when we stayed in the area a few years ago. We were in an apartment behind the REx. I liked the apartment but we having to make a pretty long trek to the grocery store.

They have put the turbo boost on Franprix openings lately -- they are showing up everywhere. Next to my office, a major café-restaurant recently closed and suddenly became a Franprix, but with a couple of major differences. First, the aisles are parallel to the street rather than perpendicular, and the very first aisle is ready-to-eat food items for office workers. On top of that, they actually left some bistro tables and chairs out front for people to sit down and eat their purchases. And even more exceptional, since I have never seen them on sale at a Franprix before, there is a huge wall of pantyhose for sale. Even though I'm a guy, I know how often women (think they) have to run out and buy some pantyhose during the working day -- very clever of Franprix to cover that need, because the Monoprix on the Champs Elysées is several blocks farther away (of course, we all know that Monoprix and Franprix are owned by the same company anyway).

We just arrived in Paris this morning and my dad had to get a shirt from the Hard Rock so I now know where this is! We've got a week here and I can't wait to explore.

Metro Grands Boulevards! :-)

The Grands Boulevards are the heart of Paris. How can anybody miss this?

Once you have viewed Kerouac's photos, you might want to walk down one of the boulevards:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6bDAWqf2RY

This video does <b>not</b> duplicate Kerouac's photos, so I don't think there's any conflict between them. Be sure you view the photo gallery <i>first</i>. The video is just an (uninterrupted) walk from the Bonne Nouvelle Métro station to the Opéra Garnier, at dusk. If you pay close attention, you'll spot a handful of the landmarks that Kerouac's gallery covers (such as the Rex cinema). The actual boulevards covered are Bonne Nouvelle, Poissonnière, and Italiens.

Anthony, that is a really great video for showing exactly what it's like to walk along the boulevards. Of course, 22 minutes will try most people's patience. For the first 5 minutes, I kind of felt that the woman with the white shoes was being stalked.

It's a bit tedious, but the continuous shot increases the "you are there" impression, whereas making cuts would have destroyed that atmosphere. Of course, it's not continuously thrilling in real life, either, but most of the grands boulevards are still great fun to walk, especially compared with just about every other city on the planet (although other densely populated places, like Manhattan, do have their own charms).

She does look like she's being stalked, but would anyone really want to stalk a woman wearing shoes like that?