Paris, France – September 16, 2012

It was another beautiful day in Paris today, starting out in the upper 50’s but warming into the mid 70’s by noon.  We had some trouble again today getting off to an early start, sleeping in until about 8:00 AM before we even started to get ready.  Part of it was attributable to still getting used to the time change, another part due to just being tired, and the last part due to the really good Bordeaux wine we had last night.

We really did not have a specific plan for today, there was nothing we were trying to see on any particular schedule, so I am sure that was also part of our being a little lazy getting going.  Once we finally got motivated, we were on our way about 10:00 AM.  We did decide to go into the Latin Quarter, which is mostly the area in and around our hotel.

We first headed out to visit the Panthéon, which is a really large building, originally built as a church honoring Saint Genevieve, but then converted into a secular mausoleum  that is used for “honoring the  distinguished French citizens”.  This really translates into a very large crypt for honored French citizens.  Examples of the distinguished tenants include Voltaire, Braille, and Rousseau, as well as Madame Curie.  The building was not that spectacular, or pretty, and the underneath area was full of burial crypts.

After that visit to start the day on such an upbeat note, we headed over to the Luxembourg Gardens.  On the way, we once again found ourselves hunting for some coffee.  We found a small cafe that had fresh muffins and large coffees.  It was by far the best cup of coffee we had found in Paris so far, they actually made a full “to go” cup in their espresso machine.  I had a chocolate chip muffin, and Stephanie had a raspberry muffin.  Both were excellent.  We actually carried them over to the nearby Luxembourg Gardens and sat at a bench in the park to eat our breakfast.  It was an interesting area, obviously well used as a “green” area inside of the city.  There were joggers everywhere, and many people just out for a Sunday morning stroll.

After finishing our muffins, we walked farther into the park, finding the main gardens and reflection pool near the Luxembourg Palace.  This is the water area that is often seen in movies featuring Paris, where all of the children have model sailboats sailing in the reflection pond.  Most of these are rental boats that have no controls, just set up to sail in a straight line from one point to another.

The sailors have bamboo sticks to push the sailboats out again in another direction once they reach the side walls of the pond.  Some of the larger sailboats were remote controlled, and we even saw one child with an electric power boat.  The gardens were full of beautiful flowers.  Everyone was just out enjoying the warm weather.

After finding a “pay” toilet, our first in Paris, we headed over to the Saint-Sulpice Church, famous for its use in the movie and book,  The Da Vinci Code.  It was a rather average church inside, needing some renovation and cleaning (must not have made much on the movie usage).  We did see a line waiting for a trip up into the organ room on the upper level, so we waited in line for our turn to visit the large pipe organ.  This is limited to Sundays, and only during the 12:05 PM  Mass.

It was very interesting to see the vast Organ with all of the push-pull knobs used to make it function.  The organ dated from the early 1800’s. On the way up to the organ, we actually saw  three sets of large manually operated foot pumps needed to supply the organ with air in the days before electricity.  Now it is supplied with air from an electric source.

We actually saw the organ being played during the Mass that was in progress when we arrived at the church.  Footnote: Once we were home tonight, Stephanie looked up the organist online, and found out he was well decorated for his field, and had been at that church as the main organist since 1985.

After leaving the church, we headed on the metro over to the Parc du Champ de Mars park near the Eiffel Tower for some daytime pictures of the tower.  There was a women’s bicycling event going on, and there were hundreds of women cyclists out in the park area, obviously resting and eating their lunches after completion of their race.  We found an area in the grass nearer to the Eiffel Tower and sat for a while enjoying the day and taking a few pictures.

There were just a LOT of people nearby, and there were many buses buses for all of the race participants lined up along the road between us and the Eiffel Tower.

