The Invalides is now home to a military museum, and is accordingly protected on all sides by a now-empty moat, rows of rusty old canons, and a few legions ...
... of perfectly coiffed bushes. French gardens!
We visited the small cathedral church inside the Invalides. The glass behind the church's high altar looks on to a baroque baldacchino that houses the tomb of Napoleon in the chapel behind.
Although the baldacchino was tempting, we decided to skip the tomb rather than pay to see it, and made our way promptly to a very big, randomly placed tower nearby.
Notice that the yard features more of the best of French gardens - perfectly square trees, gravel paths, and lots of straight lines. French Geometry teachers must be the happiest in the world.
Opposite the Eiffel Tower stands a peculiar sort of covered gate, made of metal shaped like the Greek letter pi, and engraved all over with the word 'peace' in different languages. While speculating on its possible significance, we got talking about pilgrimage, figuring that the gate had something to do with welcoming pilgrims. That turned our minds to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a medieval pilgrimage across Spain, which E walked with a friend a few years ago. She wants to do so again, taking me along with her, and we're hoping next summer will be our chance. Whether it will or not depends on our fellowships. So, in good medieval pilgrim style, I proposed we make a vow: if we both get research fellowships for next year, then we will walk across Spain to the church of Saint James of Compostela to thank God for his many gifts to us.
With that intention in mind we set off for the church of St. Jacques du Haut-Pas, on the opposite side of the left bank. The current church of St. Jacques is built on the site of a medieval church run by Hospitallers who served pilgrims leaving Paris for Compostela. Although all pilgrimages begin at your front door (and it's a dangerous business, going out of it), pilgrims usually go first to a nearby church before leaving town, and the church of St. Jacques was a popular point of departure in Paris.
Opposite the Eiffel Tower stands a peculiar sort of covered gate, made of metal shaped like the Greek letter pi, and engraved all over with the word 'peace' in different languages. While speculating on its possible significance, we got talking about pilgrimage, figuring that the gate had something to do with welcoming pilgrims. That turned our minds to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a medieval pilgrimage across Spain, which E walked with a friend a few years ago. She wants to do so again, taking me along with her, and we're hoping next summer will be our chance. Whether it will or not depends on our fellowships. So, in good medieval pilgrim style, I proposed we make a vow: if we both get research fellowships for next year, then we will walk across Spain to the church of Saint James of Compostela to thank God for his many gifts to us.
With that intention in mind we set off for the church of St. Jacques du Haut-Pas, on the opposite side of the left bank. The current church of St. Jacques is built on the site of a medieval church run by Hospitallers who served pilgrims leaving Paris for Compostela. Although all pilgrimages begin at your front door (and it's a dangerous business, going out of it), pilgrims usually go first to a nearby church before leaving town, and the church of St. Jacques was a popular point of departure in Paris.
We think that some of the arrows on the pavement around Paris point the way to Compostela (the many routes across Spain and elsewhere are still usually marked in some such way), but it's hard to be sure since we've seen similar arrows all over Paris, and not all of them leading the right way. Beware of false prophets.
Our trek across the left bank took us past, among other things, this unexpected and rather dilapidated pagoda, and a number of Paris's many antique shops, like that one.
After a few miles of walking, and a couple wrong turns, we finally arrived at St. Jacques du Haut-Pas.
We made our way inside and found a fourteenth century statue of St. James where we decided to make our promises. When we left the sun had set and we were hungry. On our way home we decided to try a popular fast food chain called LeClercq, "the kings of fries." A little confusion about the metric system got us a shocked look from the man behind the counter and a giant cone filled with way more french fries than we could ever hope to finish - over a kilo! The fries were good, but the mustard didn't compare to our local spot.
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