May 24th, Day 5
It's Sunday morning and we're going to walk to Saint-Germain-des-Pres because our B.I. neighbor Ken said it was beautiful inside. Oh, and Descartes is buried there. Saint-Germain-des-Pres is just a few blocks from St. Sulpice where we wanted to listen to the organist play before 11AM Mass so we visited both.
Childebert, son of Clovis, built a basilica around 543 dedicated to Saint Vincent and the Holy Cross. It became the necropolis of the Merovingian kings (Saint-Symphorien Chapel). Saint Germain, after whom it is named, was also buried there in 576. Pillaged by the Normans, the church was rebuilt starting around the year 1000; the bell tower-porch bears witness to this.
The construction was lengthy and brought new solutions to architectural problems. The nave was completed around 1050. The semicircular choir is surrounded by an ambulatory bordered by five radiating chapels with ribbed vaults (1163). Pierre de Montreuil added the Chapel of the Virgin and the cloister to the church in 1245; these have since disappeared.
The Benedictine abbey, under the direct authority of the Pope, adopted the Rule of Saint Maur in 1631; it became a fruitful center of historical research thanks to its scholars, such as Dom Mabillon. The abbey was suppressed in 1790. While the restorations carried out on the church in the 19th century were not always successful, its architecture has now been restored to its former glory.
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| Looking toward Saint-Germain-des-Press altar. |
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| Looking from the altar back to the organ. |
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| Saint-Germain-des-Pres is the oldest church in Paris. |
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| We arrived to St. Sulpice for the 10:45AM organ prelude to Mass. |
This is an audio only of the organ prelude. This is
2:30min and begins kind of subdued...
...and this 56 second audio is dramatic.
We stayed through most of the Mass, leavingat the homily since we wouldn't understand
a word of it.
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| It was 90F (32C) by the time we got to Baguette Paris at noon at the end of our lane. Marie ordered this grilled veggie sandwich. |
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| I ordered a croque monsieur–so yummy! |
We hung out in our cool apartment until we met Carmen, Sam, and his fiancée Aly at Le Viaduc for a drink.
Carmen Crenshaw-Hovey, Aly, and Sam, her eldest son, live in Zurich, but Sam works for Citibank and is on a 3 month assignment in Paris so Carmen and Aly came down to Paris for a three day weekend. We all had a good visit. Aly had to catch her 6PM train back to Zurich so Sam walked her to Gare de Lyon and joined us again at Le Viaduc.
We saw Carmen three years ago during our post-Covid trip and we were surprised when she texted us and said she was in Paris too and suggested we get together.
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| Sasha, the dog, Carmen, Alexzander, Sam, and Aly his fiancée the day after Christmas. |
I love these kind of serendipitous moments. Carmen's sons were not in town when we visited her in Zurich, so the last time I saw Sam, he was 7 and now he's 31 and a stock trader for Citibank and is getting married this August. Time flies!
We all walked to Place de la Bastille and had a light dinner on the square at La Falstaff. Carmen enjoyed a melted goat cheese on small triangles of toast resting on a salad and Marie and I shared a caesar salad. We both had a bowl of the ubiquitous (and delicious) French french fries. Sam was whipped from his long bike ride earlier in the day so he headed back to his apartment to take a cool shower.
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| Aly and Sam in Paris. |
Alexzander is now working on a cruise ship out of Nassau. He's a sports director for a cruise line and is thriving even though he's putting in 70 hour weeks.
Carmen said he'll get a couple months off starting in August and will return to Zurich to recharge his batteries.
May 25th, Day 6—Too Damn Hot!
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| Underground RER train. It's not always about the metro. |
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| Our train is one stop to the Tuileries Gardens. We took the train because the station is at the end of our lane, one stop away from the Tuileries Gardens. Why?Well, at 11AM it was already 86F (30C) |
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| We crossed the center walkway at the gardens to get under the shade. |
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Folks in the Tuiluries Gardens catching some shade, and hopefully a breeze. |
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| Is this a bit of Picasso in the Tuileries Gardens? |
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| This art installation at Pont Neuf is pretty cool |
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We visited Saint Chapelle 3 years ago so we don't feel compelled to do so again even though it's a block away from our apartment. |
The walk back to our apartment was hot, damn hot (91F/33C). Thankfully, we brought our umbrellas with us to create our own shade, but I have to say, the heat radiating up from the street wasn't helpful.
Both of us took a cool shower as soon as we entered our apartment. Marie ate a banana and some potato chips to replenish her potassium and salt. We hung out, avoiding the 91F/33C heat before making our way to Bateaux-Mouches for an evening Seine River cruise.
The cruise was worth it once we were underway, but standing in line with a horde of other folks wasn't exactly what we had in mind. I purchased tickets on line, and for some silly reason, I thought we'd skip lining up. Ha!
Anyway, once on the boat, we sat topside and so enjoyed a light breeze as the sun set. The cruise lasted about 70 minutes and was quite pleasant looking at the city from the river. Enjoy the pictures without commentary.
After we docked, we caught the RER on our way back to our apartment only to find out a few minutes into the ride that Invalides would be the train's last stop. Um, what?! So a 15 minute train ride back to Place St. Michel ended up being a long walk along underground tunnels in search of a Metro link that got us home. An hour later we did finally arrive and we dropped into bed after a third shower shortly after midnight.