We sat in the park for a while before heading out to try and find a grocery store.  Our plan for lunch was to have a picnic with all of our new Parisian friends in the park.  However, we found that the grocery stores are not normally open on Sunday, at least not the larger chains.  There were a couple of really small stores open, with limited selections, so all we were able to find was a bottle of wine.  We continued to look, thinking that possibly we would find another as we walked around, but we did not.

We ended up near the River Seine near the bridge/tunnel area where princess Diana was killed several years back.  While walking there, we were in need of finding a facility, known here as Le Toilette.  We found a public toilet that was free to use, and was very interesting, and busy  It was a really glorified Port-O-Let, but it was fully automated.  Each time it was used, it would close after the guest left, and go into a wash cycle to clean the actual toilet, including a dry cycle, sort of like a car wash for toilets.   During that wash cycle time, no one could enter.  Since I was about the 6th person in line, I had plenty of idle time to figure out that it took about 2 minutes for the clean cycle, after the person left, and  roughly 3-4 minutes of total time per person.  So, although it was free in monetary cost, we waited about 20 minutes before I was able to use it, the only cost being our time.

Afterward, we headed along the River Seine back to the Eiffel Tower and beyond, still looking for the elusive grocery store.  We did find two more small markets, but neither had the items we needed for a picnic.  It was time for Plan B, eating at a Cafe.  We found one full of locals, and sat at an outside table.  It was called the Carmine Cafe.  One gentleman next to us was having a pizza, and it looked really good.  We ordered a Ham (jambon), cheese (fromage) and mushroom (champignon) pizza, and a half liter of Bordeaux wine.  The pizza was really good, and we were really hungry since it was now about 2:30 PM.

We headed back to the Champs-Elysees to walk around since we had spent so little time there when we visited the Arc de Triomphe two nights ago.  Of course, being Sunday, everyone else also had the same idea, there were people everywhere.  We strolled along the avenue, and saw the Louis-Vuitton store, which Stephanie wanted to go inside to see.  Problem was, there was a line of about 50 people waiting to enter the store.  We believe they were only allowing a few shoppers in the store at a time for security against theft.  We also saw the same thing for the Abercrombie & Fitch store.  Needless to say, we did not wait in line for either.

While walking  we actually got approached by a gypsy looking fellow asking for us to “take his picture”.  We declined, knowing this was one of the best known pickpocket scams, and sure enough, as soon as he left, he was heading up the street looking for another “mark”.  It was obvious he had no intention of getting a picture, or else,  he would have stayed and asked someone else.

By this time, we were tired of the crowds, so we headed back to the Louvre to sit in the park area to watch the sunset over the Eiffel Tower, and to drink our bottle of wine that we had purchased earlier.  We also wanted to take some pictures of the Louvre at night, so we had two reasons for being in that area.  It was a fantastic sunset, there were enough high, wispy clouds to turn deeper shades of pink as the sun set.

We then took  our pictures of the Louvre at night, trying to find an area where people were not doing silly poses with the glass pyramid, which generally consisted of posing so that it appears like they are holding it down with one  finger, or jumping up in the air, we surmise, to try and appear to be jumping over it.

People are funny with their poses, and even funnier with not having a clue that other people are trying to take pictures, and they just walk right in front of you and stand there, even with our large tripod set up.  I thought for one moment Stephanie might go over to them and push them out of the way!

We prevailed, and honor and dignity was maintained through an exercise of patience, and we  finally got our pictures.

We were heading back to our section of town, but needed to make a “rest stop” along the way.  Not seeing any public facilities, we stopped in a local cafe for a glass of wine, a small  (but good) price to pay for the use of their le toilette.  We then saw several interesting food places, selling mostly “to go” items.  We stopped at one store that was making flat pita type bread on a rounded hot skillet, and it was obviously good food based on all of the people stopping there to order.  Stephanie got “the special” and I got ham, with cheese and tomatoes, as well as pickles.   They were sort of like a Libyan hot wrap and were very good.

Since it was now around 10:00 PM, we walked back to the Hotel.  It had been another long day, and of course, we were tired.