Whatever you do in this life - whether you discover the cure for cancer or walk on the moon or star in a Broadway musical, or win the Nobel Peace Prize - you MUST go to Paris.

I had seen the City of Lights in movies, in animation, in postcards. I had heard friends speak of its beauty and infinite richness. I had heard Jacques Brel's songs with their melancholic sense of longing and bittersweetness. But I had never been to the city. I can never say that again.

This trip was to celebrate eight years of marriage to my wife Cornelia, who herself had never been to Paris. We found the trip on Travelocity, and were able to book a flight and hotel room in Montpernasse for around $2,000. That doesn't include all your meals, but it does include a continental breakfast. Which is all you need to start the day in Paris.

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday, October 16th. It was the day of our anniversary, and the flight put us there at about 7:30 in the morning. Neither one of us had been able to sleep on the plane - we were both too excited to get much rest.

We took the RER from CDG to Denfert Rochereau station. It wasn't too expensive, though the dollar-to-euro exchange rate made things more expensive that they would have been earlier.

After a train ride of about an hour, we were at our hotel (The Hotel Sophie Germain on Rue Sophie Germain see: http://hotels.parishotels.com/hotel-direct.php?hotel=123&lang=en) and were able to leave our bags until check in. We went around the corner and ate crepes and drank coffee in the crisp morning. The restaurant was within sight of the bronze lion monument to fallen war dead in Montpernasse.

After breakfast we walked to the Montparnasse Tower to ask about the site seeing on the top floor. The views are supposed to be spectacular, but we thought it a bit expensive and decided to wait. We did tour Montparnasse Cemetery and saw the grave of Jean-Paul Sartre. Samuel Beckett is buried there too, but we did not take the time to find his grave.

We got into our room early - check in is usually 12 noon, but we were in by 10:30. We took a nap for about three hours to fight off the jet lag. Afterwards, we asked about the tour buses that tour Paris. Our original plan was to take one of these tours to get our bearings, but the bus turned out to be way too expensive (29 euros per person for a two day pass).

Since it was late in the day, we decided to take the metro to St. Michel and walk around a little. It was a beautiful afternoon. The skies were azure and the sun was a butterscotch color. We walked from St. Michel to Ste. Chappelle to see the stained glass.

(Note: Ste. Chappelle is in the Palace of Justice - basically the court building on the Isle de la Cite in Paris. There are two lines to get in - one for the court building and one for Ste. Chappelle. The line for Ste. Chappelle is the LONG one. We had previously purchased museum passes - worth their weight in time - but we still had to wait in line with people who did not have tickets. That was not the case everywhere - just here and a few other places).

The stained glass in Ste. Chappelle - a church built by King Louis IX of France to house holy relics - will stun you. The chapel itself was not as large as I thought it would be, but the building is ALL windows. From about 10ft off the ground to the top of the vaulted celing is nothing but stained glass. And as we were there when the sun was in decline, we got to see the western side illuminated. It is breathtaking!

From Ste. Chappelle we walked across the Pont Neuf to the Louvre. We reached the main court (where I.M. Pei's Pyramid is) in late afternoon. We did not go into the Louvre because we knew it would be overwhelming, so we continued to walk through the Tuilleries Gardens, past the Place de la Concorde, and down the Avenue de Champs Elysees. The autum colors are nearly at peak this time of year in Paris, and the weather was turning cool (50s for highs and 40s at night).

Since it was our anniversary, we stopped for dinner at a brasserie on Avenue Franklin Roosevelt called the Carre Elysee. I had the lamb and Cornelia had the Lasagne Bolognese. Do I really need to tell you how good they were?

The waiter served us glasses of the house red, and I have never had wine as good. It was smooth and rich and warm, no tannins to bite and not too dry. Wonderful. For desert I had creme broulee. It was a smooth, creamy, rich pudding with the top carmelized to a cruchy sweetness. I didn't want to share, but I did - it was our anniversary after all.

After a meal like that what did we do? Walk some more of course! To the Arc de Triomphe. And we climbed to the top! The views are spectacular from up there. And when the Ferris Wheel at the Tuilleries is removed (it was only there for the FIAC art show) one can see all the way to the Louvre.

At night many of the monuments and churches in Paris are illuminated, so famous sites like the Sacre Couer in Montmartre, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and others are easily visible.

We took the No. 6 subway home from Place d'Etoile to Montparnasse and reached our hotel around 11:00. The next day promised more adventure, but as the week went on, we found ourselves in the midst of a full fledged crisis. More on that in my next posting.

For more info on Ste. Chappelle, check out this link:

http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Cathedrals/Paris/Sainte-Chapelle.shtml

For info on the Arc de Triomphe, try:

http://arc-de-triomphe.monuments-nationaux.fr/en/

And for the Louvre:

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en