Green leaves cling to skelleton trees as another season turns.

On a rare sunny day when the Versailles fountains are erupting into rainbows and the sky is painted with fluffy white clouds, opera music wafts through the air.

Water streams like icing on a tiered wedding cake from the Bassin de Latone

and the King's garden is in full bloom.

From his somber rented chamber at Ravoux Inn in the Paris suburb of Auvers sur Oise, Vincent Van Gough ended his life in suicide with a shotgun bullet to the chest.

Inside the cemetary's stone walls he lies alongside his beloved brother Theo, surrounded by countryside blanketed in wheat.

Amid the richesse of Rue de Rivoli's magasin upon magasinful of luxury shopping lies a squatter's haven. A plaque to the right of the door reads, sorry, the building is not open to visitation.

While playing host to works of Sargent and Sorolla for a short spell this Spring, the permanent collection of the Petit Palais is always gratuit. Under ethereal frescos, artistic ironwork sprouts from the spiral of a staircase and leads from one mosaic laden floor to another.
 
 
  

 
 
Wide eyes gaze out from faceted faces in a gallery dedicated exclusively to Picasso. The diverse collection housed within the Musée Nationale Picasso Paris is reflective of the movements he influenced and was moved to emulate. 
 

Of the body of Jules Pascin's work currently on display at the Musée Maillol, I most enjoyed the warm portraits shrouded in Impressionism and storybook-like pen and ink female sketches. Watercolour hues imperfectly washed atop caricatures produce work of a raw quality that compliments his subjects.

l'Opera Garnier

Tickets to an opera or ballet performance entitle the possessor a red velvet seat within the grandiose espace of Charles Garnier's belle epoque opera hall. Ornate woodwork gilded in gold and the weight of a six ton chandelier provide a pleasant contrast to the anachronism of Marc Chagall's fresco painting, washed like passing clouds atop the ceiling.