A quieter day in Paris

Originally when planning the trip I had hoped to attend the 9.15 Mass at Eglise Saint Antone des Quinze-Vingts, however on checking on Saturday night it became clear that the Church had moved to

"Horaires des messes pendant l'été" which google translate has as: Mass Schedule for the Summer and only had one Sunday morning mass at 10.45 a.m.

Rather than hunt down a new Church to attend we re-planned our Sunday morning. We breakfasted at 7.30 and the breakfast was as good as it had been the day before. I maintained my preference for cooked ham and cheese with bread (wholewheat this morning) while Drew had his sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs. Clearly because he hadn't had enough to eat last night (only kidding) he followed this up by a pain au chocolat, crossiont  and a chocolate muffin. We both had orange juice and two coffees.

Returning to the room we packed so that our two suitcases and one of our smaller cases could be left in the hotels luggage room and the stuff we needed could be in Drew's ruck-sack.

We left the room and checked out at 9.30, the Novotel have a locked luggage room which was very secure, so we left the three cases there. Drew went out for a sit in the morning sun and I went to Mass.

It was a really nice Mass with good organ playing and excellent singing led by two cantors, one male, one female. Clearly my French is not good enough to get all the nuances of the sermon, but with the first reading from Exodus 16 (when God provides manna for the people of Israel) and the gospel from John 6:24-35 (a section on Jesus talking about the bread of life, his body) it was a reasonable guess that the sermon would be about devotion to the Body of Christ in the Eucharist and by the number of times the priest said "Corps du Christ" in the sermon I think it was.

After Mass I went back to meet Drew, by this time it had started to pick to rain, but it cleared up so we soon were off an another walk.

This time we decided to visit the Place de la Bastille and the Paris Opera House, which is on the square. We walked around the July column and Drew took photos of it from all four sides of the square.

  

On one side of the square there was a market taking place - Marche de creation bastille. This was a mix of typical market goods, trinkets etc, alongside some wonderful food. The food stalls were significantly more popular than the rest. They included:

Fruit

  

Vegetables

  

Meat

  

Some amazing offal, including little brains (in the foreground of the picture) 

 

And some delightful cheeses including my favourite, the orange cheese of France - Mimolette

 

As anyone who knows me will realise Markets are a particular treat for me and this one talk two hours to navigate, plus another 30 minutes when Drew and I lost each other! Using the principle that if I stood still where I last saw him we would meet up again we found each other and arranged to have a slightly late lunch.

Lunch was at the Cafe de Les Phares around the place de la Bastille. Drew opted for a Croque Monseignr and I had a four egg omelette with ham, cheese and mushroom and a side salad. We have put photos up on flickr (one of my colleagues, Wendy Low, started this tradition of photographing her food and sharing the photos, and it has become a common practice for us too.) The waitress was so keen that we had taken a photo that she took the camera and photographed us:

After lunch we walked along the canal that leads from the Bastille to the Seine. We sat for awhile watching the people going by, and not only were there a mix of Parisians and tourists, but suddenly a huge number (500-600) of people rollerblading down the street. I like strange sights on holiday, and this one was, ranging from the most competent bladers to the lady who got 100 meters hanging on to her partner and then gave up.

About an hour later it began to rain heavily, we walked back to the hotel, and spent the next two hours sitting in the lobby staying out of the rain and blogging and checking the things for the next few days.

We picked up our luggage from the hotel and then walked the 50 meters from the hotel to the Gare de Lyon and waited for our overnight train. The end of another pleasant day in Paris