The last two days have been a whirlwind of walking, perfume, bread, and gulping the beauty of the gorgeous and peculiarly Parisian combination of strict form with ornamentation. I hope you’ll forgive the hasty writing.

On Friday, we met Denyse from Grain de Musc at Café Lemours, an elegant café near the Palais Royal with white-aproned waiters and large jars of jumbled silver forks decorating the windows. Our first stop was Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido (aka Serge Lutens). We walked into the Palais Royal courtyard with its rows of plane trees pruned into boxes, and under the arcades separated from the courtyard with a gold-tipped iron fence.

The Serge headquarters is dim and feels like a harem’s lounging room without the pillows. All of the paneled walls were painted a background of dark blue — or was it black? — with oriental symbols in gold. In the center of the room was a spiral staircase. Lining the edges of the room were glass-topped console tables holding the Serge Lutens fragrances and a row of paper strips, each labeled and spritzed with a different scent. Someone brought us small glasses of hot Marco Polo tea, and we got busy smelling.

When we left the almost meditative world of Serge an hour later, we plunged into the drizzly Parisian air and dodged scooters on our way to Rue St Honoré and the hip “lifestyle” store Colette…

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