Pre Camino

Paris
6 April

We spent today exploring Paris on foot. We set off early morning and didn't return to our hotel until late in the afternoon. There was a extremely strong presence of gendarmerie as well the police. The gendarmerie, mostly in groups of three or more, and were positioned around the main city centre tourist areas. They were extremely heavily armed. As well as this there frequent convoys of both police and gendarmerie vehicles racing through the streets with sirens going. It was hard to know if we should have been concerned or felt safe with that level of protection around.

It was a perfect spring day - fresh but sunny and bright.

We found a street market so bought some bits and pieces for a picnic lunch.

Coquille St Jacques - scallop shells of St James

Kina?

At one of the churches we came across, Notre Dame de Champs, children were about to make their First Communion 

Tulips in the Luxemburg Gardens 

A shop front display

Chapel of St Vincent de Paul 

Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal 

Gorgeous spring greens 

Notre Dame de Paris

The River Seine 

Our picnic lunch

Trees in full blossom by Notre Dame 

St John-Paul 11

Tower of St Jacques (St James). The church of St James, where the pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela would begin their pilgrimage, was destroyed in the Revolution and this tower is all that remains. 

On one of the bridges on the Seine  

Eiffel Tower 

Our hotel