Day trip: At home with Monet #1

On the occasion of the publication of Un Jour avec Claude Monet à Giverny by Adrien Goetz (Flammarion), I was invited on a press trip to what was once Claude Monet's home in Giverny, complete with a private lunch arranged for us in the Impressionist painter's former atelier.

Above: photos don't do justice to the gardens at Giverny, a pleasant hour and a half drive from Paris

Fruit cake

Gérard Mulot's pastries have set the trend around the world for cakes loaded with fruit.

76 rue de Seine 75006

A love of butter

A monstrous hunk of salt-studded butter is a staple on the counter of a popular Left Bank wine bar.

Sunday bargains

Sidewalk flea markets bring out local chineurs.

Above: reject art, gold-lined china, crystal, antique books, bits of this, that

Perfect match

This gentleman's shoes and jacket perfectly match his favorite café.

A step up

Spring foliage has made this old Montmartre stairway shiny and new.

Gallery as art

A gallery window's graphic lines make it appear to be a painting.

See Gallery gala