Walk till you Shop

We had booked a walking tour through an organization called Paris Greeters. At 10 am we met our lovely guide, Perrine and she strolled us through her neighbourhood for a couple of hours.

There were some beautiful art deco buildings.

We passed the first telephone exchange built during this time and were amused to see the carving above the door - an operator with the sentence, "I am listening." written above. How the phone service has fallen!

Perrine took us to the "secret" church of St Vincent de Paul; secret because you couldn't tell from the street that it was a church. Inside it was beautifully decorated in the 3rd Empire style. The body of the Saint is on display above the altar.

Across the street was the Hopital Laennec, named after the guy who invented the stethoscope, where our guide did her residency. The hospital was closed down several years ago and the buildings were bought by Francois Pinault. Here he runs his fashion empire, all very top secret. Perrine says it looks alot better now than it did when it was a hospital.

On the part of the grounds that didn't have historic buildings, he tore down what was there and put up the most expensive condos in Paris.

Along the way, we

also past the most famous French cooking school. Perhaps our girls will go there one day.

We ended up at the wonderful Bon Marche department store.

Built by Eiffel, the roof has just recently been opened up so you can see the iron work.

Ngila thought it a most fabulous place. She was especially taken with the bottle of wine almost as tall as her and the 52 euro bottle of water.

The store attendants must wear black and can not sit down while "in attendance".

After saying good bye to Perrine,

we made our way to another department store, Galeries Lafayette, where Ngila and Sheelagh attended a fashion show.

Ngila could have been on the runway, too, as she was also looking tres chic.