Sunday afternoon in Paris- 15 April

After a good lunch I was ready to walk some more in the streets of Paris: just being a tourist in a large city means you can notch up a fair few kilometres walking in a day.

There are some top class buskers in Paris, and these guys outside the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés were attracting quite a few listeners on a bustling street.

Part of this church is very old. I was told it was the oldest church in Paris, and I think it was Liliane told me that.... and there is certainly a very old chapel near the entrance to the main church, said to be originally to Saint Symphonien, martyred in 179 in Autun. These kind of dates for early Christianity really push back the boundaries so Palestine doesn't seem so far away.

Not being much of a Catholic, and having grown up in New Zealand where candles were never really part of what 'happened' in church when I grew up, I am never one for lighting candles in churches- but I always love the 'look' of the light produced.

This is the interior of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the windows and arches having rounded Romanesque characteristics.

I took a few more photos of dresses in shop windows for Leanne. I saw the price tags too, and understand why the sales I saw at the end of June in Paris were so very popular.

Everywhere as I wandered I saw more signs of rampant spring...

In the afternoon I took a more 'traditional' tourist route- first along the Seine where I saw many of the tourist boats plying their trade, even so early in the season in mid-April.

I was aiming for the Museum of the Orangerie, via the gardens around the Louvre.

Here's an impressive archway in the Tuileries Gardens, named the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. You can read more about it here.

And here's a view of the Eiffel Tower from the gardens:

And here is a bit more spring lavishness:

But my visit to the Museum of the Orangerie was not to be this day. It turned out there was a massive election rally for Sarkozy nearby- not that it did him any good in the end- and the museum was closed for the day for security reasons.