Parc Monceau - 17ieme arrondissement

Sunday's adventure consisted of heading to the upscale 8th and 17th arrondissement. Located just north of the Champs Elysees and east of the Arc de Triomphe is where you will find the Parc Monceau. The park is quite small by most standards, however Parisiennes definitely don't miss an opportunity to head to the park, especially on a sunny day in March with the temperature around 15 degrees. The 17th arrondissement is split into a working class area, and an upscale area near the park. In the upper scale area, the streets are definitely quieter, larger and don't have nearly the number of store fronts as in some of the other areas of Paris. Most of the ground floor establishments are finance, doctors, lawyers offices. Needless to say a good assortment of BMW, Audi's, Benz's and the usual fare of nice cars!

Parc Monceau is like most other Parisienne parks: gravel walking areas and no walking on the grass - at least until April at Monceau. There is a circular gravel path around the park that was simply a carousel of joggers and runners. There isn't a lot of green space in Paris, so runners and joggers are exiled to the few parks there are.

As you can imagine, the apartments overlooking Monceau are incredible. I can only imagine what they are like inside. I guess the closest analogy would be the apartments surrounding Central Park in NYC.

We also had our first visitors today! John and Megan arrived and we met up with them in the afternoon. We walked from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame, and couldn't resist stopping for an afternoon sugar rush: crepes au chocolat!

more pictures in the web album

Entrance to Parc Monceau

I think I could handle living here!



Mmmm - Crepes au chocolat