We spent the first part of the morning close to home in the Marais. Just a few blocks from our apartment is one of Paris's loveliest squares, and our favorite, Place des Vosges. It's a square that actually is a square, ringed by 36 townhomes, nine on a side and all perfectly symmetrical. The centerpiece is a lovely gated park, with large trees, grassy areas, fountains, children's play areas, and lots of benches; it seems like the epitome of civilized, sedate urban living. Once the setting of royal and aristocratic residences, now the arcaded ground floor spaces are occupied by shops and restaurants, with the upper levels devoted to residences.
One such home was the apartment of Victor Hugo and his family, which is open to the public. It was a wonderful opportunity to have an inside look at these fabled homes, to look out the windows on to the square and the hidden courtyard, and to learn a bit about Hugo's life.
Leaving the square, we walked through the beautiful courtyard of the Hotel Sully, a mansion which now houses state documents, before stopping to visit the Jesuit Church of St. Paul and St. Louis.
In the Marais, the Rue des Rosiers is the heart of the old Jewish quarter, and home to many ethnic restaurants and bakeries, as well as plaques memorializing residents deported during World II, as well as the victims of a terrorist bombing at at Jewish delicatessen in 1982.
The Marais is hip today, with lots of new shops, cafes and restaurants occupying the ground floors of old buildings. In the 1960s, the National Assembly declared the area a protected zone, and many of the new shops still bear the signs of their former occupants. This explains why a sophisticated clothing boutique is housed in a space proclaiming it to be a bakery or pastry shop!
Leaving the Marais, we headed for the Left Bank, crossing over L'Ile St. Louis and L'Ile de la Cite. On the Pont de l'Archeveque (the Archbishop's Bridge), the bridge is crammed with the "Lovers' Locks" that have taken the world (and this city's many bridges) by storm. Traditionally, a couple writes their names on the locks, clamps them to a railing on the bridge, and throws the key into the river. We did notice a certain percentage of less-than-fully-committed couples; they used combination locks!!
On the Left Bank, we walked along the Blvd. St. Germain, through street markets and past the Sorbonne (University of Paris), and then along Blvd. St. Michel to the Luxembourg Gardens, certainly in the running for the city's loveliest park. It was gorgeously decked out in fall plantings and was the perfect place for our picnic lunch. The original palace, built by Catherine de Medici, is now the home of the French Senate, and the fortunate Senators certainly have a terrific work environment.
A couple of blocks' walk from the gardens brought us to the massive Church of Sulpice, with its renown 7,000 pipes, some of which we heard being played (loudly) during our visit. A bit farther on, we visited the Church of St. Germain des Pres, one of the oldest in the city, with its first iteration a 6th century Benedictine abbey -- atmospheric.
Walking along Rue Bonaparte, we soon reached the banks of the Seine, where we enjoyed browsing les bouquinistes, the booksellers whose stalls line the quay. Crossing to L'Ile de la Cite, we found a long line of people lined up to visit the cathedral; we checked out Mass times for tomorrow and plan to return then. We wandered around the back streets of the island and L'Ile St. Louis before walking back to the Right Bank and the Marais, where we made a short stop at the Musee Carnavalet, which is devoted to the history of Paris. The museum, housed in two former mansions, has an extensive collection, so we decided to just have a look at the exhibits devoted to the prehistoric and Roman periods.
The streets between the museum and our apartment, a couple of blocks away, were just jammed with the young and the beautiful, many of them toting their shopping bags from the neighborhood's trendy shops. We were happy to enjoy our happy hour at home, looking down at it all from above.
Dinner tonight was in a bistro about 10 minutes' walk from our apartment. We had a fine meal it what seemed to be a real neighborhood place -- no English menu, and everyone in the place was speaking French. The atmosphere was relaxed and lovely, a sweet way to cap off this day.
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