Day 4 - Travels in Saint Germain

Although we slept later than intended, now that we're in the city it didn't matter so much. The bed in the new hotel is just fantastic, the best of the trip and the hotel is quiet and relaxing - and not far from St Germain, which was our destination for most of today.

Hungry and refusing to pay the ridiculous 20 Euros for breakfast at the hotel, we decided to play with the itinerary and go straight to Dalloyau, a tea-room cum restaurant that's been in operation for 205 years. Conceived at the end of the French Revolution, Dalloyau was aimed squarely at the new Parisian of that time.

They've got damn fine pastries too.

Dalloyau have tea-rooms/restaurants all over Paris and we were headed for the one in Luxembourg overlooking the Jardin de Luxembourg, the largest public park in the Paris city. It was raining heavily and our hastily-bought 10 Euro umbrella wasn't really making much difference. Fortunately we were able to duck into Dalloyau and head straight up to the tea-room.

As much as either nation would deny it, the British and the French have a lot in common:
* they love their tea
* they do 'empire' exceedingly well
* they do the trappings of empire even better
* they create fantastic public spaces
* they have a love-hate fascination with Royalty and regicide isn't unknown to either side
* In both supposedly classless societies there's a definite divide between upper and lower classes
* they favour wacky costumes for their regular police force (bobbies and gendarme)

In fact, the only difference I can see (apart from language and location) is that the French can cook. Perhaps all this rivalry's just jealousy.

And boy can they cook at Dalloyau!

You wouldn't think one Croque-Monsieur could be that much better than another. It's a hot ham and cheese (usually gruyère) sandwich, grilled. Occaisionally it's done with a French-toast style and grilled with egg beaten into the toast, but it's a fairly standard kind of dish. At Dalloyau, it's a masterpiece. I couldn't believe how good this thing tasted. Jus' quiche lorraine was equally good. Her hot chocolate was so thick she couldn't finish it and my tea, Menage No10, was fruity and light.

But the real delight was the pastries. Jus had the famous French chocolate macaroon and pronounced it tremendous, whereas I plumped for L'Opera - a creation of a Dalloyau chef in 1955. It too was fantastic.

After leaving breakfast/lunch we wandered through the sodden Jardin de Luxembourg. It's exceedingly beautiful, made more so by the rain, tho the gravel path was sodden underfoot. There was a model shoot in progress despite the rain and the park, like most French parks we've seen, was filled with sculpture both new and old.

We were on our way to St Sulpice, made slightly more famous for its recent appearance in The Da Vinci Code. The church council seem none too pleased about it either and there are notices displayed prominently discounting the parts of the book that occur in the cathedral.

It's in a somewhat delapidated state of repair, although the exterior towers, columns and gargoyles are all undergoing restoration. Inside it's dark, almost dingy and feels neglected - which, considering Notre Dame is just around the corner, it probably is.

That said, there's a sense of peace and love here that we both have found to be a rare experience in the grand cathederals of Europe.

There's also some very cool curiosities here.

On the left as you enter the cathederal, there's a life-size copy of the shroud of turin. As is common in France, the entire explanation is in French with no English translation. This is by turns an infuriating and charming little habit of the French, who resolutely refuse to recognise that many of the millions of tourists a year don't speak their language. So we have no idea what the whole shroud reproduction is about.

Another of the oddities, this one most prominently featured in that Dan Brown novel, is the Gnomon. I won't go into detail, just follow the link for more info, but rather than being some mystery device used by the priory of scion, it has a more mundane purpose - to help determine the time of the equinoxes. It's easy to see, however, how a mystery could be built around this strange metal groove that runs at an odd angle, for an odd distance, through an ancient church.

Also impressive is the elabourate sculpture of Mary and the enormous pipe-organ, which again has some interesting information on the wikipedia page I linked to earlier.

Notre Dame by contrast was reasonably disappointing. Perhaps it was the massive crowds - the cathedral gets 12 million visitors a year - or perhaps it was the droning, slightly fawning and terribly drawn-out audio tour, but Notre Dame just didn't do it for us.

Yes, it's impressive. Yes you should go. It's even relatively cheap. The rose windows are a marvel and the reliquary, said to one certain days of the year, show Christ's crown of thorns is quite intriguing. We saw a reliquary supposedly containing a piece of the one true cross.

I think it was the souveneir stand inside the cathedral that ruined it for me. The whole thing just seemed blatantly commercial and the signs asking for modesty and quiet just a pro-forma display to appease the faithful.

The best part was climbing the 422 steps to the bell tower. Not only is it an impressive view, but the cramped narrow circular staircase itself has a feel of history about it, with each step worn in the middle by the press of millions of previous climbers. The stairs are so narrow that the foot nearest the central column needs to twist laterally to gain purchase on the stairs.

The bell in the tower is huge, the view is incredible and shows some of the incredible detail of the roof of Paris' most famous gothic cathedral.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel to change for dinner.

Dinner was at another revolutionary establishment, Le Procope, the oldest restaurant in Paris, opened in 1686. There's a lot of history surrounding this restaurant - but don't ask the waiters about it, they're too busy to tell you and to be frank, the whole experience was a bit of a let down. Perhaps if you're a regular it's different, but the staff were brusque and disinterested and the food was not what we'd come to expect from Parisian dining. The link above tells you a little more about this place but here's our advice - for dinner, don't bother. It's worth seeing for the history alone, but go for lunch or bunch.

What saved the night was a trip Le Duex Magot where we had a digestive of cognac (myself), calvados (jus - an apple flavoured liquor like cognac) and a coffee delivered by a charming waiter. We sat next to an Austrian/German couple who chatted aimably with us before we finished up for the evening and caught a cab home.