A well-heeled couple from Minnesota once decided to spend their first visit to Paris on my living-room floor.

Well-preserved and well-heeled older couples mix with families with teenage children at lunch by the pool, while business people take advantage of the gym's elliptical trainers overlooking the ocean.

Luxury hotels and restaurants around the world are offering millennium packages that are being snatched up by well-heeled couples wishing to recapture the romance or sentiment of a previous visit.

Lunch is a three-ring circus, particularly in the classic tapas bar, filled with men in suits and well-heeled couples.

Business travellers and well-heeled couples.

Sleek German cars cruise the "block," as it is commonly called, and well-heeled couples frequent cafes, restaurants and a nightclub.

The Apollo Theater in Harlem will have its first karaoke night on July 23, and a well-heeled couple in Chelsea is even planning a Kerry-oke fund-raiser this month for Senator John Kerry.

When the theaters close in Cairo, well after midnight, actors and musicians jostle for a place at the tables with laborers, students and the occasional well-heeled couple who have momentarily escaped the city's nightly social circuit.

THE CROWD Casual but well-heeled couples and foursomes.

Set in a grand clock-tower building (which rightly deserves its landmark label), this hotel attracts well-heeled international couples and Londoners popping in for afternoon tea.