Sunday

Last weekend Jen and I headed to Notre Dame for mass. We figured what better way to see the church than during a Sunday morning mass. It was supposed to be the international mass which we thought might be in English, but of course it was all in French. I was able to follow some of the homily, but mostly anticipated based on years of Catholic mass. There were probably several hundred of us in attendance, but it seemed small compared to the immense size of the church. The strange this was that tourists were allowed to walk up and down the outside of the aisles during mass. Cameras were going off constantly and it was a bit of a distraction. At least they kept mostly quiet.

After mass we headed to the Marais for brunch. The Marais is the Jewish quartier and is the place to be on Sundays because everything is open. The central section of the Marais is a series of small streets filled with shops and cafes. There are some amazing places inside this little area and they people are very friendly. We stopped for brunch at a local favorite, Les Philosophes. Jen got a tasty scallop and tomato risotto for 7 euros! I did the full brunch which included croissant, eggs, fresh orange juice, cafe creme, vanilla yogurt, a little custard and bread, butter and jam. It's now on our short list when people come to town to visit.

We strolled through the Marais for a bit doing some shopping and then headed towards the Louvre. We are trying to do one museum every Sunday and this week picked l'Orangerie. We are shying away from the Louvre since it is so big and will take many visits to see all of it. To give you an idea of just how big it is, I took a series of photos while we walked from one end to the other. The Louvre is in the shape of a giant "U" and we entered through an archway at the bottom of the "U". The glass pyramid by I.M. Pei is at this end and is the main entrance down into the Louvre. The museum is both buried deep underground at this point and above ground on the part you can see in the photos.

Standing at the opening of the U, you are looking at the Tuileries gardens. It's a great park and one of the biggest inside Paris. At the opposite end of the park is l'Orangerie which houses some of the room size Monet water lilly paintings. Looking past the park in the following photo, you can see place de la Concorde with an obelisk in the center. That obelisk, 3000 years old and a gift from Egypt, is on the spot where the guillotine used to stand. During the revolution in 1794, over 1000 people were executed on that spot including the King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. If you look a little further in the picture, you can see the grand boulevard Champs Elysee, probably the most famous street in Paris. Finally at the top of the hill is the Arch de Triomphe. So...Louvre to Tuileries to Concorde to Champs Elysee to Arc de Triomphe. (click photo to see more clearly)