El Paseo

I would probably still be out and about right now, but here in Palm Springs, CA at 6pm, it is very windy and rainy.  I'm not complaining.  We're enjoying some much needed down time from several very full days.  Today we wandered the shops of El Paseo.  It was a fun and interesting experience. There was plenty of beautiful art to appreciate and of course plenty that made you scratch your head. 

 

I had never been to a European antique shop before and was amazed at the collection there.  There were beautiful pieces from over Europe, some dating back to the mid 18th century.  It was entertaining to overhear two women discuss spending an obscene amount of money on a set of benches. By obscene, I mean each bench would be the average price of a new car. Although, not the type of cars we kept seeing in that part of town, but regular, everyday vehicles that we, as fairly average Canadians would drive.  I really wanted to ask these two gals, "So just out of curiosity, how many square feet do you get to call 'home'?". I wanted to know, because the benches were comparable in size to a Smart car.

 

What was really nice about the area was that there was a really pretty and quiet outdoor mall called "The Gardens".  It takes you away from the street into a park-like setting, and up on the second floor was where we found a lovely place to have a healthy lunch, and it had a great view from where we were seated on the patio. Although there were a few stronger gusts, the weather was perfect, and we truly enjoyed ourselves.

 

A view from inside "The Gardens".

Our view from the patio during lunch.