We didn’t wake up until nearly 11 am, but we felt great! We finally left the apartment at about 1 and stopped by a pastry shop for a little chevre (goat cheese) and spinach quiche and then to a café for some café au lait and to eat, and then headed to Notre Dame. We didn’t quite make it there…
We got sidetracked and found ourselves at Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie. The Sainte-Chapelle was built to house Jesus’s Crown of Thorns and has some 1100 Bible scenes portrayed in its stained glass. The basement area was for commoners, worshipping under a sky filled with painted fleurs-de-lis, and royal Christians worshipped upstairs, where all the stained glass is. The altar was raised up high to better display the crown of thorns.
Before the Revolution, the Conciergerie was a prison where people were tortured and executed, and was the final stop for guillotine victims during the revolution. It was interesting and impressive but quite grim, of course. They had mannequins and scenes set up to show how conditions were in the cells depending on how wealthy you were: the poor people slept on straw, several people to a cell; the middle class had maybe two people to a cell and slept on cots, and the wealthy had private cells with cot and desk. Really quite grim. I think we didn’t see the museum where there was a guillotine blade, but I’m not sure.
After Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie, we stopped for hot chocolate near the Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Garden)—this hot chocolate was better than last night’s! We didn’t have time for Notre Dame today, but we walked by it and wandered through the Latin Quarter a bit, checking out souvenir shops and restaurants.
Bits of French slowly started coming back to me, and it helps that it’s all much less overwhelming today. After wandering around, we went to Le Bon Marché, a big supermarket, and bought assiete du canard (a lovely, creamy, duck pate), a couple kinds of cheese, and bread, and stopped by a pastry shop for dessert (and walked by where Anne had lived here--it was her turn to get a little emotional!), and then ended up at a bar for a beer. We didn't even get home until 9:30 or so, and we stayed up eating and figuring out our plan for the next few days until we realized it was 1:30 am! So we went to sleep.
Since we had slept so late, it was a short day as far as seeing and doing, but it was so fun nonetheless!
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.