A SLIGHTLY SOGGY MONDAY!

We saw Matt off bright and early this morning, he had a 6:30 taxi to Charles de Gaulle airport.  We were sad to see him go, but I know he's ready to get back to Jeanne, the dogs and his own bed.  We're wishing him a easy journey home--and I hope he can sleep on that looooong flight from Paris to Dallas!

He seemed to thoroughly enjoy most of the sights we visited, and I was impressed with his knowledge of history.  Matt is also a GREAT navigator, we didn't get lost in the Louvre once--and that's quite an accomplishment!

David and I had a relaxing day in Paris.  We Metro'd over to the St. Germaine de Pres area, strolled the pretty streets and enjoyed the beautiful buildings.  This is a very upscale area of Paris, it was fun to window shop and we just laughed in amazement at some of the prices.  We are not the Rockefellers, you know!

Interesting statue at an intersection:

Detail of the head:

Beautiful, beautiful door:

Pretty flower shop,  I love their sidewalk displays:

Another interesting door--these guys are working hard!

Our initial destination was La Grande Epicerie , the very chic food emporium owned by (and right next door to) Le Bon Marche. 

Right as walked in there was the pastry counter--OH MY!  Gorgeous tarts, cakes and macarons--I started to take a photo of one particularly stunning fruit tart, and was quickly and sternly told "no photos!"  Later, as we left the store, I was bad and took a photo from behind a pillar, here is a bad zoomed in photo of those $60.00 tarts!

They have food from all over the world, and even have a US section.  We were amazed to see Campbell's tomato soup for a little over $5 a can, Lipton's Orange Pekoe teabags for around $9 a box and small cans of Libby's pumpkin for about $8! Their "Tex-Mex" section was a hoot--I really can't believe Parisians pay those ridiculous prices for El Paso brand food!

It was fun to browse through the different foods of the world, but the fresh food area was really fantastic.

The bread selection was huge, it all looked delicious.  The prices were at least double what they are at our local boulangerie!

 Cheese!  (I post these cheese pictures just to torture our friend PAT!!!)

Beautiful terrines and pates, I would have loved to try every one of these!

Wonderful cured meats, including Ibera ham for about $60 a pound!

Really good looking individual main dishes-they looked more like pastries!

There was even a caviar bar, I didn't bother to look at the prices!

Of course we cruised the beer section:

I confess to buying one of these:

This might have been interesting:

Banana beer?  No thanks!

After we drooled our way through the whole grand store, we check out.  Our meager purchase?  2 beers and a pack of Kleenex for my poor runny nose.

We strolled around until we found the nearest Metro, and made a line change at the Concorde station.  I had told Matt about the tile, but we'd not stopped at Concorde while he was here.  The letters are the text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man from the French Revolution of 1789.   Here's a couple of pictures for you, Matt.

We decided to get off at the Bastille stop, as I thought I'd remembered this area had some interesting street art.  We didn't see much street art, but there was a very large contemporary art show and sale set up along both sides of the Seine.  This huge copper water heater (?) was right at the entrance.

Matt would have liked the decoration on top:

We walked thru one side of the show, there were a lot of very interesting artist, many painters, several potters and sculptors.  Many pieces I'd love to have--but of course they won't fit into my suitcase.  There were also quite a few jewelry artists, but nothing very interesting.  Sherry--they need you in Paris--I didn't see anything that compares to your work!

We saw two small pieces of street art during our day, here they are:

We went over to the Marais (Jewish area) to have lunch at our favorite falafel spot.  We actually tried a new one instead, and we weren't disappointed!  The falafel was huge and delicious!  We ordered what we thought was side plate of veggies, but instead got this really big plate of veggies--It was good, though; especially the pickles and grilled eggplant!  It was way too much food and we left at least half of it.  We did enjoy every bite, though.

We got a little sidetracked along the way to our next area, and decided to take a peek inside this church.  Of course it was wonderful!
 The Saint Gervais Church:

The vault was especially interesting, with a star pattern:

Pews are not common in French churches, we usually see individual wooden chairs with rush seats.  This church had small wooden stools:

Behind the altar:

A pretty side window:

 The detail is amazing:

A lovely chapel right behind the altar:

 The columns were nicely painted:

 Ceiling:

There is a gorgeous pipe organ, and someone was practicing while we were there.  The sound was just magical, and I wished Matt had been there to hear it.

We came out of the church to a torrential downpour! Guess what?  We'd let our umbrellas at the apartment because the sun was out when we left!  Will we ever learn??  We decided to Metro back to the apartment and get them, and continue on with our day.  We rushed to the nearest Metro--the Cite stop.

This is one of my favorite Metro entrances--It's Art Nouveau at it's prettiest!  It's on Ille de Cite.

Detail:

We took an hour or so at the apartment to call Mom and Dad for a nice chat, do some preliminary packing and organizing, and schedule our ride to the airport tomorrow.

We went out again late afternoon to the Latin Quarter to stroll the quaint, narrow streets.  This is one of the oldest parts of Paris, but is now filled with tourist shops and restaurants.  The buildings and architecture are interesting, though.

We went into a chocolate shop, they had some amazing chocolate pieces!

Not sure what this little guy was supposed to be:

 This looks pretty good--what an assortment!

 These little mushroom baskets were my favorites:

We did buy a very small assortment of chocolates--we are saving them for our flight to Istanbul tomorrow!

By now we were winding down and it was still raining pretty hard.  We decided on an early dinner at one of our favorites-Leon de Bruxelles for mussels and fries.  It seemed like a long metro ride--I think my French cold meds are wearing off!

We had a delicious (as usual!) pot of steamed mussels and a glass of beer each.  We never get tired of those yummy little things.  David said it's a good thing we don't have a Leon's in Spudville--we'd go broke!

The Metro ride home seemed even longer, the stairs steeper--I'm positive my cold meds have worn off now!

Back at our cute little apartment we finished packing and hit the sack early.  No dessert for us tonight--I might even be getting over my Paris dessert fixation!

Tomorrow we are off to Istanbul for two weeks.  We are really looking forward to our time there, but are a little apprehensive--neither of us knows a single word of Turkish!  It should be quite an experience, and we have some fun side trips planned--so stay tuned!