Decided to explore the areas close to us as suggest by
Gail. So glad we did. Strolled through the streets of the Marais district and explored the Place des Vosages (first photo below) with lovely trees, grassed areas and a meeting place for many especially gays and Jews.
The Village of St Paul (above) is in the oldest part of Paris and you can even see the wall remains of the original fortification now with a modern playground (see below) made from a synthetic all weather surface which looks like sand. There was even a three-lane 60m straight running track and a long jump pit. This is probably part of the school that is nearby.
For lunch we sampled the best falafel sandwiches in the world (reputedly) and were lucky to get a seat in the restaurant. The meals were certainly very good and we didn't need a big meal later! There were people lined up down the street to get takeaways.
The place over the street sold the same but had no customers! Also took in a photo exhibition which was superb.
Oh to be able to take photos like that. One was contrived black and white shots of a beautiful girl using great lighting set up. The other was of war torn or disaster areas which captured the moment but the lighting effects added in later in the studio.
Then on to a strange building called the Centre Pompidou named after a previous president. It is completely out of sync with the style of building in Paris and stands out like a sore thumb. The photos paint the picture if you can excuse the pun. It is a National Art Museum mostly the more modern rather than the classics. Saw a travelling Matisse exhibition which happened to be on at this time and more of his works in the permanent collection along with Picasso and Brague. Modern art doesn't do much for us though. However, well worth the visit as it does house a lot of art.
Could not complete the whole tour...too long and tiring. The sky was blue (for a change) and its was hot so made our way back to the Notre Dame again for better photos and another sampling of some superb ice cream from Berthillons close by.
Tried a few shops. The streets were full of people, bars were full after work and the shops were finally open so we were able to more than window shop.
Before getting back to the apartment we stopped to rest our weary feet after 12 hours walking and had a great Belgian beer!
Tomorrow we use the hop-on hop-off bus to get around the other main sights.
