C'mon! Let's go fishin'

Foolish dogs...they think they are having fun in the boat.

After I was finished drooling over the food at Le Grande Epicerie, i meandered over to St. Germaine-de-pres, which is the oldest churchin Paris. parts of it date back to the 11th century. I was lucky enough to be there as the sun was coming through a stained glass window, and I took this interesting shot.

It was a dark and gloomy church, the years of soot and the exhalation of millions of breaths left a cold sort of feeling inside. I can't say I was comfortable in there, so I went outside and purchased 4 small water colours from a street artist. He was a short and fat fellow, and rather grubby as well, but funny and amiable. Two pictures were his and the other two (much more professional) were by his (apparently) recently deceased brother. ("dis, me" as he pointed to 2, and "deese, mon frere" as he pointed to some others) Then he added: "Mon frere, phtttt...tombe" and he gave a thumbs down. He packaged them up nicely for me, and off I went. I'll post pictures of them a little later.

On my way home I figured I 'd take this picture showing how the French abide by rules. Not only does the sign say "No parking", they flaunt their park job by doing it right in the middle of the sidewalk, driving over the yellow line to do so. You gotta love it.

The orginal Le Bon Marche.

I decided to wander over to The Bon Marche, the original one. This is Paris' first and oldest department store, and its being built was a direct cause of the demise of the covered passageways that I explored (and wrote about) earlier. This is a VERY upscale store. The mens section has everything from Dior to Gucci and the womens has Hermes to Versace. Each section has a small rack of "sample" clothes and a rather snooty salesperson to show them to you. No touching allowed! Mon Dieu!

The make up and perfume area is the same (pictured here). The dishware was all LaLique, Baccarat and Wedgewood. I wanted to ask where the Corningware was located!

It was overwhelming and I didn't stay long, I was rather uncomfortable. However, next door they have "La Grande Epicerie Paris", the most amazing "grocery store" (for lack of a better word) I have ever seen! Everything from smoked salmon (at 84 Euro a kg) to Beluga caviar to regular fruits and veggies. I spent quite a while browsing here, there were so many sections....an area for Japanese items, Turkish items, organic items and so forth. It was great!

End of Napoleons Tomb

Before I left Hotel des Invalides, I stopped in the cafe for lunch and had the best pastry of the entire trip! It was a shortbread based tart with a thin layer of caramel and on top of that was a tangy lemon custard...I LOVE lemon! On top were vanilla flavoured meringues. Along with a quiche and a capuccino, this made for a lovely ending to my visit. I have to say, of all the things on my "to do" list in Paris, the Hotel des Invalides was at the bottom. It was something I wanted to see, but if I didn't manage to do so, I wasn't in the least concerned. However, to my surprise, it turned out to be one of my favorite places. I highly recommend that you make it a priority on your trip to Paris.

Napoleons Tomb part 7

After viewing the displays on the various wings and floors, I climbed up (and up) to the very top of the Hotel des Invalides, it seemed like a lot of floors but I think it was only about 6. See those little, tiny round windows? The picture below shows them from the inside. You walk down to the end of the hallway and go into a pitch dark room. Once again, I was alone, but because it was so dark, and it seemed so deserted, I was a little nervous until I noticed a door that led to the always present souviner shop. I was reassured that I was not all alone way up here.

The room was very large and contained these relief maps, all in huge glass cases. They are scale models (1/600) of towns, chateaus, fortresses and the countryside that were used during battles and wars. The detail was simply incredible, each tiny house even had windows and doors. Some of these date back to the 1600's. Just incredible!

Napoleons Tomb Part 6

There are a few floors that are full of displays. As I mentioned earlier, it was built as housing/hospital and you can see that the interior has not been changed too much over the years. You walk down long hallways that are filled with displays and each of the old rooms are also filled with all sorts of memorabilia. The most touching was the wing that contained items from the concentration camps.

There were articles of clothing, often with the prisoners picture beside them. Some had pictures of the person prior to capture as well as how they looked when they were liberated. It was quite emotional.

A piece of barbed wire from Dachau, the worst of the camps.

Napoleons Tomb Part 5

Even the cannons were surprisingly whimsical.

Oops. Looks like someone else's cannon had a pretty accurate shot at this one.

