Paris.

Gull flying past the Eiffel Tower.

If you follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook you'll know I'm back now, and you'll be intimately acquainted with my trip! I've put up so many pictures and I have to say: I always limit to a maximum of two posts a day on Facebook, so I hope no one minds the deluge. I grouped the pictures for general ease, and if you'd like to look the groups are:

• Paris II: Cats and Birds of Paris.
• Paris III: The Eiffel Tower.
• Paris IV: Notre Dame.
• Paris V: The Streets of Paris.
• Paris VI: Zola, Panthéon, and bookish things.

("Paris I" was just a few I put up on the night I returned).

And I'm sure you can tell I had a wonderful time! I really didn't think I'd get to go, either - the night before we left the snow fell thick and fast, and on the morning I didn't think we'd make it down, and when we did I didn't think the trains would be running, but it actually went very smoothly. 

Le chat du Cimetière de Montmartre.

I've always wanted to go to Paris, and I've spent so many years looking at other people's pictures and desperately wanting to go, so this has been an absolute dream! It really was wonderful, and I was very lucky to go. One of my happiest moments was sitting in a café opposite Notre Dame drinking a cappuccino and looking at my new Zola book (Zest for Life). And, of course, the Panthéon, where Zola's remains lie, the wonderful Eiffel Tower, and the cat of Cimetière de Montmartre. Shakespeare and Company, the Mecca for book lovers, was everything I imagined (perfect), and I even saw Anne Hathaway attending the premiere of 'Les Misérables' on the Champs Elysées! Oh, and thanks to an astonishingly amount of layers, I managed to keep warm! 

As for reading: someone, I'll blame Caro because it was probably her, guessed I would read a ton whilst in Paris. Not so: I managed less than one hundred pages of L'Assomoir! So far, I love it: it feels like a return to Zola following a few not so great translations. It's wonderful, and though I'm not so far through I'm looking forward to writing about it. Finishing my Faerie Queene post, on the other hand, does not fill me with quite as much excitement.

New Zolas.

For the rest of the weekend, I'm going to be catching up on some sleep (remarkably I was up at half eight this morning, probably because I was excited to go through my pictures!), and read L'Assomoir. Plans for next week: catch up with all other reading! Behind on everything! Well worth it, though. I really love Paris very much, it was absolutely perfect. I'm so glad I've finally gone, and hopefully I'll get to go again one day!

Final picture: Shakespeare and Company: the very first place I visited: before the Eiffel Tower, before the Panthéon, before Notre Dame, and before the Moulin Rouge! I have my priorities right.