Today started the official tour in Paris with my group, visiting various Saint Vincent DePaul sites. We walked a great deal this first day which was great to work off our dinner from the prior night.
This first site we walked to was the motherhouse of the Congregation on rue de Sevres – which has a small museum of St. Vincent DePaul relics as well as his ornate reliquary.
Sorry for the macabre here, but it really is amazing, the wax figure of St. Vincent himself.
He’s inside an amazingly detailed silver carved casket.
While I’m not Catholic, I do love the wonderful architecture of these old churches.
From there we walked to church #2, motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity which houses the remains of St. Louise de Marillac.
This second church was a breath of fresh air… So deco looking.
After walking for a bit more, we stopped to have an independent lunch. Happily enough we stopped right outside one of my favorite grocery stores Felix and I discovered last year: Le Grande Epicerie de Paris.
Couldn’t help myself with this packaging. Chocolate was good too. :)
After lunch we continued to walk some more – slowing making our way to St. Sulpice.
St. Suplice & Fountain:
Walking some more… en route to Notre Dame:
Remnant of the old roman wall – houses/buildings were built right into the old wall all throughout the city.
Pops of Color:
I believe this is one of the oldest houses/buildings in Paris:
Old & Crooked:
Notre Dame:
After visiting Notre Dame this point it was 4pm-ish and we were officially done for the day.
A lot of folks grouped together to go see some sights. Me…. I headed out solo and searched out some more fabric/yarn/notions shops to go to.
In the past, I’ve always traveled with other people (mainly Felix of course). It was a strange feeling, being in Paris, yet making my way to all sorts of places – having to rely on no one but myself. I felt a bit self-conscious whipping out my phone all of the time, navigating my way or stopping to check with way on the metro I need to be headed. A bit stressful, but I managed to never get lost.
I decided to head over to Ultramod first.
Even though I was here last year (on my Stitching up Paris tour with guide Barbara, along with Meg & Michelle), I couldn’t resist the opportunity to go back once more.
I ended up purchasing some silk buttonhole twist – since I’ve never found it in Chicago before (Purchased a black, white, and grey/silver). Additionally I got a grey stretch lace along with 4 vintage plastic belt buckles (silver, teal, red, and navy) – colors I know I’ll use.
From here, I still had plenty of time to check out Lil’Weasel.
I fired up my maps app and saw it was not a long walk – so I hoofed it through the city & through a gallery.
Lil’ Weasel (at 1 Passage du Grand Cerf, inside one of Paris’s most lovely galleries):
When I’m shopping around, especially for yarn – I really try to purchase items that were dyed or from the region.
The blue on the left is a hand-dyed yarn from a woman in Paris, while the other two are not. I believe my light blue angora is from Germany – which I already made into a beret and the Riverside Studio is from Quebec – which I couldn’t resist and currently on its way to being socks.
Additionally I couldn’t resist these two fabrics:
The floral is a lightweight cotton (with a hint of stretch) – which haaas to be used on a lovely 50’s dress of some sort. And the cats is a mid-weight jersey knit (I am smitten with) that I have to hide from my bunnies lest they disown me.
Lil’ Weasel is a lovely shop to visit. They even flattered me by speaking French for a few minutes before I could interject to let them know that I don’t understand much French. All smiles, they kindly spoke to me in English, and were telling me about some of the yarns I was looking at. Even though I’ve already been there – I didn’t hesitate to visit once again.
After all of my trekking (solo) I decided to take a break in the neighboring wine bar (solo). What could be a sad thing (drinking alone) felt instead so self-indulgent and peaceful. I sipped my wine, sorted through some photos of the day. Being the only one in the bar, at the time, the bartender proceeded to ask me if I wanted some slices of meat (on the house). Yes!!!
Again, not knowing any French I was able to hobble my way through just fine. I just take my time, fire up Google Translate to type in what I want to say in French – and since they know I’m English speaking they end up responding back in English, too. Or they use gestures – which I became quite skilled at deciphering. When I can, I always try to ask my questions in French. I think they appreciate my efforts and take pity on me. :D
As I was working on my wine, I started texting with a couple other people on the tour group to see about joining up for dinner.
I took the metro to where they were, and we proceeded to walk the streets back towards our hotel, looking for a restaurant.
This is a picture of our appetizer: Escargot (which I love) and new to me Frog Legs – which were wonderful bits of deliciousness.
Just a quick pic down one end of the table. For most of the dinner we were all in stitches or talking about work stuff.
Such a good end to my busy day.
Obligatory (bathroom) selfie from today:
In: Miscellaneous Sewing
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