Napoleons Tomb Part 4

Just a few more pictures of the armour. As you leave the 2 large halls of displays, you walk down a corridor that has windows looking into what appears to be storage rooms. It just struck me as sort of bizarre to see rows and rows of extra armor hands and feet. There must have been 15 rooms, each with shelves containing extra "bits and pieces", from helmets to things that fit over a horses head.

Napoleon's Tomb Part 3

Napoleons Tomb is just one part of the Hotel des Invalides, which is actually a misnomer as it was not a hotel, it was built in the 1670's to provide housing for some 4,000 disabled war veterans. It now contains the Army Museum as well as the relief maps, a church and a cafe and gift shop. To my surprise, I was totally captivated by the Army Museum. The suits of armor were breathtaking, and I had no idea they were so very intricate. There were 2 huge halls to go through, in the first one I carefully looked for the "no photo" sign, and saw none, so I snapped one picture. Instantly a guard materialized out of nowhere and gently told Madame that no flash was allowed. The halls are very dark and only small lights illuminate the glass cases where the displays are, so my photos were not very clear at all. I wandered into the next hall and was reviewing my pictures and taking some with no flash and looking at them, when a different guard appeared and said, in broken English, that my pictures wouldn't turn out if I did not use a flash, and please, to use one. I questioned him quite thouroughly about this, ("Flash? Yes, I CAN use a flash? ) and he was quite insistant that I could, so I hastily took as many pictures as I could. He smiled as I did so. Only in France...

I had no idea that armor would be wonderfully intricate and colourful.

Napolean's Tomb Part 2

I waited on the front steps, along with one other tourist, both of us feeling smug as we were actually first in line. There was a man furiously sweeping the steps, making sure to not make eye contact with us. As 10 AM loomed closer, the other tourist and myself walked up to the large glass doors and peered inside. The sweeping man hastily rushed in front of us and and shouted: "Dix heures, dix heures!" and flashed all 10 fingers at us. We nodded and he then continued to sweep the steps and vanished around the corner. At 10 there were about 8 of us standing there, and at 10:10 there were about 15 of us, and still no sign of a ticket taker, although we could see a ticket booth just inside the door, with a woman sitting there, staring vacantly into space. A few minutes later a group of school children came rushing past us and entered the building. We all looked at each, shrugged in that Gallic way and went inside, only to be greeting by the "sweeping man" who is now wearing a uniform and solomnly asks us for a ticket. We point at the booth where the lady is a little more animated and she looks at us curiously and says: "No tickets here." The sweeping man/guard points outside and says: "Tickets to the right.., a la droit...go buy." *sheesh*. Off we go around the corner and purchase the tickets.

Inside, the first thing you see is the huge circular dome (a rotunda I guess) and below you can look down and see Napoleon's actual tomb. I think it is 3 or 4 coffins inside each other, like the Russian stacking dolls. One is lead and one is oak and I'm not sure about the others. It was actually a pretty impressive sight.

They also have his greatcoat and the famous hat he always seems to be wearing in paintings. I was sort of expecting to see the arm of the coat tucked in over his stomach, although I know that is a bit of a cliche.

Napoleon's Tomb

My plan today was to get to Napoleon's Tomb by 10 AM, which is when it opens. I was up and out of the hotel by 8:30 and strolled right over. I decided to take a shortcut and walk through the gardens, however I ended up in a large parking lot with no way out. I backtracked and decided to walk through the grassy moat instead. Got to the end and realized there was no way out. Backtracked once again and decided to follow the boring sidewalk which brought me around to the entrance of the building. Good thing I had left the hotel early (knowing my propensity for getting lost and all...) I still had time to walk around the entire block...which was HUGE, making sure to stay away from parking areas and moats.

The end of the moat.

I took this picture from down in the aforementioned moat.

Gypsy

I interrupt this travelogue to show poor little Gypsy just after her surgery. You can see the shaved area of her left haunch, near her tail. She had a cyst/tumour removed and has 14 staples. You can just barely see the shaved area on her front leg, just above her "elbow" where she had the IV and there is another on her other leg where she had the anesthetic. PLUS she had a lump inside her mouth removed, and her teeth and gums cleaned, as well as a flap of skin by a tooth removed. That is why she looks both groggy and cranky. Poor little beast, she still smiled at at the vet as we left. Or maybe it was a grimace.

More winddow sights

This little crocheted dress is a Chanel, and is worth the princely sum of over $5,000!!

This just struck me as pretty.

Van Cleef & Arpels. A mere 1/4 million dollars.

Hats for Madame, in the thousand dollar range.