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Saint Germain Des Pres, Saint Suplice,
Fountain
Suplice & Musee Rodin
We left the hotel around 1100. We
immediately noticed it was cooler this morning than it has since
we got into last week. I am sure it was in the low 60s with a
slight breeze and cloudy. It was a little chilly for the shorts
and short sleeve shirt I was wearing but I comfortable enough
and I'd figured it would warm up a little once the sun broke
out. We got our Pain Aux Chocolait and Cafe au Lait at the
patiserre (pastry shop) around the corner from the hotel and hit
the road.
We first visited Saint Germain
Des Pres. Saint Germain Des Pres is the oldest church in Paris.
It originated in 542, while the present church buildings are
dated from the 11th century and was heavily rebuilt in 19th
century. It has one of the oldest belfries in Paris. They were
having services at the time we arrived, so I decided not to take
any pictures at this church.
We next headed to Saint
Suplice. Many of the churches have the same general layout.
There in the shape of a cross with a long wing and two short
perpendicular wings. On the sides, are small chapels dedicated
to various saints and patrons. In each chapel, there is a
stained glass window with large paintings on each side. They are
quite dark. The pictures often show the paintings better than
you can see them with the naked eye.
On the way to visit Musee
Rodin, a young boy tried to pick Dick's pocket. As we went
through the exit to head up to the surface street, the boy came
up from behind and stuck his hand in Dick's right front pocket.
Dick quickly clamped down on the boy's hand to prevent him from
getting his wallet. We have seen many signs at the tourist
attractions and in the subways here and in London saying 'Beware
of Pickpockets', but it was the first time either of us had that
happen to us.
The Musee Rodin (Musee Rodion,
77, rue du Varenne) has a very large collection of statues by
Rodin. I believe he actually did a lot of his work there. The
entry fee was €6.00). There were several gardens surrounding the
building with statues on display scattered throughout. We also
went through both floors of the building where there was more of
Rodin's work on display.
We had lunch just around the
block from the museum at Cafe du Musee. I had the Croque Special
(a large toasted ham and tomato sandwich with a fried egg on
top) and a Coke. Dick had he Soupe a l'Ougnon (Onion soup) with
a hot chocolate. The total was €21.60.
We made a side trip to visit
the Hard Rock Cafe Paris. We did not go inside or eat there. We
just stopped to pick up a few souvenirs for friends. It was a
bit out of the way since we were not in that neighborhood for
any other reason, but it was quite easy to find unlike the one
in London which took a while to find. We got back to the hotel
around 1730 and I was done with the day's pictures around 1830.
We headed out for dinner at
2030. We headed down to the restaurant row on the south side of
Notre Dame. We ate at an Italian restaurant called La Solita
Tavern. I had the Minestrone soup, Pizza Calzone, Tiramisu, and
Italian beer called Piero Nazzuro or something like that. Dick
had the Minestrone soup, the Trio (tortellini alla creame,
lasagna, linguine), Mousse Chocolait, and Italian beer called
Piero Nazzuro. The total was €31.00 for dinner and €10.00 for
the two beers. It was one of the best meals we had while we were
in Paris. Quite good.
We headed down to the Eiffel
Tower around 2230 to get a few shots of the Tower at night. The
park where I took my shots earlier in the week closes at dusk,
so we decided to come in from a different angle. We ended up on
the northwest side of the tower. We did not want to stray too
far from the main drag so we would not get lost. This was the
first time we were in this particular neighborhood. We did not
want to wander around too much. I took several shots, they all
kind of looked the same, but I wanted to make sure I got a
couple of good ones. I had to move around a bit and reframe the
shot a few times to try to eliminate the glare from various
street lights.
Around 2300, the Tower started
flashing away like crazy. They have several thousand(?) strobe
lights mounted all over the tower. It was pretty cool looking,
but the pattern did not change at all. Dick said that with his
short American attention span, he was ready to change the
channel after five seconds. In order to get the best framing for
the shots, I rotated the camera 90 degrees (as I often do). I
decided to shoot a little video with the camera was well. The
picture is pretty 'noisy' due to the low light situation. The
most irritating part was what I forgot you cannot rotate video
as easily as you can photos so the tower looks like a big
lighted arrow pointing right ( >---+ ), not exactly what I had
in mind.
It was even chillier than it
was earlier and the breeze had picked up even more. I would not
be surprised if it was not in the upper 40s with the wind chill.
While we were there, we saw a group of tourists with a guide go
by on Segue Ways. I had seen online that you could take a 2 hour
tour on Segue Ways for something like $40, or a 4 hour tour for
$70. I will look up the exact numbers later. We also saw a
bicycle club riding through the streets. There had to be a group
of at least 40 riding together and this was after 2300 at night.
We headed back to the hotel
around 2315. We get down to the quai at the station and Dick
says, 'We're on the wrong side'. Well, I had already used my
ticket and gone through the gate. I said "Nice time to mention
it."
There was no cross over at this
station. It is one of the stations where you could not cross
sides from within the station. We had to go back out and cross
to the other side. We went down the right quai and the machine
would not take my ticket. Annoying. It was my last ticket. More
annoying. There was no ticket machine or any other way to get a
ticket. @#$#@%@#%. So for the first time in my life, I jumped
the gate and went on my way.
I got to watch a little Sumo on
EuroSport in German. It was from the Haru Basho in Osaka.
Interesting, the mixture of cultures you get watching TV. It is
0100 at the time that I right this. Time to chill for a while
before heading out for our last full day in Paris. I cannot
believe it almost over already. It was all starting to blur
together after only a few days. I cannot imagine trying to
remember and convey all of this after the vacation was over and
I settled back into my routine. As much as I've enjoyed the trip
(and I would definitely come to visit Paris again), I am looking
forward to being in my own home with my wife and cats and just
chilling for a while.
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