Time for a Second, More Adventurous Adventure

After eating and cleaning up, we got a bit of our strength back. Remember, it is now about 2pm Paris time, which means we’ve both had a total of roughly three hours of sleep in about 27 hours, so we are exhausted. But spurred on by having so little time to see so much of the city, we decide to start to make use of our Carte Orange metro pass by going to St. Germain and trying to see some of the cities historic cafés. The metro proves easy once again and we quickly arrive at Boulevard St. Germain, a bustling shopping district with lots of high-end shops and a few surprisingly expensive cafés. Not feeling inclined to sit and watch the world whip by on Vespa scooters, BMW motorcycles and funky little Smart Cars, we continued down the boulevard and happened upon an absolutely beautiful little ally. The weather had just begun to clear and the light was a dramatic change from the dreary gray moments before. With just the right touch of decay to look ancient but austerity to look regal, this little alley really captured our attention and we found ourselves snapping photos for quite a few minutes. The locals glanced furtively down the alley, not sure what to think of the crazy tourists taking pictures of a decrepit back entrance to an apartment building.

Across the street, we happened upon St. Germain de pres Eglise (or church). The building is very old and went in cautiously, not yet accustomed to European church tourist protocol (ectp?). ECPT varies a little from church to church, but in general, they seem to expect them to be both tourist attractions and places of worship. This particular church was a great introduction to what is expected, as we were able to follow other tourists around. We noticed that most people try to avoid flash photography and any conversation is definitely kept to a hushed library level. By European standards this is a fairly small church, but by American standards it was enormous and impressive. Huge oil paintings hung in the alcoves and a pipe organ that put any I’ve ever seen to shame. We took a number of pictures without flash. When touring churches, people tend to go in a loop from left to right, though I’ve no idea why.