Free Paris

Last summer it cost almost 1.50 to purchase one euro and today it costs 1.20. That means that dollars stretch further today than they did one year ago.
Maybe it’s because I’m intoxicated by this city, but so far I’ve noticed how affordable the good life can be: Triple cream cheese, one pound, $8; organic chardonnay $5; bouquet of peonies with six grapefruit-sized blooms $7.

Plus, many things are free. You could simply wander the city all day long and gorge yourself on the sights—boats on the Seine, Notre Dame, Les Tuileries, Le Jardin du Luxembourg, the Eiffel Tour, and admission to the Musee de Modern Art are only a few of the free amusements.

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Taking photographs of cheeses in a shop window, sitting along the Seine on a bench and watching barges float by, standing on the ancient Pont Neuf, listening to a gypsy brass band as they march down Blvd. Ile Saint Louis their music echoing down the cement canyon, walking in the rain with a borrowed umbrella, and listening to church bells play a song that sound like a cover of “Three Blind Mice”—all free.

A 110,000 mile ticket to Paris, compliments of Delta Skymiles. (Award tickets went up during the past year from my bargain 60,000 mile ticket in 2009.) A day in Paris, priceless.