Slow day...but hey...we are in Paris

---

Our first stop after breakfast was back to St. Paul's Square. When Bev and Mike were there on Monday they had found some nice sandles for Karyss (Mike's girlfriend), she had approved and we decided to pick them up quickly to get it out of the way. While Bev and Mike went to the shoe store, I saw a HEMA store (similar to a shoppers drug mart) across the street and went there with dad. HEMA has some wonderful rice cakes with chocolate on it, 6 for a Euro! I bought a package of those as well as a few other items. We had agreed to meet up again in the square but since Mike and Bev were not there yet Ed and I went for a walk down Rue de Rivoli, reminiscing about the last time we were in Paris and stayed at an apartment right nearby.

We finally met up with Bev and Mike again and they had not one, not two but three pairs of new shoes! In addition to the sandles Mike had found a pair of blue suede shoes and a pair of black dress shoes. Since this was a little more than he wanted to carry around all day we split up once more with Mike and I to head back to the room and drop off our purchases and Bev and Ed to walk along the Seine River to Ile du Louis. We agreed to meet at Notre Dame at 1:30pm. Mike and I had a fairly uneventful trip. We tried reusing the metro tickets from this morning, they seem to be good for a while, in Calgary you have an hour and a half for you journey, in Paris I am not really sure. When I put my ticket through it made an error sound but the turnstile moved and I got through alright, Mike, not so much. I had to hand him a new ticket through the bars. At the apartment Mike changed into his new suede shoes and away we went. At the metro I got out a new ticket for myself and Mike was going to reuse the one I had just given him, the only problem was there were two tickets in his jacket pocket and he couldn't remember which was the new one! He ended up trying both, neither got him through so I had to find ANOTHER new ticket for him! But we made it on the trains and to Notre Dame only 3 minutes behind schedule.

Bev and Ed went for a walk down to the Ile du Louis where they spent their time birding, they saw the regular Parisian birds, wood pigeon, mallard, house sparrow but they also saw a new bird. Not just new for Paris but a lifer, a never before seen bird (at least not seen by them) A Grey Wagtail!! Then as they were coming over the bridge to get back to the Notre Dame a familiar sound came to them, it sounded like...Gypsy Jazz. One of the young men that had been playing last night was on the bridge with a new band. They were just finishing up their set but Bev got a few photos and a CD from them!

What started as a quick trip before starting our day turned into a full morning. We found the Shakespeare book store, one of the few English book stores in Paris. It was a fruitful stop with Ed finding a bird book, Bev finding a true crime novel, and Mike finding a book on Django Reinhardt (a famous Gypsy Jazz musician). We then made our was towards the Sainte-Chapelle. There was a line since the Chapel had been closed, probably so that the police who were doing the bag check prior to entry could have a lunch break. We entered Sainte-Chapelle, which was built in 1242-1248 by decree of King Louis IX as a place to store the relics of the Passion of the Christ, the most famous relic being the Crown of Thorns (which cost the king 3 times more than the construction of the chapel)!

The ground floor was the servents chapel, nice but unremarkable. Upstairs is 15 beautiful stain glass windows depicting 1,113 different scenes from the bible. You could spend the whole day there 'reading' all of the stories depicted in the glass. We went from there to the Conciergerie.

The Conciergerie was where the men and women who were accused were held before their trial and generally their execution. On the eve of their court appearance, prisoners were notified that their trial was to begin and the charges brought against them by the "evening journal" or bill of indictment. Once the verdict had been given, prisoners sentenced to death were allowed to enjoy a final feast. There were two types of prisoners the Pailleux, poor prisoners who were reduced to sleeping on straw and Pistolier, prisoners who could afford to pay a few pistoles for a cell with a bed. There was also Marie-Antionette who was held there for 76 days before she was executed.

By then we were all hungry and it was almost 5pm so we decided to get dinner, however as we were walking no one could agree on wher to eat, some places were too expensive, some didn't have anything appetizing to eat. Finally we fell back onto the most familiar place to eat...McDonalds!

Since it had gotten so late we had a rousing debate about whether we should still try to make it to the Louvre (which was open until 9:45pm), do something else or head back to the apartment. The consensus was we should head back towards the apartment, however as we were passing the stores we could pop in just for a few minutes to look at a couple more clothes...well an hour and later and a few Euro poorer we made it past the stores and back to the metro station.

Back at the apartment we had an evening snack of fruit, chocolate and a baguette with melted cheese, played a game of Pandemic and got ready for bed at a decent time (11pm), so that we could get up early tomorrow to go to Montmartre.

---

Photos

Shakespeare's Book store
The English book shop

Sainte-Chapelle
The great shrine which once held the Crown of Thorns.

Sainte-Chapelle
Panels of stained glass depicting bible stories.

Sainte-Chapelle
The western rose illustrating the prophetic Apocalypse of St. John.

Sainte-Chapelle
The great doors which exit onto the outer terrace, once connected to the Palace, and the only way in.

Sainte-Chapelle
Reading about the stained glass

Conciergerie
The Hall of Men-at-Arms.

Conciergerie
An example of the luxurious accomidations, if you could afford it!

Evening
Our evening snack back at the apartment