Eating My Way through Paris: Macarons part 1

Since relocating to Heidelberg, Germany, I've been astounded by how easy it is to get to other European locales. Last weekend we headed to Paris - only 3 1/2 hours by train! As my mom said, "That's like driving to Tahoe!" (from the SF Bay Area, that is). One of my main incentives for going to Paris was sampling all the macarons I've been obsessing about for the last year or so. It seems that this meringue sandwich cookie has taken the foodie-world by storm. So here goes for our Paris macaron taste-off:

This is the display in the Lenôtre, in Bastille, 11th arrondissement.
We stopped there our first morning, for our first macaron tasting.

These were light and satisfyingly crunchy-chewy, with lovely fillings.

I was impressed by the chocolate ganache filling - very rich. The others we tried were pistachio, frambois (raspberry), and caramel, with sea salt. I think my favorite was the caramel (it usually is!), but one complaint is that the sea salt hits you first when you bite into the macaron, and it's a bit strong. The burnt-sugar taste of caramel comes almost at the end, which is too long to wait, in my mind. All in all, though, a great sweet treat - light but very satisfying.