Second Day in Paris (Notre Dame Cathedral)

Tamie, Darryl and the kids showed up at our doorsteps bright and early this morning. We decided to head off the Paris Catacombs today. But before that we headed down to the open-air market and picked up some food for dinner tonight. It was a fantastic local market with fish, meats, veggies and a large assortment of other things. Everyone enjoyed it.

Open Market near our apartment (Fish Vegetables, Meats…)

We went back to the apartment and dropped off the food then headed out to the Catacombs. We arrived at around 11:30 or so and found the line all the way around the block. The guy in front of us estimated it would take us at least 2 hours to get in. So we decided to do other things today.

Heading back to the center of town we stopped at the Notre Dame Crypt. This is an archeological site under the front part of Notre Dame Plaza.  This ruin was a part of the old Roman city of Paris (Back then it was called Lutetia), very interesting.

     Ancient Roman Ruins of Lutetia (Paris) under Notre Dame Cathedral

After that we headed up to the Cathedral where they were having mass so we got to watch them give communion. Wandered all around the cathedral taking in the wonderful building. This is one of the most spectacular cathedrals I have seen. It’s not as ornamental as some but it’s so massive, wonderful architecture and the stain glass windows are incredible.

After Notre Dame we ventured off to find some lunch. It was 2:00 pm and Kensie and Brandon were crashing form jetlag. We had a wonderful meal where Brandon tried some Escargot’s (snails), which I’m not sure if it was the though of eating a snail or just the taste but it seemed like he liked it.  After lunch we wondered back to our respective apartments.

Escargots (Snails) for the table

For dinner we all met up at Darryl and Tamie’s apartment, which was situated right next to a cathedral. You can see the whole side of the cathedral right outside of their balcony. Fantastic view. We had Roast Chicken, Shrimp, Bread and Pate. One big surprise, Kensie tried the pate and really liked it! After dinner we headed back to our apartment for the night.