Home»Italy > Greece > Paris - Day 22

We had been looking forward to wandering Paris with no deadlines and no tour guides to keep up with, so that is just what we set out to do.  Given that our hotel on the Isle St. Louis is barely ten minutes walk from Notre Dame that’s where we went first and while it was already busy we were ahead of the biggest crowds.  It is still as impressive as ever.  One thing has changed however, and that is the vendors along the embankment of the Seine no longer sell interesting stuff like paintings and prints – just tatty old second-hand or discontinued books.  Does anybody ever buy them?

Next it was off to the Institut du Monde Arabe – essentially a museum of all things Arab – but the attraction for us was its roof-top terrace, open to the public and with a great view of the city and the cathedral below.

From there we legged it to the Luxembourg gardens and lunch across the street from there.  Like the London parks, the gardens are definitely a popular place with Parisians at lunch time – from students to couples, from mothers and children to illicit office romances (at least in imagination).

After the gardens we visited the church of St. Germain des Prés followed by coffee at Les Deux Magots – a famous hangout of artists and literary characters.  The name has nothing to do with maggots by the way.  Magot means “stocky figurine from the Far East” and refers to two statues in the shop which preceded the café.

Then we took the metro back.

Remember the old joke “How many elephants can you get in a mini?”  Well, how many Parisians can you get in one metro car...? 

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