Paris Day 6: UNESCO and churches

 

Saturday

4/27

10am Unesco Bldg Tour (printed, cultival) SPOT24 Olympics exhibition daily 930a-645p 101 Quai Jacques Chirac, 15e (Picchetto restaurant 50 av. de la motte picquet, 12am-1230am daily, L’Abreuvoir, 24 rue du Dr Finaly, daily 8am-1130pm; Le Tournesol Paris 16e, 2 av de Lamballe, daily, they have scallops risotto!)   -Our last day started early. We had tickets to tour the Unesco Building at 10am and arrived, as directed, a little early. The guide, with Cultival, not a Unesco employee, took our ids and gave us a lanyard. She did pretty well even if her English was a little rough at times. -I must say I really enjoyed the tour. We went all around the building discussing the building itself, UNESCO’s mission, the art outside and inside, including a massive mural by Picasso, the Japanese gardens, the spiral staircase. It was a good 90 minutes and I wasn’t bored. So glad we did it! -Afterwards, we walked down rue de la Croix Nivert to the boulangerie (same name) where the very nice attendant, with perfect English who was still willing to entertain my bad French, served us up two sandwiches. We ate right there. It was funny listening to every person who entered use the same politesse phrases (bonjour, svp, merci, au revoir, bon journee). After coffee, we decided to head to the Delacroix Museum, via Metro. The walk to the Metro was pretty cool. This was definitely not a touristy area. -The Delacroix recently reopened after a major renovation. We toured it in one of our early trips and we both remembered being impressed. Not so much this time, unfortunately. -It seemed like there were fewer rooms open. And the worst was that it was a Delacroix v. Ingres exhibit detailing their rivalry. They were contemporaries. There were many fewer Delacroix paintings on exhibit to make room for Ingres’ art and violin. It was well done but I would have preferred more Delacroix in the Delacroix museum. The atelier was similarly disappointing because of the numerous Ingres canvases. -The garden was still sweet and gorgeous and a perfect retreat. -It started to rain as we left, the first real rain of the trip. So what to do? I suggested visiting churches. So to St. Germain des Pres we went. Easy, quick walk. It’s such a beautiful church. I pulled up the Blue Guide on my phone and read up about it. We had the Streetwise and could see St. Severin not far away so there we went by Metro. -St. Severin is another pretty church, very different from St. Germain des Pres. The modern stained glass is jarring but the way the church was constructed with those fat pillars fanning up into palms was impressive. -Across the way was St. Julien le Pauvre, not much to it, now a Catholic Greek church so the altar is covered over. It’s really old.  -Around the corner is Rue Galande, one of the oldest streets in Paris, and at #42 is a carved relief, mentioned in 1380, of St. Julien and his wife ferrying Christ across a river (Blue Guide). We saw the relief which most people definitely miss. Pretty cool. -We popped into pretty Square Rene-Viviani where the Notre Dame views dominate! The oldest tree in Paris is there, from 1601, a Robinia (Locust tree or False Acacia). They hold the ND Christmas Market here. -We followed the Blue Guide down Rue de la Bucherie to see the gorgeous former Ecole de Medecine. Kept on walking (somehow didn’t make it to Shakespeare and Company which is around there somewhere). Husband spotted the nice looking Maison Colbert boutique hotel, lovely location on rue de l’Hotel Colbert, and price to match! -We ended up at St. Nicolas Chardonet church which we briefly visited a few years before and had not memory of. Probably because it’s not super memorable. We walked on and stopped at a café for drinks. Very nice service. Husband figured out that it was close to where he waited after visiting the minerals museum when I had my macarons class, the same year we visited St. Nicholas Chardonet, and then went to the Miraculous Metal church for metals. -Which is what prompted us to go back to Miraculous Metal to get metals for some folks fighting cancer. We took the Metro, getting off right into the super busy area by Le Bon Marche department store. -Mass was going on and we listened for a while. Then bought the metals and pamphlets and went back in to get them blessed. But we missed something, it was all in fast French, and didn’t get them blessed. We asked a nun outside afterwards, she had no English. But she was super kind and grabbed another nun who spoke a little English who then grabbed a departing priest who blessed the metals right there for us. Very nice. -We did a little shopping at Le Grande Marche. What a fantastic store! They had all the food products you could want but go up the escalators and they had all the home furnishings and tableware and everything else you could want. Fabulous store but so busy! I wondered if there was a day it wasn’t so slammed? -Husband was in the mood for another burger so off (by Metro) to La Brasserie de l’Isle Saint Louis we went. They offered us the catbird seat, non merci, then sat us in the back ¼ of the restaurant again. So weird. And no recognition of us (I mean everyone remembers my blue hair, but not these guys, lol!). -Husband loved his burger again and my salad was good. Then home to pack for our early departure. -In 17 days, only this day was significantly wet. So we had great weather! But we didn’t bring enough warm clothes. Lesson for next time!

Paris