We head out late morning to the 5th arr. Lunch at Ze Kitchen Gallerie at rue des Grande Augustins. This street has quite a few interesting restaurants, bistros & brasseries.We commence our Frommer’s Walking Tour of the Latin Quarter from Place St Michel in the 5eme, the area has become very touristy and lots of Greek and Moroccan restaurants around. We then look at St Severin Church built from 1230 with gargoyles, birds of prey and reptilian monsters projecting from its roof.
We then visit Musee de Cluny to see the famous The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. The Sorbonne, which according to Frommer can be visited has security on all doors permiting only student entry - it could be the war on terrorist or maybe just precautions after the elections. Around the next corner and then the Pantheon.
The Pantheon is the resting place of a lot of distinguished figures including Victor Hugo, Rousseau, Voltaire and Madame Curie. We walk up 206 steps to the top of the Dome and have another perspective view of the city Paris. In the interior centre of the building is Le Pendule de Foucault (The Pendulum of Foucault) ……To quote Wikipedia "In 1851 it was well known that Earth rotated: observational evidence included Earth's measured polar flattening and equatorial bulge. However, Foucault's pendulum was the first dynamical proof of the rotation in an easy-to-see experiment, and it created a sensation in both the learned and everyday worlds." The Pendulum has been reinstalled here.The Pantheon certainly exceed these jaded tourists expectations. Recommend.
We head home at 6 pm and vegetarian fried rice for dinner. Kwan tries to tidy the apartment while Philip is working hard for the weekend getway.
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