Friday, August 19, 2011

A Sunday Stroll


On Sunday, we walked past the famous "Hotel De Ville" on our way to church.
We turned down a small street looking for the church, and we found this door with the sign we were looking for! When we google mapped the church, we looked at the street view so we would know what building we were looking for. On the google street view, there were two missionaries standing out in front, so we knew we found the right place! This is actually a visitor center, maybe the entrance for institute, but just to the right, there was a big courtyard entrance.It was such a neat building that was converted into a church. We were greeted at the door by several missionaries and were told there was an english sunday school class, and that they had headphones and translators for Sacrament mtg in english and chinese...we picked the english ones.

Church was lovely and the ward was so diverse. We found out later that it was the same ward my sister Amy attended while working in Paris a few years ago!

After church, we brought a nice picnic lunch and we wandered back over to the Notre Dame cathedral so we could see the inside. Mass was just ending, and the organ was still playing and it was so neat to hear it. The interesting thing about the cathedral was that you don't have to pay to go in to the main part, and hundreds of people are walking through there at all hours of the day, even during mass. I thought it was a bit irreverent and I was sad that they couldn't close the doors for 30 minutes so the congregation could have a quiet mass service.
The cathedral was pretty impressive, but it wasn't my favorite that we have seen. The stained glass was amazing, but it made it quite dark inside. It was also not as well kept as some of the others we have been through. Maybe it's because of the high traffic level they have going through there every day. I don't know.

After that, we wandered over to the Pantheon. Taylor learned about it in school and gave us a bit of a history lesson. We didn't go in, but it was an impressive structure from the outside.



We ended our Sunday stroll by going through Luxembourg gardens. It was a nice Sunny afternoon, so there were lots of people enjoying the weather and the view. There were chairs set up all over to sit and read or people watch.
The French Senate is housed in Luxembourg palace behind us and is surrounded by a huge park or garden, the second largest in Paris. It was a great place to end our Sunday Stroll through Paris. What a peaceful and enjoyable day!



2 comments:

Judy said...

Beautiful!!! Love the next to last one ~ What a perfect family picture!!

Amy said...

I miss Paris! I wish so much that we could have been better planners and gone together. Next time.

Disneyland

Danny and Friends Mountain Biking