Tuesday in the Marais District

Today's target - the Marais District. We hopped on the #4 Metro at Les Halles, changed at Chatalet and boarded the #1 to Hotel de Ville. The streets were buzzing and busy as usual. The metro brought us up to street level a small distrance from the huge store, Bazar de Hotel de Ville. (BHV for the big shoppers) We toured from top to bottom, rested with a cappacino, and then moved on to our ultimate target.

Ginan introduced me to the wonderful tea from Mariage Freres at the Cultured Cup in Dallas. I've been buying teas from them for the past two or three years, and their Paris shop was on my list of must see places. We walked down a little side street, crossed rue de Mauvais Garcon (street of the bad boys?) and turned left on rue de Bourge-Tubourg. I stopped a woman who was walking and asked her is she could tell me how to find the Mariage Frere store. Her face lit up and she pointed in the direction of the store and asked if we were going to have tea. Of course! We found the marvelous store further down the street and on the right.

When I walked in the front door, I was mesmerized by the wonderful smell of the tea. I just closed my eyes and inhaled. What a joy! We looked around the shop and decided to be seated for tea and shop a little later.

We selected tea and deserts...great choice. I choose Marco Polo again. It took a while for the tea to come to the table (and the menu explained that the tea must be made to perfection, which always takes a little more time). The desert plate was yummy also, and consisted of a pink macaroon, creme brule, leppine, financier (spelling?) and a madeleine. We took our time (about 2 hours) and enjoyed the tea and the British mom and son sitting next to us.

After shopping at the tea store, we headed back to the Metro. These bicycle stands are all over Paris. You register, about 30 euros a year, and take the bikes from place to place. 1/2 hour is included with every check out, and an additional 90 minutes is only another Euro. More on this later as there is a stand near the apartment.

Remember that we talked about the fancy Metro signs earlier? Well, here is a shot of one of the regular boring ones.

As we came through the Metro stations on the way back to our area, we came upon students from the local orchestra playing. They filled the hallways with beautiful classical music.
Exiting the Metro in the neighborhood, I rounded the corner to see St. Eustache lit up beautifully. This is one of the 15 photos that I took (I found some new settings on my camera!)