Hugo saved Notre Dame with Hunchback, so writers can have great impact, but what am I going to tell you about Paris?  Writers and artists and photographers for ages have captured her spirit better than I ever could.

It was rainy and chilly, which dampened not our enthusiasm, our energy or our exuberance for Paris.

Only there seven days we did not see it all, but checked off many of the greatest hits: the Louvre, the Orangerie, Versailles, the Rodin, les Invalides, the Conciergerie.  Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle. The Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triomphe.

We delighted at Deyrolle, received a C- from our guide on the Fat Tire Bike Tour, ate our weight in bread and pastries and bowed down to the French teacher who was our guide; she made the entire visit both spectacular and spectacularly easy.

And through all of it I marveled at the floors and steps, some tile, some marble worn into indentations deep enough to offer a dog a good, long drink.  After all those feet upon those treads, what can I tell you of Paris?

I leave for Paris in a week.  I am taking my oldest son.  I love to travel, but hate to fly over water so had talked to my doctor about a small prescription (both in strength and number) of Xanax, which cures my ills.  I had decided not to take it after a friend, who had just made the trip, assured me that one is not over open water all that long.  The news yesterday sent me to the pharmacy.

Now that I am assured of the edge being chemically taken off, I’m on to the next thing on my list.  Help me out with a couple of things, will you?  Please suggest one thing, one, that you think I should see (or eat) while I’m there.  Please, please, please, please, please do not recommend something like Versailles or Laduree.  I’m looking for something I wouldn’t find in a guide book.

I’m also taking recommendations of either the best book or movie you would take on the plane to set the mood.  One.  Pick the best.

Image, Architectural Digest International Interiors, 1979, the home of Princess Claude Ruspoli on the Ile Saint-Louis.  Photography Pascal Hinous.  And, yes, trellis.

I walk in New York.  As my last few trips have been short, I like to pack light.  Workout shoes are bulky and enormous space-eaters and I hate to be stuck in a hotel gym when I’m only in the city for 48 hours.

So I walk.  A lot.  That way, I get my exercise and see the city.  Win/win.  The second day of my last trip I walked from the Standard to the Cooper-Hewitt (with stops in between.)

I just google mapped it and it’s 4.6 miles.  A little trafficy.  A lot touristy (I am one) and a complete delight.  Also, I love big, stone lions (and small stone lions, but, for me, when it comes to stone lions, bigger is better) so passing the front of the Metropolitan Museum on foot makes for a good day.

Heading back, I hopped on the subway at 57th Street; there’s no reason to walk through Midtown twice in one day.  That brings the total to 6.6 miles.  More than I would have walked at home.

And in 6.6 miles I saw mid-century New York, rural Pennsylvania, Ted Muehling, Central Park, Frank Lloyd Wright, a fortune in jewels and had lunch with a Russian-born fabric designer.  A very good day.

The images, above are of the Sonia Delaunay exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt via their website.  Delaunay was a painter and clothing and fabric designer.  This exhibit was one of my favorites.  You can access the site here and read Courtney Barnes’s excellent coverage – anything I would do would be redundant – on Style Court here.  The catalogue is chocked full of inspiring images and absolutely worth the $35.

Intrigued as much by the how as the what,

I stopped to see the quilt exhibit at the Folk Art Museum.

I know some folks think they are kitch and corny,

 but they often contain messages once obvious and now obscured.

And I find them strong and graphic and warm and personal all at the same time.

I just don’t know how you could look at one and not see the amount of work, the number of stitches, and not feel the strain in the back of your neck.