SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2008

Today, we did a very touristy thing that Alexandria and I had done many times before but never tire of. The boat trip on the Seine. We went to the place d'Alma where we had a light lunch before we got on the boat. As usual, there were a lot of passengers, but it was not crowded. Carl and Janet enjoyed the trip and took lots of photos.

After the ride, we went to the Ile de la Cité to visit the cathedral of Notre Dame. As is usual especially on a weekend, there were long lines to go into the cathedral but it moved quickly. We spent almost an hour there. Janet and Carl wanted to go up in the tower, but it was too late. They had closed.

We went around behind the cathedral to visit the memorial to the French Martyrs of the Deportation. It is a very sobering place to visit. There is a long corridor with thousands of tiny blinking lights, one for each of those deported from France. The memorial was inaugurated by President de Gaulle in 1962.

Finally, we crossed the bridge between the Ile de la Cité and the Ile St. Louis. We walked down the rue St. Louis en l'Ile which is the principal street of the island. We did a little shopping in several of the wonderful shops on the street.
Back to the apartment for a short rest before we went out to dinner at Chez Jenny, an Alsatian restaurant just off the place de la République. When we arrived there, a very large crowd of people was milling around after a rock concert. The restaurant specializes in sauerkraut and other Alsatian specialties. The ladies had the seafood sauerkraut and the men had the paysanne which had a variety of pork specialties with the sauerkraut. a nice dessert finished off a fine meal and a lovely evening. By this time, the streets were not too crowded