LAST DAY IN PARIS

Wednesday in Paris, May 6, 2009
Last night we packed up our suitcases and laid out our stops for the metro as this was going to be a busy morning. Using the metro, again 3 stations and lots of stairs, we got over to see the church of St. Sulpice. My interest in this church was because of the DaVinci Code movie in which the organ and especially the astrological clock with the mysterious “rose line” also the church’s interior balcony is used in this movie. We found St.Sulpice to be an impressive neoclassical façade with two round half finished towers. But it is the organ that brings many people to worship on Sunday mornings just so they can listen to the music played on this remarkable organ.

The astrological clock is an Egyptian style obelisk used as a gnomon (part of a sundial). At Christmas Mass, the sun shines into the church though a tiny hole high up on the south wall. The sunbeam strikes a mark on the obelisk that indicates the winter solstice. Week by week, the sunbeam moves down the obelisk and across the bronze rod (rose line) in the floor until, at midsummer, the sun lights up the area near the altar.

Going back to the metro we first got on going the wrong way…. This costs us an extra ticket as we, in another error, went out of the system trying to get to the other side of the tunnel….. lesson well learned. We thought we were so smart and really getting to know the metro system…. Guess what, we found that we needed to be more careful and make sure we picked the right set of stairs. Anyway we eventually made our way down to the opposite end of the Latin Quarters, the district where we have been staying. Not sure why we had not gone to this area before as we found a wonderful Parisian district full of shops and markets…. But now we have explored Rue Mouffetard from one end to the other and feel like we really know our way around this town called Paris…must be time to leave…………

Took a shuttle bus out to Charles DeGaull Airport this afternoon and have treated ourselves to one night in a Real Hotel, The Ibis, before leaving for the USA in the morning.