Paris 2025 -- walkabouts Ile Saint-Louis; Hotel de Ville; Forum des Halles Mall and nearby Park

 Yes, it was February, but the weather was perfect for days to "fait un promenade" around the city. 

Here's a gallery of places I wandered around...

Ile Saint-Louis -- 

My walk to the island started on a bridge behind Notre Dame. The back side of the cathedral is still undergoing intensive renovations.

Boats along the river are always fun to see from the bridges...

Ile Saint-Louis has many small shops and restaurants, at least one hotel, and a school!

The island is also home of the best Ice Cream in Paris! The famous Berthiollion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthillon

I didn't have any this trip, so next time for sure!

You can see my ice cream stop from my 2020 visit here: https://stuartngbooks.blogspot.com/2020/02/paris-2020-ile-saint-louis.html

This year, one of the bridges to the island was lined with potted palm trees. 

I saw these palm trees on the bridge at least one more time besides the time I walked around there. 

But the last time I was in that area... all the palm trees were gone! Good thing I took photos :) 

Don't try to gaslight me, Paris. I already know you are a time portal. Your phantom landmarks are bad enough...

My favorite ever kitchen and home goods store in Paris used to be at this corner on the Isle Saint-Louis main street.  It's a chain grocery store now. 

Paris -- Hotel de Ville ...

This area is another familiar place to walk around, but this year, the large open plaza in front of the government buildings was blocked off for construction work. So no beautiful carousel to see. (except in my 2020 post: https://stuartngbooks.blogspot.com/2020/02/paris-2020-street-scenes.html )

Here are the lions in 2025....

Forum des Halles

A new excursion for me this year was a Metro ride and a bit of a walk.... 

...out to this modern "Westfield" shopping mall... 

I scored some great buys at the H&M store here... a perfect scarf and a trench coat (on sale) that were lifesavers on this trip. 

I enjoyed walking around the mall area... seeing the cinema section...

The Paris KFC *and other American staples) in the large food court...

And this shop that I didn't get to check out, but looked like a Paris version of Daiso (my favorite Japanese dollar store)

There's a big beautiful park next to the shopping mall. It's full of trees, with lots of benches, and even a kids playground. Sadly I only took a few photos. I got distracted birdwatching....

If I find more of photos of the park, I'll add them here.