A Walk About the Latin Quarter 👟👟
May 20th
Rain was in the forecast but looking out the window the sky was blue so we decided to do a walking tour on the VoiceMap App. We have done several of these tours and they are excellent. The App uses GPS to track where you are and chimes in with the narrative when you reach each designated spot. Annie Sargent from Join Us in France has done several tours in Paris so thought we should give one a try. Annie did a fantastic job on her Latin Quarter tour informing us along the way of important people, facts about the places we strolled by, and events. We highly recommend her VoiceMap tours in Paris!
Before starting on the tour we walked by a few notable places and stopped to take photos. We walk by the statue of Denis Diderot every day so decided to look him up. He was a french philosopher and writer. He co-created the Encyclopedie in 1751. The next stop was the fountain of Saint-Michel. It's a stunning historic monument to the archangel who is known as a spiritual warrior in the battle of good vs evil.
The walking tour began in front of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore (closed today as it is a bank holiday). The store is an english language bookshop founded by bookseller Sylvia Beach in 1919. We passed by several churches along the route, saw the oldest tree in Paris, walked along Rue Mouffetard, a "foodie street" with tons of little restaurants and shops, and ended in the lone surviving Roman amphitheater in Paris. Annie is full of information and interesting anecdotes.
After lunch we toured the Sainte-Chappel with its amazing stained glass and the adjacent Conciergerie which was a former courthouse and prison where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned, tried and sentenced. You can purchase a combined ticket for both places and a free histo-pad is provided in the Conciergerie that depicts scenes in the rooms since they are largely empty spaces.
Dinner again at Combo since rain was pouring down and we didn't want to walk too far and it is a favorite place with inexpensive, excellent meals.
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Denis Diderot |
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| Fountain of Saint Michel |
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| L'Elgise Saint-Severin |
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| Backside of the Pantheon |
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| Where Hemingway Lived |
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| Sainte-Chapelle |
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| Chicken stuffed with Foie Gras |
