Real Last Day on the Continent!

        The last day before we took the Eurostar back to England was spent in Paris! We woke early and had a traditional French breakfast at a nearby Boulangerie (I actually had a chocolate tarte) on the way to Notre Dame. This time when I went in, Mass was not going on, so it was much less crowded and I could walk down the nave itself. It was beautiful. The light was shining in the windows and creating colored, glowing reflections on the stone floor of the chancel.

           We walked along the Left Bank, enjoying the ambience of the Latin Quarter and seeing some famous sights, like Shakespeare and Company (Hemingway's Paris address and a very nice English bookshop), the Sorbonne, the Cluny Museum, and the Pantheon. Also randomly, a French comic book store!

          Our goal was the Luxembourg gardens, which feel very intimate and French, not totally invaded by the gypsy/tourist combination which frequents many other parts of Paris. It was the best weather of the trip that day, and families were sailing little boats in the pool in the center of the park. Much like the gardens of Versailles, the garden is very carefully landscaped with shaped hedges, walkways, and vases filled with different colored flowers. It was absolutely beautiful!

      For lunch, we returned to Le Relais d'Entrecote, the steak-frites place I went with European Studies. Though I had a slightly awkward French encounter with our tablemates, our waitress was so friendly and efficient and the food was (once again) magnificent! We all had two helpings.

       Then we made our fateful mistake of the day: we decided to go to Sacre Ceour. It took forever to get there by metro and then we were met with about a million stairs before we even got near montmartre itself. Though it was a beautiful area in many ways, it honestly felt so fakey and transformed by the tourist presence that it was basically ruined for us. No charm left, really, except in a short little walk up the side of the hill to the church (we well avoided those main stairs and took the more gradual route).

      That night, nursing our sore feet, we drank the Normandy cider we'd purchased the day before and packed, leaving the room only briefly to be "creped" by a very rude crepe seller down the street... ah well! Overall it was a truly wonderful last day!