Paris day 4 - Les Puces and Sain-Sulpices

The fleas and the saints.  That's what today brought us.  We decided to skip doing coin laundry (for Evan) and took quite an adventure out to the far reaches of Paris.  We went shopping at the Marche aux Puces de Clignancourt (the Paris flea market).  I have always heard about the amazing finds and hidden masterpieces (you know, the pay .25 for the $1M painting kind?!), etc.  We boarded the metro to the end of the Pte. de Clignancourt.  We were joined in the car by a wonderful guitar player lugging a little amplifier which he used to rock out Santana's "Oye Como Va" for us.  It made the long ride (14 stops to be exact) cruise by.

Getting out of the Metro at Clignancourt we quickly realized we were not in Saint-Germaine anymore!  We walked past a group of men hovered around an older gentleman swiftly moving around 3 black discs.  I think he was asking them to watch carefully.  That was as far as my lame french got us.  Money was quickly changing hands and things started to heat up.  Someone was going to have a payday.  We moved along not wanting to interfere.  I had a mission - find cool stuff to make jewelry!  At the corner just before the "peripherique" (the freeway on the edge of town) I was offered some lovely Louis Vuitton bags, Gucci belts  and Chanel scarves.  Nah, not today!  I'm on a mission!
Once we got through the stuff just off the boat from China, we found this great area called "Vernaison". Filled with alleys of outlandish goods.  Check it out:

We found this one store that had stuff that really freaked me out.  I used to hate "blinky-eyed" dolls when I was little.  They really scared me!  This little store had a whole drawer full of just the "blinky eyes"!!!  Quelle horreur!

and after about 1 hour of searching...SUCCESS!!  French brass antique beads and findings! Yeah!

Evan bought a vintage ashtray because we were caught without one at the last Hallloween bash.  I almost splurged on a new pair of Adidas Londons but opted to skip them because I have my eye on some sweet boots.  Pictures to follow.

Shopping at a flea market can be so overwhelming.  I saw about 30 pieces of furniture I would have given an arm for.  Maybe when we come back?

After the flea market we took the Metro back into town because Evan wanted to check out Saint Sulpice, a church featured in the movie DaVinci Code.  I just found that out on Wikipedia.  I didn't knock on the little piece under the obelisk to see if there was a hidden key but if I had known!!  We thought this church would be less crowded than Notre Dame.  What do you think?

Is the pen mightier than the sword?  We shall see!  We walked inside and found the church was pretty spectacular but in need of some TLC.  Evan says it didn't look bad for being 400 years old.  There was a service going on but I really wanted to take a few pictures inside.  Here is what I got:

We were impressed with the art installations within the church. They are doing this to begin drawing bigger audiences and hopefully more money for upkeep.  It's definitely worth checking out if you're not interested in miles of tour buses and lines to see Notre Dame.  After church we were starving!  Time to eat...
We dropped into Cafe du Metro, founded in 1920.  We had an adorable waiter who barely spoke english but took care of us with a couple of glasses of red wine and plates of pasta.

Scallops St. Jacques

Spaghetti avec frommage et champignon

We were so full but couldn't resist another french dessert. Evan ordered a delicious Tart Citron avec Meringue and I ordered a Tart Chocolat Truffle (OMG!!!) but it didn't photograph well.  Sorry Kim!

Tart Citron avec Meringue

We meandered our way back to the hotel, stopped in a few shops and then collapsed upon entering our hotel room.  A short foot rub later and I was zzzz.........