My itinerary for three weeks in Paris is done. Museums, street markets, churches, parks, and p\u00e2tisseries; color-coded, rain\/shine options, and custom Google-mapped.<\/p>\n
I’d have four weeks done if I wasn’t so distracted by the Louvre’s website. http:\/\/musee.louvre.fr\/oal\/scribe\/indexEN.html.<\/a> Checking out\u00a0 A Closer Look<\/em> (videos of a specific work discussed in\u00a0 a historical and artistic context) and the various Louvre Trails<\/em>\u00a0 (themed ninety minute audio tours) was fascinating. I selected a few Trails<\/em> (Mighty Aphrodite, Alexander the Great, Lion Hunt, In Search Of Ideal Beauty) to plug in, though I reserve the right to turn left into any open door.<\/p>\n On days the street markets are open, I added churches and parks that are nearby. Street markets and parks are fair weather options only. It can be chilly,\u00a0 but not wet or bitter cold – that’s under 45 degrees for this southern woman.<\/p>\n My detailed agenda is not set in stone. It’s not a schedule, it’s more like a list of tempting possibilities I can follow or ignore, depending upon my whim. That’s one of the beauties of solo travel. You can pick up the pace or slack off at will. In a city like Paris, where there are more wonderful things to do than there are hours in the day, my itinerary serves more as a filter than a must see\/do list.<\/p>\n Now, about apps. Tripadvisor’s City Guides<\/em> app\u00a0https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/tripadvisor-offline-city-guides\/id480066121?mt=8<\/a> is free, has a great make your own map option and directions that guide you from where your feet are to the venue, plus those helpful crowd-sourced ratings. And it’s free. Love me some free.<\/p>\n Uber<\/em>\u00a0 https:\/\/www.uber.com\/https:\/\/www.uber.com<\/a>\/ will get a work out, unless the Parisian cabbies manage to ban it between now and when I arrive. Fly Delta<\/em> http:\/\/www.delta.com\/content\/www\/en_US\/mobile.html <\/a>\u00a0because when you need flight info, you really need it.<\/p>\n I have two food centric apps, because who doesn’t need high quality caffeine and sugar?\u00a0 Paris Pastry<\/em>\u00a0 http:\/\/www.davidlebovitz.com\/2011\/11\/paris-pastry-app\/<\/a>\u00a0 is curated by pastry chef David Lebovitz, and Paris Cafes<\/em>\u00a0https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/paris-cafes\/id441859940?mt=8<\/a>\u00a0 is very Yelp-esque.<\/p>\n A Paris Metro<\/em> app will come in handy, and the filter in the\u00a0Ulmon Paris\u00a0<\/em>http:\/\/www.ulmon.com\/<\/a> will obligingly show you the location of everything from monuments to pharmacies.<\/p>\n I’m going to try out the Cities Talking<\/em> tour http:\/\/www.citiestalking.com\/cities\/paris\/<\/a>, as I have always loved the Venice\/Rome\/Paris Walks audio guides by Sonia Landes. I’d rather listen and look around than squint at a book while I stumble down the street.\u00a0 Rick Steves Audio Europe<\/em>, http:\/\/www.ricksteves.com\/watch-read-listen\/audio\/audio-europe<\/a> makes the cut for his reliable, salt of the earth perspective.<\/p>\n I downloaded all three of the official Louvre guides to the museum, http:\/\/www.louvre.fr\/en\/louvre-audio-guide-app<\/a> though I will probably also rent an audio guide there. And of the four translation apps I checked out, I like Google Translate<\/em> best https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/google-translate\/id414706506?mt=8<\/a> It has worked reliably, will say your phrase in mellifluous tones, and show it on screen, bumped up to large font, if need be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My itinerary for three weeks in Paris is done. Museums, street markets, churches, parks, and p\u00e2tisseries; color-coded, rain\/shine options, and custom Google-mapped. I’d have four weeks done if I wasn’t so distracted by the Louvre’s website. http:\/\/musee.louvre.fr\/oal\/scribe\/indexEN.html. Checking out\u00a0 A Closer Look (videos of a specific work discussed in\u00a0 a historical and artistic context) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-73","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-preparation","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-1b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}