Along the Rue Mouffetard

We woke to the promised dry weather and brighter skies. Over breakfast we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and spend the day exploring our immediate area, and revisiting some old haunts, rather than travelling further afield as we'd been considering.

We started with a walk along the Rue de la Montaigne Sainte Genevieve. This led us to the church Saint Étienne-du-Mont, opposite the Pantheon. We had never visited this particular church so we decided to take a look inside and we very pleased to have done so.

We found some striking architecture, a beautifully carved wooden pulpit and some ancient (mainly 15th century) stained glass in the old cloisters. We also saw the tomb of Ste Genevieve herself, patron Saint of Paris, although she is no longer entombed there, her bones having been burned and the ashes thrown into the Seine during the French Revolution.

After our church visit we continued in the same direction, on what was now the Rue Descartes, to the Place de la Contrescarpe.

We sat here for a while over coffees, enjoying the great Parisian pastime of people watching!

This had been a favourite area for eating out when in Paris for our honeymoon, and a few years before that Chris had lived for a while on nearby Rue Mouffetard. So after our coffees we carried on down that latter road. We popped into a few shops (I bought a birthday card for a friend) and took lots of photos.

Lunchtime found us at the end of the road in the Square Saint Médard, where we had some great salads and a beer each.

We then turned along the Rue Daubenton and past the Grande Mosquée de Paris, pausing briefly for a few photos.

From here we entered the Jardins des Plantes. A stroll through here took us down to the Seine where we sat for a while enjoying the view.

We followed the path along the river and crossed the Pont Sully on to the Île Saint Louis, one of my favourite parts of Paris. We treated ourselves to ice creams at the iconic Berthillon and browsed the shops on the Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île, before heading back to the apartment for a bit of a rest.

In the evening we had a drink sitting outside our usual breakfast café, Le Village Ronsard, then ate dinner in a lovely small restaurant in the Rue de la Montaigne Sainte Genevieve, La Pie Noir. The service was very friendly and the food (I had octopus, magret de canard and crème brûlée with pistachios) tasty.