Paris: day 2 : churches and more food...

Oh dear, it's another church,well... you will just have to get used to it. There are lots of churches in Paris, they are beautiful with great architecture, stained glass, places to sit quietly and I love them. My love has nothing to do with religion, I am not Catholic, I just like old churches, modern ones, not so much...

St Etienne du Mont is one of my favorites. It is situated on the Mount St. Genevieve.
Here she is right on the front of the church. Isn't she lovely ??

This is where we headed our second day in Paris. (I have to say I LOVE staying by the Luxembourg Gardens, we walk through there on our way to almost anywhere.)
Inside is as stunning as the outside with this most intricately carved choir screen, for which this church is famous.

 It also has a large shrine to St. Genevieve, with remnants of her sarcophagus and her little finger in fancy reliquaries.The former is to the left of Genevieve, the latter to the right.
We like to light candles to St. Genevieve.

At the back of the church was a collection of stained glass from several churches that had been saved from various attempts to destroy it, both during the revolution and WW2. Did you know there was a unicorn on Noah's ark ??

From here we strolled long the Rue Mouffetard, admiring all the shops, restaurants,
cafes and great street art.

We found a fun place to have lunch at the Village Monge, on the Place du Monge. This was the perfect neighborhood cafe, bustling with lunchtime traffic. The waiters were all young attractive males, which Genna noted. From our inside table we had a great view of the street and all the activity without the smell-a-vision to match. This is a plus in Paris, they thankfully no longer let patrons smoke inside of restaurants. Now all the smokers must sit outside to enjoy their Gauloise or more currently, their electronic cigarettes.

I was feeling very traditional, so I ordered the croque monsieur, a tasty ham and swiss cheese sandwich. Genna had a similar sandwich with smoked salmon instead of ham.
Both our meals came with pomme frite and fresh salads.

 Bob chose this beautiful "Ocean Salad", fresh lettuce with smoked salmon, shrimp and avocado.

To drink we ordered my childhood favorite, citron presse, it is fresh lemon juice in a glass,  they bring you water and sugar to make your own lemonade.

Replete we from our meal we strolled down toward the Seine to see Notre Dame in all her glory.

It was surprising how many people were around the square in front of ND. There was only one set of public restrooms working, so we ended up waiting in line for almost 30 minutes, crazy.

That was offset by some time out at the sweet little park at the end of Ile De La Cite where we met a woman who was walking her white cat on a leash. I valiantly chatted with her in French about how much her cat loved to walk in the grass and stalk the birds. It was an amazing pure white cat with one blue eye and one green eye. The woman explained that she lived in a tiny apartment nearby and that they both loved their time outdoors. As they prepared to leave the cat jumped on her shoulder for the ride back home.

Speaking of home, we were ready to head back to our apartment by then. Bob and Genna were both feeling nap-ish so a quick shopping for a light dinner was done. I ended up going back out as they rested for MORE French pastries, why not ;-)

We had late afternoon tea with strawberry tart, a coconut macaroon tart and a rich chocolate "fondue", very thick mousse like dark chocolate, yum !!
Dinner was salad, pasta with garlic and French butter ( the best !!), bread and more cheese.
I said I would eat my way through this trip and I am living up to that !!