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Bird market, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sainte Chapelle and Ile St.-LouisWe headed to Ile de la Cité, along the Seine and location of two of Paris most famous churches - Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle. As we got off the Metro, we noticed that the live "bird market" was in progress. Once a week, in place of the usual flower market, vendors line the (TBD) street, selling live birds, rodents, feed and many other pet accessories. We bought a bell ball for our cat, Timmy.
We headed for Sainte Chapelle where we purchased our 5-day museum passes for the week (45€ for unlimited museum visits over a continuous 5-day period). This chapel is distinguished by its extensive stained glass windows which depict many bible stories from the old to the new testament. We could clearly make out Cain clubbing Abel, the infant Moses being placed in the river, and Noah's ark. Jesus' crucifixion is depicted over and behind the altar.
We crossed the Seine and walked around the left bank. We tried but didn't get to everything in Rick Steeves' guide.
Finally, we crossed the Seine back to Ile de la Cité and visited Notre Dame Cathedral. Some sort of mass happened to be in progress when we got there at 5:30 p.m., so we took a seat, expecting it to end so we could catch the next one which was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Well, this time our information let us down, as there was a confirmation mass scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m., and the mass we had intended to participate in had started at 5:00 p.m. We got up, walked around the church, noting the stained glass, and lit a couple of candles.
Dinner was at the place on Ile Saint-Louis with the doll houses on the wall. And some yummy Bertillion ice cream for dessert! When we were crossing the bridge coming back from Ile St.-Louis, there were about eight people with their Segway™ Human Transporters parked nearby. Mike's Bike Tours had just began offering a Segway tour of Paris starting in early June. Although we did not get to try one out, they sure attracted a crowd of onlookers! |
