I believe you’re coming at the perfect time to visit - weather is turning, the trees have leaves and it’s not overrun with tourists yet. The farmers’ markets will be in full-swing, so if you have an AirBnB or VRBO and enjoy cooking (even noodles), you’re going to be in heaven.
Have not been out to Normandy; hoping to make a Northern loop trip at some point this summer. In the mean time, good luck with the bikes 
One year, we rented a very nice apartment at Boulevard Raspail and Rue de Vaugirard, right about the frequent farmers’ markets. I bought ingredients there to make coq au vin…served atop roasted potatoes rather than noodles.
A very fun day trip is the bike tour of Giverny and Monet’s garden. When we went, travel was from Paris by train. Now it is by bus. Highly recommended if the weather is decent.
I love running errands in Paris
looks gorgeous Michel. What are those little bites at the top?
They were little bread crackers with onions and chive. I say “were” because I inhaled them as a snack.
So I had some wine biz friends over to help me taste a ton of samples, and we ended around 9:30pm, so we called CAM, the new hotspot in Paris. They had a table, so off in an Uber we went.
Once we saw the menu (basically it’s French ingredients with Asian preparations), we told our waitress one of everything except the onglet, figuring we could get great meat elsewhere. She insisted we switch from the monkfish to the onglet, which we did, and did not regret it. All the dishes were bright and well-balanced, though a few had slightly too much salt (disclaimer, I’m very sensitive to salt as we don’t use it too much at home so I tend to notice this at restaurants). The decor was very Bushwick (ie industrial), so don’t expect anything fancy or traditional. But the welcome was warm, the food delicious (and cheap), and everyone spoke English.
Oh, and best of all, Sundays are Smith Sundays, when they play nothing but The Smiths. My British expat buddy was beside himself happy.
KFC?
Korean Fried Chicken. Delicious and slightly spicy, but very messy. They gave us rubber gloves to eat with, but frankly I hated that idea. The dish itself was delicious, we just needed extra napkins.
Thx. I’ve had it, just wasn’t familiar with the use of the acronym (but I bet the Colonel isn’t happy about that use of it!)
CAM is now on my list for a Sunday dinner in the fall. Please keep them coming.
Signing the rental agreement tomorrow for our apt. Can’t wait.
Which agency might you recommend? Thank you.
Victor,
The owner of the agency, Just France, that we have used the past 8 years recently merged her operation into Villas of Distinction. This is the first year post-merger; we’ll see how it goes (as will the owner of the specific apartment that we’ve rented for the past 6 years, who doesn’t publicly list the apt for rent on VoD’s website or otherwhere on the internet).
Rubber gloves? Maybe, re-naming as “Korean Food with Contraceptive” would be more descriptive.
Just be aware that it’s pretty industrial-looking, it has a Bushwick vibe to it. The local neighborhood is very quiet at night, but it’s not far from Republique and all the cool little spots there.
It’s right next door to Pan Viet and down the street from Au Bon Pho, which serve some of my favorite Pho in Paris.
Went to Racines Paris in the Passage des Panoramas tonight, food was excellent, service warm and wine list fun. I’d happily go back. Drinks after at Coinstot Vino a few doors down didn’t suck either.
Greetings from Champagny en Vanoise, a small village in the French Alps, in the Savoie region. I could go on at length, but I’ve got three main takeaways:
I’ve only had pastis once, and it convinced me that once was plenty. What I tasted may not actually have been pastis though; it may just have been a solvent from under the sink, now that I think about it. Nasty stuff
Hah! If you like black jelly beans or licorice, it’s mind blowing 
Re:upside down pic - I give up. Took it in landscape to get it to load correctly. If there’s a rotate pic tag I can drop in the image, let me know… otherwise, apologies, I tried.