SHARING WITH ME

You all know that Paris is full of pickpockets. The locals know them. They limp, pretend to be deaf, ask you to sign petitions and steal your wallet while doing so.....I've had that nastY experience a couple of times and they are good. When I saw this today, it really made me smile......there they are - all those pickpockets that I have known for years - chatting to the police....... DOUBLE LINE UP TO GET INTO NOTRE DAME and waiting to rush back to the queues for a few extra cents (or more)

It’s always a pleasure to wander down to the Jardin des plantes (Botanical gardens) at the bottom of my street, find a nice place mid sun-mid shade and read for a couple of hours. Yesterday it didn’t turn out like that. It was colder than I had anticipated and because of the luminosity, I couldn’t read a thing on my tablet. Then I saw this…… I have visited the Mineralogy Gallery many time but never alone. This was the moment to do so and actually look more closely at the different stones. The last thing I will do is turn into a geologist. This collection though is the envy of many museums around the world because it’s huge and because of its diversity. It was during the reign of  Louis XIII (17th century) when the king’s « drugist » began to collect minerals along with  medicinal plants. However, although the collection became important, the building for Mineralogy and  Geology was not opened until much later. Later again and in 1987, the...