MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2008

Today was church day. We set off in mid morning for the St. Germain area where we visited the Église de St. Germain des Prés.

This church sits on the site of the oldest church in Paris. The current church is not the original, however. The church dates from the 11th century and was originally an abbay. It has in its garden a sculpture by Pablo Picasso of Guillaume Apollinaire, one of his friends.

Across from the church is the famous café, Les Deux Magots. Just on the next corner is another famous one, Le Café de Flore. Alexandria has pronounced the hot chocolate at Les Deux Magots the best she has ever had.

We went down to visit the lovely little square, la place Furstemberg.

Then we went severl blocks to see the St. Sulplice church. This is the church that played a major part in the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code. There is an interesting disclaimer posted in the church indicating that a "certain book" has not been exactly accurate in what it says about the church. St. Sulplice is the second largest church after Notre Dame and is currently undergoing major work on the exterior. Janet and Carl found the fountain in the square interesting.We have been there before in the blog. We had a bit of lunch in the café facing the church.

We went off to the Luxemburg Gardens only up the street from St. Sulplice. There were not as many people there as our first visit so we were able to find chairs and sit down in the sun for a while. We discovered the very complete children's area with loads of swings, merry-go-rounds, etc. We continued through the park and up to the boulevard Montparnasse for the bus back.

This evening we had dinner at one of our favorites, Marie-Edith located on the rue du Laos near the place Cambronne. Here is Janet's dinner, magret de canard (duck breast).

After dinner, we went up the the École Militaire where we had a fine view of the Eiffel Tower lit up in glorious blue. We had never seen it this way before. It must be relatively new. At 10 p.m .we watch as the lights started their hourly blinking and playing. Most impressive. Back home at a reasonable hour.