Thursday morning we’d decided we would get up early to go to Sainte-Chapelle before the crowds. It didn’t exactly work out that way. We slept in and go to Sainte-Chapelle around 10:30 or so. We’d taken a rather long route to get there, with me getting off at a station that wasn’t as close as I’d expected. I’d trusted Google and it let me down. Nevertheless we had a nice walk over to the island.
The queue for Sainte-Chapelle wasn’t too long and we were in in about 20 minutes. For one reason the majority of the gendarmerie here, which is part of the court house, are incredibly good looking. That helped pass the time.
Sainte-Chapelle was pretty. The downstairs chapel has a relatively low ceiling compared to the one upstairs. Its vaulted ceilings are painted blue with stars and there are a few stained glass windows here. But it’s upstairs where the real show is. Stained glass lines all walls and there is more glass in the walls than anything else. A dominance of red, blue and gold, the colors of Louis IX and his wife, beam out of the glass, all of which tell a story.
What all those stories are I can’t tell you. We’d paid for audio guides and used them…up to a point. The narratives were extremely long and in fact were more fact than story. They didn’t answer the, why should I care? Or why is this important? It was mostly a laying out of facts that bounced between an English man, using a bit of theatricality and having some drama in his voice, and rather schoolgirlish Australian woman who sounded like she was reading from the script but only focusing on one word at a time. The facts were largely uninteresting and each spiel was too long. I lost interest after number six. Maybe I should offer to write them a new one.
After we’d gawped up at the windows for a while, we left to visit the Catacombs farther south. We arrived to find a queue that stretched around the park next to the catacombs entrance. After waiting in the hot sun for about 10 minutes, we decided we’d go have lunch instead and return to the catacombs the next day for opening. Surely, the queue will be shorter then. (You can probably guess the outcome.)
We had lunch at a nearby restaurant, sitting on the sidewalk and watching the world go by. Food was ok. Citron presse was very tart. Glen then went to the conference and I made plans to visit Grand Palais and see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition, or failing that, the Musee de l’Orangerie. I caught the train up to the required stop only to be barred from exiting the station. The explanation was in French but it was something about ‘your security’. I got back on the train and went to Concorde, thinking I’d be able to get out there for the museum. No. Blocked again. I reasoned that if two stations were closed the likelihood of getting out at a nearby station and walking there might submerge me into the middle of some violent civil unrest, so I went home and had a nap. It was hot. I was tired. It was worth it.
I’m the evening Glen and I met Dhivys, a radiology fellow, and her sister, Nitya, and Luis, another radiologist, outside Notre-Dame and went in search of dinner around St-Germain. We chose one near a place the group had been to a few nights before. My French was getting better and I was just able to figure out the menu (forgot what crevette was) and the waitress was exceedingly lovely. Food was good. Glen’s duck was very rich but I think the nicest of all of our mains. We had wine and dessert. The waitress came over and sang a bit of a Hindi song. Turns out she also songs in a thrash metal band.
After dinner we walked along the Seine. People were still out, what with the light and heat, and were sitting on the walls overlooking the water. We continued to walk then caught the train up to Arc de Triomphe and walked with the hordes down Champs des Elysses before Glen and I head off to a gay bar called Raidd, made famous for its shower shows.
We got to this small bar with its overpriced drinks and waited for the show. We waited an hour, my feet and legs screaming to sit down, but Glen was keen to see the spectacle so we waited. Two performers entered the shower at 12:30, posed a bit, got wet, looked down on the hungry mass below, rubbed their hands over their muscles and then that was about it. We left. The thunderstorm rolled in. We got a bit wet getting home but it was still humid. One of those hot Paris nights.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?