Paris: May 15: Les Halles, Le Marais, Jewish Quarter, Latin Quarter, and more

As usual, I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #219 in the album). If you're in slide-show mode and see a picture of Simon dropping us off at the airport, you've cycled back to the beginning of her album and are back at the beginning of our trip. I've already linked to those pictures.

This post is simply an outline of sights covered in more depth in my pictures.

On this day I seriously started following my policy of a pastry a day for breakfast when in Paris. First, I had to find a bakery open on a Sunday morning. This actually wasn't as difficult as you'd guess; I found one named Beatrix (in some places referred to as Beatrix Sylvie et David) two blocks from my apartment.

After breakfast, Di Yin and I explored more of the Les Halles neighborhood, which we began exploring the previous day. One spot we visited was Saint Merry church. Because it was mass, I didn't take pictures inside, but I do want to mention that the thing in the church that I most wished I could photograph was its large, fancy wooden pulpit. The church also has stained glass and a notable, large, starburst above the altar.

After Les Halles, we ventured again into Le Marais, which we explored slightly a few days earlier. Le Marais is a historic neighborhood with many eighteenth-century mansions now converted into museums.

On the opposite side of the Le Marais, we found (as planned) the market on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. It's a huge market, with dozens of butchers, fishmongers, vegetable and fruit sellers, and cheese shops. It also has regular market stuff (purses, clothes, etc.). It's several blocks long and two or three aisles wide.

After the market, we headed back through the Le Marais, this time taking a route that passed through the Jewish Quarter, a several-blocks region within this neighborhood. We had lunch at a joint in the Jewish Quarter.

After lunch, we briefly stopped by home to drop off our market goods, then took a quick train ride down to the Latin Quarter, the most bohemian district in Paris. We decided Rue Saint Michel, the large throughway through the district, wasn't too exciting. Di Yin and I prefer the tangled, lively side-streets. They have more personality.

We walked around and finished the Latin Quarter, then explored the east side of the neighborhood around Saint Germain des Pres, the neighborhood that we walked through a different part of during our Louvre day. Saint Germain des Pres is an interesting neighborhood; it's like the Latin Quarter (which it adjoins) but less crowded and less dense and therefore with no people on the street pushing us to go in a restaurant. Incidentally, this quarter has some pot smokers. They're noticeable, but certainly not as many as in Portland.

We began hunting for dinner. In addition to the types of restaurants I described on my last visit to the Latin Quarter, we spotted some places serving Lebanese pizza (a.k.a. sajj). Sajj is cooked on top of a hemispherical metal dome, a cooking method I hadn't seen before. We also spotted an intriguing Tunisian sweet store.

Nevertheless, we decided we didn't want to eat in the Latin Quarter: every restaurant seems to be too actively recruiting tourists (the majority of the people around), not depending on regulars.

We didn't like my guidebook's nearby choices in Saint Germain des Pres either, so we followed Di Yin's nose, ending at a North African restaurant, Le Boomerang. Incidentally, it was only during this hunting that we encountered our first cobblestone street in Paris. Given the quantity of walking that we do, I guess they're remarkably rare.

After dinner we headed home.

By the way, Sunday must be the day for movies in Paris: we saw multiple lines for tickets, some stretching more than a block.

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