The Orsay Museum and Paris Departure Points for Pilgrims on the Camino

Bon jour!

This post is a tad bit delayed as wifi in our Paris hotel was very poor, and there was none on the trains yesterday on our way here to St. Jean Pied de Port. We were in Paris from Friday until Sunday morning.

We enjoyed Paris very much, discovering a very popular park, the Luxumbourg Gardens, which we had never visited though we both had been to Paris several times. Always something new!

The temps were quite hot, in the 90s, and we walked a lot. Even with the high temps, there were many tourists out and about, walking the streets, and Parisians enjoying the park or sitting on the Seine riverbanks trying to stay cool. Hard to believe that just a short while ago there was some terrible flooding in Paris, and especially the towns outside of the city.

We also visited the Orsay museum and I took a bunch of photos for Mrs. Dion's art classes to look at, but they are uploading as I speak and I hope to have them (maybe just some of them) up connected to my google map before we leave St. Jean tomorrow morning.

I also found two departure points for pilgrims on the Camino from Paris. One in from the left-most door of the three main doors of the Notre Dame cathedral (as you look at them). The other was the Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie church (St. James in French), which was unfortunately dismantled just after the French Revolution, in 1797. The church was actually sold as a stone quarry!! However, they saved the main tower which has a larger than life statue of Saint Jacques at the top.

Here is a website that will show you a description and images of the tower. It is in French, so the French teachers (M. Couture, Mme. Hourihane and Mme. Frenette) might show their students the sight, along with a video in French). Here's the sight: http://qr.cornis.fr/stjacques-home.html. You can also choose the different sided (N-S-E-W) and see zoomed photos of the structure, statuary and gargoyles, along with descriptions that I cannot understand! Je ne parle pas frances!

Prendre plaisir!!

Señor Hastings