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City of Light. After we have registered at the Ritz (a view of the Place Vendôme guaranteed), there will be time for a stroll along the bridges over the Seine, enjoying the mild evenings of early autumn, the loveliest season, according to connoisseurs, as long as it doesn’t rain. (I have failed in my efforts to determine the chances of fluvial precipitation in Paris on Sunday and Monday, since NASA, which is to say the science of meteorology, predicts the whims of heaven only four days in advance.) I have never been to Paris, and I hope you have not either, so that on our evening walk from the Ritz to Saint-Germain we will discover together what is, by all accounts, an astonishing itinerary. On the Left Bank (in other words, the Parisian Miraflores) we can look forward to a performance of Mozart’s unfinished Requiem at the Abbey of Saint-Germain des Prés, and supper chez Lipp, an Alsatian brasserie where the choucroute is obligatory (I don’t know what that is, but as long as it has no garlic, I’ll like it). I’ve assumed that when supper is over you will probably wish to rest in order to be fresh for our busy schedule on Monday, and therefore that night we will not be caught up in a whirl of discotheques, bars, boîtes, or caves that stay open until dawn .
    The next morning we will visit the Louvre to pay our respects to La Gioconda, have a light lunch at La Closerie de Lilas or La Coupole (the restaurants in Montparnasse so revered by snobs), and in the afternoon we will dip into the avant-garde at the Centre Pompidou and make a quick visit to the Marais, famous for its eighteenth-century palaces and contemporary faggots. We will have tea at La Marquise de Sévigné, at La Madeleine, before returning to the hotel for a refreshing shower. Our program that night is completely frivolous: an apéritif at the Ritz Bar, supper in the modernist decor of Maxim’s, and to round off the festivities, a visit to that cathedral of striptease the Crazy Horse Saloon, with its brand-new revue , It’s So Hot! (Tickets have been purchased, tables reserved, and maîtres d’s and doormen bribed to assure the best locations, tables, and service.)
    On Tuesday morning a limousine, less showy but more refined than the one in New York, complete with driver and guide, will take us to Versailles to visit the palace and gardens of the Sun King. We will eat a typical meal (steak and fried potatoes, I’m afraid) at a bistro along the way, and before the opera (Verdi’s Otello, with Plácido Domingo, of course) you will have time for shopping on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, very close to the hotel. We will have a simulacrum of supper, for purely visual and sociological reasons, at the Ritz, where—dixit the expert—the sumptuous ambiance and elegant service compensate for an unimaginative menu. We will have our real supper after the opera, at La Tour d’Argent, from whose windows we will bid a fond farewell to the towers of Notre Dame and the lights of the bridges reflected in the flowing waters of the Seine .
    The Orient Express to Venice leaves on Wednesday at noon, from the Gare Saint Lazare. We will spend that day and night traveling and resting, but according to those who have engaged in this railway adventure, passing through the landscapes of France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy in those belle époque compartments is relaxing and instructive, stimulating but not fatiguing, exciting but in moderation, and entertaining, if only for archaeological reasons, because of the tastefully restored elegance of the compartments, restrooms, bars, and dining cars of that legendary train, the setting for so many novels and films of the years between the wars. I will bring with me Agatha Christie’s novel Murder on the Orient Express, in both English and Spanish, in case you wish to enhance your view of the locales where the action occurs. According to the prospectus, for our supper à la chandelle that evening, formal wear and deep