We hadn’t had enough Champagne last night to blame our sleeping in on that, but we weren’t exactly off to an early start on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024. So, it was closer to lunch time than breakfast time when we left the apartment to go looking for adventure. We had no place we had to see in mind today so we let Lucille pick the direction we took.

We walked out to Rue Tolbiac and headed in the general direction of Le Circus. Once there, Lucille suggested we follow Rue de l’Espérance up the hill to the Butte-aux-Cailles neighbourhood to look for some food.

There was a choice of restaurants right at the top of the hill and we picked Café Nenesse to try. Their uncrowded patio was a factor for me and we grabbed an outside table.

We enjoyed our lunch but Lucille and I both wanted dessert and we each ordered the apple pie and caramel sauce.

Butte-aux-Cailles is noted for it’s small bars, restaurants and street art. We saw some of everything as we wandered through the neighbourhood.

We still had no particular destination in mind and Lucille asked us if we’d like to see the old Roman Arena in the Latin Quarter. We though it sounded like a thing to check out so we headed of in that direction. It was quite a walk to get there so I took a bunch of photos along the way. (I know, that’s so unlike me.)

I liked how much art is incorporated as part of the building without it just being some taggers “message.”

I also like how history is on display in so many places. I mean, it’s not like Paris has a history that is very long or very exciting or anything.

Seems we were taking a bit of a scenic route to get there but that never really bothers me so I happily walked along taking more photos.

After walking down one side of a hill and back up the other side, we came to the entrance to Arènes de Lutèce. I know it doesn’t look like much but I think it’s pretty impressive that something built in the 1st century AD is still around. You’re pretty hard pressed to find anything even 100 years old in Alberta.

Lucille and Lynda sat on a bench while I ran around trying to get photographs of a few different angles. I wasn’t enjoying all the contrast I was getting with the sun being out, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

The stairs were so narrow but so deeply worn from all the feet passing over them for so long.

We have no idea of how or when the car got there as I had walked over there to take the overall photo and there was no sign of it.

Our rest stop done, we continued on our walk and meandered our way towards the Seine.

One would think I would have taken more photos with the street signs in the frame to remember where I was, or at the very least, just taken a photo of the sign but you know what they say about hindsight.

I really liked the little square being cleaned up after the weekly market had been there.

We walked on Rue Mouffetard, which had been a Roman road way back when. It’s a pretty narrow street with a lot of restaurants, shops, and cafés and also has a street market on it.

Seems I wasn’t walking around with my camera glued to my eye as it was about 10 blocks from the Mayflower to the river bank looking across to Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris and I don’t have any photos of anything in between. Maybe it was just a boring section to walk in?

There were still plenty of signs of the rebuilding construction as it was scheduled to re-open to the public in about 6 weeks from now.

I had brought @spookie_bugz with me and he was in a bit of a posing mood so I got a photo of him with Notre-Dame in the background.

We crossed the bridge and I took some photos of Notre-Dame, but I wasn’t all that thrilled with them so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

As we started heading back towards the apartment, Lynda and Lucille saw some souvenirs they liked.

I stood outside and took a few photos of that area.

As we walked south on Rue Saint-Jacques, I spotted this courtyard at Église Saint-Séverin.

According to Wikipedia; Gothic church with an ornate facade, striking stained-glass windows & a 13th-century bell tower.

I couldn’t really see that from our view but I liked the courtyard.

I’m not sure if this is still just a girl’s school or not but it obviously was one at one point.

We passed one of the buildings that make up The Sorbonne. I think it might be the main building as it was as long as the block and it was a long block.

I liked the look of this building and found out afterwards that it is Bibliotheque Patrimonial as College of France – The Heritage Library.

We were about a third of the way home when this sign caught my eye.

Like so many of the signs, it’s a street named after someone who lived a long time ago, but I liked this one so I did a bit of research on it and found;

The name given to this road in 1846 honors the memory of Abbot Charles-Michel de L’Épée (1712-1789), founder of the National Institute for Young Deaf People in Paris , which adjoins the street.

At about the halfway mark on our journey, we walked down the back side of Musée du Service de santé des armées – Museum of the Armed Forces Health Service. It’s a pretty impressive looking building from the back, but we never saw the front. Making a panorama with my wide angle lens makes it look curved, but it was not.

At about the 2/3rd mark we passed this cool door.

Apparently it’s the Institut Protestant de Théologie – Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris.

We made it back to the apartment to drop off the girl’s shopping bags and get Curtis so we could head out for supper.

We only went a couple of blocks to Le San Giovani. It’s a very nice Italian restaurant that we’d been to before and liked it so I was happy to go back. We were the first ones there so we got a table in the front; probably to show they were “busy”.

They only had a couple of other tables occupied when we left so I’m thinking Wednesdays aren’t all that busy for them.

We headed back to the apartment, no champagne tonight as we have an early morning tomorrow. I only got 18 and a half thousand steps today. Seems low for what we saw, but that’s what my watch tells me.