TUESDAY IN PARIS

Wow, we slept in this morning--6:30!  That is late for us……..

After our usual several cups of coffee, surfing the net and breakfast, we set off to find another "junque" store near our apartment.  I was looking for some old French books for a reasonable price.  I'd found some wonderful old books on Saturday at the Vanves Flea Market, but they were too many Euros, and too lovely to cut up!  Today I found just what I was looking for, paid just a few Euros for a big book of sheet music, and three other old books--perfect for the project I have in mind.

Lovely Christmas trees, as seen in a shop window in Strasbourg.  Of course, I would have to use French books for these!

(And I'm glad we can check three bags each going home--we might need to!)

We made a quick trip back to our apartment--those books were heavy, and I certainly didn't want to carry them around all day.

Our plan for the afternoon was to visit the Canal St. Martin area, which seems to be an "up & coming" neighborhood, from what I've read.  It's not an area we've been to and I was intrigued, so off we went.

After a couple of line changes we got out at the Republique Metro stop, and easily found our way to the canal.  It's a nice, wide canal winding through a small section of Paris, and there are several foot bridges  crossing the canal.  We planned to walk up one side, and back down the other, which would be quite a long walk.

At the beginning of the canal, in the Square Jules Ferry, we found this interesting statue.  The inscription reads: La Grisette de 1830.  I was intrigued, so I "googled" it and found that a grisette was a term used to describe a young woman of easy virtue, and later came to mean a young woman who was somewhat "bohemian" in their lifestyle.  Interesting!

This statue was sculpted in 1911 by Jean Descomps.

Canal St. Martin:

We walked along for a few blocks, then decided to turn up a side street to look for a spot for lunch.  We didn't find too much of interest, and soon we came to a wide street--Blvd. Magenta.  We thought surely we'd find a nice place for lunch, but we weren't too excited about the menu offerings.

I'm not sure why we continued on this street--it certainly wasn't interesting, pretty or even nice.  Eventually we found ourselves at Gare d 'Est, we were hungry, tired of walking, and definitely not impressed with the area!

We hopped on the Metro, finding our way to one of our old standbys--Leon de Bruxelles.  We settled in for a nice lunch of mussels and fries and a couple of Christmas beers.  Just what the doctor ordered, and we enjoyed every bite.

Well, maybe not what the doctor ordered, because the longer we sat the worse I felt.  By now I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with something, and I feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck--frontwards and backwards.

I had a brief but lovely illusion of hailing a taxi, settling in for a nice comfortable ride right to the front door of our apartment. Ahhhh, the luxury!

Nah--I sucked it up,  we trudged back down into the Metro, up & down many sets of stairs, through the long passageways, and finally made it home.

Home--where I'm now all snuggled in, resting comfortably with a glass of red wine.  I'm pretty sure the doctor would order that, right?

Keeping my fingers crossed that I'll feel MUCH better tomorrow---Good night from Paris.