Hello fellow travellers. After only a week, we are in an apartment in the 16th. It is fairly spacious and quiet, not words I usually associate with Paris apartments! The reason for the quiet is because we are off a courtyard, not one of the streets. We enter off rue Mesnil through a coded gate, and our apartment is on the 2nd floor towards the back of the courtyard. The picture is taken from the apartment entrance towards the street entrance. Our building is 5 stories, but the one across from us is only 2. If the sun comes out, we should have good light. And I think we have a southern exposure, which should be nice when winter comes.
Today, we did a little reconnaissance. We went up and down the spoke-like streets from Place Victor Hugo (one of which is ours). Many of them are upscale residences - lines of classical buildings. We stumbled on a fancy private club Saint James Paris near Av Foch, a wide boulevard that leads from Arc de Tromphe to the huge greenspace of Bois de Boulogne. We passed embassies for Honduras, Ivory Coast, Argentina, the Congo, and Lebanon (spread out throughout the area). We window-shopped along Av Victor Hugo - lots of expensive clothes stores, jewelry shops, and chocolate (one place had a huge chocolate sculpture). But our best find was nearby rue des Belles Feuilles with had 2 butcher shops (each with roasted chickens), 2 Chinese take out places (that both looked good), numerous fruit/vegetable shops and some fromageries. The Chinese and chickens are particularly useful when you need a quick idea for dinner!
There are a number of florists nearby, but expensive! We did find one place to buy some small geraniums and ivy to put in our window boxes. Debbie gardened while I returned to get a chicken for dinner! There are also a variety of lunch places nearby (which I never get to see as they tend not be open on weekends). Theres are 2 nice grocery stores, Casino and Monoprix, very nearby. If you read about the 16th, the guidebooks don't have too much to say about it. It is one of the larger arrondissements, running along the west edge of Paris. The east side is bordered by the Seine and Eiffel Tower. The north side butts up against the Arc de Tromphe, and the west against the big greenspace Bois de Boulogne. At the south end you find Roland Garros, site of the French Open. We didn't spend much time in this area before. I was told that it is very chic. We'll let you know... Over the course of our walk, we saw the Arc de Tromphe at one end, and Eiffel Tower at the other.
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