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Well, Ian beat me to writing about the Paris cooking class we took … but I can still extoll the virtues of Paris patisseries and in particular these delectable goodies they make: macarons. No, these aren’t the usual Safeway macaroons, those bland dollops of coconut flakes and almond flavouring.

I am talking about delicious, soft concoctions of powdered almonds, egg whites and sugar in many flavours and sizes – basically two small round cookies sandwiching a complementary filling. I think my two favourites were raspberry and pistachio, from La Grande Epicerie at Le Bon Marché. They reminded me a bit of the yummy “fursecuri” my mom made when I was little.

Macarons were also great snacks during our full day of museum exploring on Monday. I love the ceilings at the Louvre – I think they’re one of the best parts of the architecture/art there. We spent the day running around the different exhibits and enjoyed the museum much more this time than during our first visits. Don’t worry, I actually looked at the art on display too, not just the ceilings. We saw the usual Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo – it would have been hard to avoid them, since signage everywhere in the museum pointed out the shortest route to see those two. Fortunately the museum was not too busy so we got to see everything we wanted to, up close.

Ceilings were also my favourites in two other places:

• metro stations – like Concorde and Cluny-La Sorbonne
• the Notre Dame cathedral