Arrived by AerLingus into Charles de Gaulle airport and decided to take the train to Paris – I succeeded finally but let’s say that I won’t try that again with 2 pieces of luggage. Ask me about the ‘incident’.

Caught up with friends Sue and Keith (who had travelled in from Perigueux) at the hotel in the 5th arrondisement in Rue Mouffetard, and we were surprised that we have a narrow flight of stairs inside the door to our room (nothing about that in the booking.com ad). We did have a laugh, especially as I booked the hotel as its one of the few with a lift in the area! The irony. They told me we were in Paris over the Ascension Day public holiday that stretches from Thursday to Sunday, with crowds evident everywhere, so to be prepared.

A lovely drink and dinner in the Place de la Contrescarpe. And an early night.

After breakfast, we walked from down Rue Mouffetard appreciating the amazing boulangerie, patisserie, fruit and veg displays, cheese shops…eventually strolling down Rue Monge towards the Seine. We had a coffee break at Le Petit Cardinal (an arresting doggie picture – a bit like the Mona Lisa; his eyes follow you to anywhere you are in the room)… opposite the queue lining up outside Boulangerie Guyot Ferreira (that’s won a few baguette prizes!). Not as good as La Maison D’Isabelle, one of our later taxi driver’s opined! 🙂

Got to the Pont de l’Archeveche and watched a couple of dudes playing jazz numbers – a perfect morning with sun, music, buzz of the crowds, boats floating beneath us on the Seine. It’s sooo good to be back in Paris., especially with good mates. I noticed the bridges all have plastic attached to their sides so you can’t append locks along the length – so some people have risked falling into the Seine by leaning over and attaching on external struts!

Wandered along Quai aux Fleurs and spotted a rather dilapidated building with a sign ‘old home of Heloise and Abelard’…on closer scrunity of the elaborate door frames found this lovely detail. The Héloise and Abélard story begins in the 12th century in the Ile de la Cité, Paris’s beating heart and the epicentre of intellectual life. Pierre Abélard (1079-1142), a rebellious intellectual from Nantes, was a reputed cleric and scholar in Paris, where he moved in 1110 to follow the teaching of the French philosopher and theologian Guillaume de Champeaux. Héloïse (1092-1164) was the illegitimate daughter of an early libertine lord. As a teenager, her mother entrusted Héloïse’s education to her own brother, Notre Dame’s Canon Fulbert, who lived in Ile de la Cité. The young girl’s lively intelligence was evident, and Uncle Fulbert decided to hire Abélard to perfect Héloïse’s education. Guess what? They fell in love. When Héloïse became pregnant, the couple fled to Brittany, to Abélard’s sister, where Héloïse gave birth to a son. Back in Paris, Abélard tried to obtain forgiveness from Uncle Fulbert, unsucessfully. Uncle Fulbert, dishonored, mulled his revenge. And one morning, accompanied by pig castrators, he broke into Abélard’s room and castrated him. According to the precepts of the time, Abélard had to give up teaching because his body was imperfect by mutilation. He retired to the abbey of Saint-Denis, where he devoted himself to theology, while Héloïse took the veil in Argenteuil.

Continuing the walk, an arty farty view of part of the Notre Dame Cathedral….as well as the more traditional …and there was a ‘Festival of Bread’ happening in the forecourt area of the Cathedral. Hundreds of people milling about, enjoying the sunshine, history and free promotional offering of BREAD.

A fun group of women partying with red berets (as you do) in a restaurant close to the Shakespeare bookshop we were heading for…which had an incredible queue to get in…so we didn’t join it. Had lunch instead, my first onion soup in a long time – was quite yum.

A lovely photo of Keith and Sue, who focussed on looking at me, rather than the raised phone camera trying to take the Seine view as well in the background 🙂

On y va! Caught a cab to the 16th arrondisement Palais Galliera (a Renaissance Revival palace built in 1895, and home to Paris’s fashion museum since 1977). Saw 2 exhibitions: ‘Fashion in the 18thC’ and ‘Weaving, Embroidering – Crafts and Trades of Fashion’.

It was amazing to actually see garments from the 1700s is such a well-preserved condition. And it was interesting to see how later century’s designers were influenced from that era. Here’s a tiny sample…

There were some shockers….

Some beautiful and very intricate embroidery examples too…..

We had booked to have dinner @ Le Vieux Bistrot the night before. It’s a very popular venue with queues waiting to score a table. Sue’s premonition was right, the guy that had taken our booking outside had forgotten to write it down (inside), so there was a clash with other customers, who unfortunately arrived 5 mins after us. We ‘claimed table possession’ by having determined ‘not our problem’ looks….and succeeded! The other customers waited outside with free ‘Kir Royales’, until a table became available.