Around The Latin Quarter

Today we spent some time exploring the Latin Quarter, the home of the University of Paris. It is called the Latin Quarter since it is the home of the university since the Middle Ages and in the Middle Ages Latin was the language of the educated class. The uneducated spoke vulgar French. The Latin Quarter is a maze of narrow winding streets that date from the Middle Ages and some wide boulevards such as St. Michel and St. Germain which are of more recent vintage. From our hotel we can easily walk to Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the Louvre and other famous sites in Paris. In the narrow streets there is a virtual united nations of restaurants from French to Japanese to Italian to Tunisian to Thai so whatever world cuisine strikes your fancy, chances are you will find something to suit your taste in the Latin Quarter. There is even a Starbucks and a McDonalds.

We started our tour at St. Chapelle, the gothic church in Paris that captures the beauty and significance of the stained glass window. The walls are literally huge stained glass windows that tell bible stories. Since people in the Middle Ages could not read, the stained glass windows became their cathechism so they served the dual purpose of being inspirational works of art and tools of education.

Also went to the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages which is filled with displays of very fine and delicate woodcarvings, tapestries, examples of stained glass art, and statuary. After that a trip to the Pantheon, a former church dedicated to St. Genevieve the patron saint of Paris, that was changed to a monument to liberty, equality, and fraternity during the French Revolution. It houses the mortal remains of many French philosophers and authors who made significant contributions. It also houses the pendulum that proves the earth's rotation. Final stop was to the church of St. Severin, right down the street from our hotel. This is a smallish gothic church that according to Rick Steves took longer to build than Notre Dame and is kind of transitional between gothic and renaissance.

As my back started talking to me and reminding me that I am not as young as I was and asking me "why all this walking" I spent most of the afternoon in a supine position checking my eyelids for holes.

Tomorrow we embark on the barge and on to Normandy.
Art