Last Day in Paris

http://cyberblogue.com/how-to-export-mailboxes-from-exchange-2007-to-pst-file Another bright, sunny day in Paris! Whoo Hooo! Can’t believe our luck!  First task of the day: coffee and, when Mike went to the bakery this morning, he found tart tropiezenne – that wonderful tart we had discovered in Nice and Provence and been unable to find since that first week of our trip!  

http://stephanepereira.com/ALFA_DATA/alfacgiapi/perl.alfa We split this tart tropezienne four ways this morning

It’s a genoise with pastry cream with a hint of the tropics (banana, coconut, citrus? who knows?)  This one was more formal-looking when compared to our first, which was more rustic.  I found this recipe on the internet, Click Here!  It was a real treat to enjoy it on this our last day in Paris, even though we split one slice four ways – it was well worth the extra pushups and crunches required!

After squeezing all my belongings into my suitcase in preparation for tomorrow’s early morning departure, we headed over to the internet cafe to see if we could print our boarding passes. The Shoemakers had warned us that the lines at CDG were horrific and the only reasonable line was for those who had printed boarding passes.  The internet cafe was open, Mike spent over 7 euros, and one hour confirming us and trying to print boarding passes.  He even spent 30 minutes on the phone with the Internet Help desk at USAir (in Manila in the Philippines) who told him they did not have a problem and that he should try a different internet cafe or find one with Windows Explorer 7 or Firefox, not Explorer 8.  He was irritated to say the least, when after downloading Firefox, he could still not print the boarding passes.  He vowed to bend the ear of a USAir Customer Service Manager when he had the chance – especially after wasting over an hour of a beautiful sunny day.

We decided we would take the Paris walk titled “Scholars and Rebels: The Latin Quarter” assuming we might run into another internet cafe along the way.  What has surprised us the most on this entire trip is the lack of internet cafes.  Plenty of restaurants and cafes have Wi-Fi access, but internet cafes with printer access seem to be in fairly short supply.  During our walk in the Latin Quarter, despite its proximity to the Sorbonne, we didn’t notice a single one.

Our walk started at place St-Michel, so we made our way there via Metro and the RER C.  We were elated to come out of the underground and see blue skies and the shining sun.  Place St-Michel is home to a fountain depicting the Archangel Michael tossing the devil into the waters of the fountain.  This area is known for its awful restaurants, cheap souvenir shops, students and their revellery, and dubious nightspots. Its beginnings date to Roman times and is a contrast in extremes.

Interior of St-Severin

We passed the tawdry restaurants with their proprietors out front enticing tourists in to dine on awful food and made our way into the Gothic church St-Severin.  Its interior is a virtual forest of columns and pillars and, in contrast to the noise and confusion outside, very quiet and peaceful.  St-Severin has done a wonderful job of explaining its history in multiple languages, many other tourist attractions should take lessons – even those in Richmond, Virginia.

We wandered back through the narrow streets, past the narrowest one in Paris and where Napoleon lived in 1795.  All of a sudden, we broke through the dinginess onto the bank of the Seine and Notre-Dame was right in front of us.  We turned away from the river onto rue St Julien le Pauvre past its pretty little church situated on a garden-like park.  It’s a modest church, now Greek Orthodox, and its construction started in 1170.

The oldest street sign in Paris, a 14th century bas relief depicting St Julien and his wife helping Christ across the Seine

Around the corner on rue Galande, we found the oldest street sign in Paris, a 14th century bas-relief of St Julien and his wife helping Christ across the Seine.  Since I don’t believe Christ ever made it to the Seine River, St Julien the Poor is probably one of those saints who was de-canonized.  We looked for the noted gourmet bookstore, but couldn’t find it – though we did find shops selling cartoon paraphernalia and comic books.

On the wall of 27 rue St-Jacques we saw a sundial by Salvidor Dali.  The rue is so named because it marked the start of the medieval pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain — St Jacques de Compostelle in French!  We had encountered remnants of this pilgrim path all over France on this trip and, until we had visited Spain a few years ago, were unaware of its significance.

Rather than head to the Musee de Cluny, home of the unicorn tapestries and the remains of Gallo-Roman baths, we decided to stay in the sun and take advantage of the outdoors.  We walked west on bd St Germain and stopped at Cafe Mondrian, at the corner of rue de Seine, for a lunch of croques and salad.  Our server was very pleased when we said we preferred to speak French with him and was surprised we did not eat our frites — but they weren’t that good and besides, we had enjoyed  tart in the morning.  As we sat there, hoping a tourist and his/her backpack would not sweep our table clean of plates and glasses, I noticed a Polish Bookstore across the street – my Massachusetts relatives would be proud!

The Polish bookstore on boulevard St Germain!

After basking in the sun for a while, we headed up rue de Seine to the river and walked along the river toward Invalides.  Along the way, we spotted the “wedding ring” scam in action performed by two older gypsy-ish women and a younger woman as well.  They each had a coat or sweater over their arm, and when they spotted a likely tourist-target, would stoop down and pick up a wedding ring.  They would stop the target and ask if it belonged to him/her.  We watched as the target examined the ring before they would commit one way or the other.  Emy, who had the scam pulled on her, said the scammer would always tell her to look inside – which she did.  To see the fake 14K gold stamp?  If/when the target took the ring, she would ask for a reward.  If offered coins, she would ask for bills instead.  We diligently watched almost half-a-dozen times, trying to figure out when the pickpocket-ing would take place.  Was there someone up ahead watching to strike later?  We never saw it.  But, perhaps, it was just selling a 10 rings-for-a-euro ring for a profit!  We had seen them up at Porte de Clingancourt at the hustler-folks outside the Marche aux Puces.

Walking along the Seine on a sunny day! The best!

We ambled westward along the Seine, past Invalides to our apartment.  We stopped by the cafe on the corner for an aperitif.  Then, home again, for Mike to pack.  Then, while I post the blog – he headed off to the internet cafe to try to print boarding passes again.  Finally, success!

After a light dinner of take-out from the restaurant/stand downstairs, we hung out the windows of our apartment every hour on the hour watching the Eiffel Tower flash its lights on our last night in Paris – for this trip anyway.  The apartment had its inconveniences, one bathroom for 4 people (3 of them women), fairly noisy location on a bus route, trash trucks 4 and 5 times a day (I guess that is what you get with full employment!) – BUT, the view out the windows of the Eiffel Tower was a real treat!

Pont Alexandre, Paris' prettiest bridge