Today we walked

Today, despite promising ourselves not to do so, we walked our socks off. As our traveling companions, Betty and Chris Martin can attest, sometimes you just start off walking in Paris and there is no good place to stop, so you keep on walking. Today was another of those days. This day started off ordinary enough, another church! This one, as Paula called it, "A hidden treasure." St. Etienne-du-Mont is one of those wonderful old cathedrals (Dating from the 1500s) that never makes the "Must See" lists. This is what we came for! To begin with, it has no one style, so it confounds the travel writers. It is a little bit Gothic, a little bit Renaisance, a little bit Baroque and in addition to having the oldest organ in Paris it has the only "Rood Screen" (You'll have to look it up.) in Paris! Also, instead of being built with plain old ordinary grey sandstone or limestone this one is built with blonde sandstone, Stunning! In case you haven't looked it up yet. . . Here's the Rood Screen. It is marvelous!

The matching spiral staircases are just gorgeous and the stained glass will take your breath away. 

I know,the picture is too small, but trust me on this one, it' smashing. 

Traveling on, we find the massive Pantheon. Originally a church to rival St. Peter's in Rome, it is now a place where they bury their famous people including Voltaire, Victor Hugo, and Marie Curry. Actually, there are lots of dead people here but not nearly as interesting as Pere Lachaise. The building itself, is a mammoth structure (And here is your trivia answer for today) and it is so true that it was used to prove that the earth rotates. (Foucault's Pendulum)

As you can see in the upper left hand corner, the great dome is under $100,000,000 Renovation. Now that is some serious renovation. Then again, construction started in 1764, so you might expect some wear and tear. But wait. . . Look at this shot Paula took. She claims she didn't lay down to take this. 

Those are some mighty columns, but not nearly as magnificent as St. Peter's in Rome. We liked it!

When we left the Pantheon we headed straight for Au Bon Marche. . . and the greatest grocery store in Paris - La Grande Epicerie! For those in Arizona. . . . This store makes AJs look like a food truck! We loaded up as much as we could carry (After buying one of their own carrying bags) we looked especially smart waltzing down the street with our "La Grande Epicurie" bag. We will go back! Our list of places we 'll go back to is growing. We're in trouble as we're already into this over a week and we haven't even booked tickets to Giverny yet! Duane is thinking he'll have to extend this trip to 2 months. He had no idea he'd want to spend this much time in a grocery store! . . . but first. . . . This!

I'm sure you've seen these bridges with The Love Padlocks on them. This one is particularly huge on the Quai de l'Archeveche, just on the eastern edge of Notre Dame. Each padlock is dated and signed by 2 Lovers before locking it to the Quai. I doubt most of these romances made it, but it is a clever way of expressing your undying love. Lock it up and throw the key into the Seine!