Yesterday we didn't do anything remarkable, our shopping and the TdF so no entry. But today we got a sort of early start and went down to the village St. Paul area of town. It's the area just below the Marais between Rue de Rivoli and the quai along the Seine, it is primarily an area of nice antiques dealers. But it's also the location of the Hotel de Sens, built in 1475, and now the location of one of the many city research libraries. It is really a beautiful building and looks the part of a medieval structure. Interestingly it has a cannonball still imbedded in the front wall from a battle conducted in the 1830's.
We really wanted to see the inside but unless one is an accredited researcher there is no access to the library. There is however an exception made for visits to see temporary exhibitions so this was our "reason" to visit. The exhibition presented needlework created to celebrate a series of poems created by a poet, pretty vague huh? There are no pictures allowed so these are again surreptitious. The needlework was interesting but frankly it didn't do too much for me. The building has some very beautiful architectural detail but again I could only get sneaky photos.
The entire area has many little architectural gems; a long section of the 13th century wall fortifications of Phillip Auguste, a 16th century watchtower, a former Jesuit convent, also a really cool 1930 Art Deco building that houses a school dormitory.
Yesterday we didn't do anything remarkable, our shopping and the TdF so no entry. But today we got a sort of early start and went down to the village St. Paul area of town. It's the area just below the Marais between Rue de Rivoli and the quai along the Seine, it is primarily an area of nice antiques dealers. But it's also the location of the Hotel de Sens, built in 1475, and now the location of one of the many city research libraries. It is really a beautiful building and looks the part of a medieval structure. Interestingly it has a cannonball still imbedded in the front wall from a battle conducted in the 1830's.
We really wanted to see the inside but unless one is an accredited researcher there is no access to the library. There is however an exception made for visits to see temporary exhibitions so this was our "reason" to visit. The exhibition presented needlework created to celebrate a series of poems created by a poet, pretty vague huh? There are no pictures allowed so these are again surreptitious. The needlework was interesting but frankly it didn't do too much for me. The building has some very beautiful architectural detail but again I could only get sneaky photos.
The entire area has many little architectural gems; a long section of the 13th century wall fortifications of Phillip Auguste, a 16th century watchtower, a former Jesuit convent, also a really cool 1930 Art Deco building that houses a school dormitory.
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