We stay in the 5th today 6-12-15

We headed down to the 5th arr. again today to see some of the things that Deb had highlighted from her book "Angels of Paris" and another book "Quiet Corners of Paris".  You may recall they are small books that have pictures of  architectural embellishments located on buildings around Paris featuring angels in the first case and pictures of quiet gardens in the latter case.  We took the bus down to a stop just next to Val de Grace, a large church next to the Luxembourg Gardens to see the first angel. On the way we came across the atelier belonging to Alphonse Mucha, the father of the Art Nouveau movement. However when we arrived we found that the Val de Grace building is enclosed in scaffolding with a curtain covering. On top of that the building was closed due to a funeral so much for that attempt.

But we determined to carry on to our next objective and on the way passed by the building in which the other apartment we had interest.  It is really a nice street but given all the advantages in our current place we felt even more positive in our decision.  We turned the corner and went up to the street to the garden of Ecole Normale Superior which is in the quite corners book.   As we walked up to the school a car drove out of the courtyard so we just headed in past the upraised barrier and walked through the building to the garden.  It was lunch time and the students filled the courtyard in various groups enjoying their lunches.  We found a bench and sat down for 15 minutes to just enjoy the day and the garden.  As we left it turned out we couldn't leave the same way as we entered and we had to go through a gardien building, so we speculate that had we come in that way they may have denied us entry, whew.

We continued on past the Pantheon and down a side street to a small restaurant for a pleasant lunch on a quiet street that felt as if it were in a village in the countryside instead of the heart of Paris. After eating we walked to several buildings sporting the angels contained in the angel book.  So far we have seen a large proportion of the cited angels in each arrondissement we have focused on.

I've got a bit of a cold now too, and so we headed home early for a quiet evening.