Last Day in Paris - Homeward Bound

Sunday, August 29th Paris

Last night we walked down the Rue Daguerre to a little Greek restaurant and had a lamb dinner. This morning we got ready to go touristing for the day and stopped down the street for coffee and pastries. It was a little cool and cloudy so we came back for our fleeces and then set off again for the Palace of Luxembourg and the surrounding gardens. It wasn't far to walk from our hotel.

The palace gardens are extensive and along with beautiful fountains, statues and flower gardens there are tennis courts, jogging paths, a basketball court, pony rides and lots of other stuff. It's a park that is well used by Parisians. We saw people on the grass doing yoga and tai chi, lots of joggers and lots of people having a Sunday picnic. There are hundreds of green metal chairs that people can drag into the right size circle for their group so a lot of people do that just to enjoy the garden and spend some time together outside.

We wandered from there over to the University, which includes the famous Sorbonne and the Latin Quarter in the 5th District on the Left Bank of the Seine. This is the long established cafe scene where students and others gather. Hemingway and other writers in the 20s lived around here. It's still a very cool area. On some of the buildings there are plaques with names of French freedom fighters from WWII. In 1944 the French resistance staged a major battle with the occupying Nazis and some of the fiercest fighting was in the Latin Quarter. The plaques, and sometimes flowers with them, show where some of the fighters died on the street.

We walked a short distance from there up the hill to the Pantheon, a huge mausoleum where some of the most famous Parisians like Victor Hugo and Marie Curie are entombed. From there we went back to the Luxembourg Palace Gardens and had a picnic like so many others were doing.

We had seen a sign for an antique sale on Boulevard de Port-Royal which was on our way back so we wandered down there for a look, not that we're really interested in antiques. It was just a good lazy stroll on our last day.

As we wandered back along the Boulevard Arago toward our street, we stumbled across a big old prison which had a plaque on it saying that students and followers of General de Gaulle had been imprisoned there by the Nazis during WWII. The weight of history seems so much more real in Europe than at home.

Tonight we'll find a restaurant down our street for dinner although many are closed on Sunday. Tomorrow morning we'll have pastries and coffee in a cafe and then come back, check out and take the Metro and tram to Orly airport. Our flight leaves at 4 pm for Montreal. From there we'll take the bus to Ottawa where Dylan will pick us up and drive us home. We're looking forward to seeing family and friends but it's been a great adventure!