Monday the 4th of May

Got a slow and lazy start today {this is a vacation after all) and our calves are definitely feeling the amount of walking we've been doing.  We started out heading west through the Marias with a plan to end up at the Passages Vivien, Panoramas, Geoffrey and Verdeau and came upon the Hotel Sully Gardens open and the National Archives, both of which are amazingly green (but then, I'm from drought stricken Southern California so that may be relative).  All of a sudden we were at Centre Georges-Pompidou, one of the most atrocious looking buildings ever constructed and I do understand the French agree.  Found our way from there to Saint Merri church, which has the oldest bell in Paris.  Wee were then headed toward Saint Eustache but took a few wrong turns and ended up at Rue Rivoli and the Tour Saint Jacques so we reorganized and found our way to Les Halles and my favorite church, Saint Eustache, which was the precursor to Notre Dame.   As usual someone was playing the organ so entertainment was provided.  At this point, we were dying of thirst, so we found a cafe in the Palais Royal gardens and I had a carrot,lemon juice and Leas a cafe creme.  We have no idea how we got there from where we were but, along the way, we saw the Banque de France and  Bibliotheque National (both huge buildings).  After several consultations with the maps, we found the passages and strolled through them.  We decided to have our late lunch, early dinner there as our theater tickets were for 8 pm and we were fairly close to our final destination.  We decided to go with Legrand Filles & Fils, a wine bar in Passage Vivienne.  Wee each got a charcuterie plate and shared.  Mine was ham with two kinds plus a pate and cornichons.  Leas had the salami plus two pates, roasted onions in balsamic vinegar and some comte cheese. The bread was very good and the butter was the best I've had - very creamy with chunks of salt.  Leeas had a Sancerre and then a Bordeaux and I had the Bordeaux and a Cotes Roti - they were all excellant but I'm sure that wine bar doesn't serve anything  but good.  There was a girl  at the table next to us who was doing some serious tasting.  She had four different whites, alternately trying them and taking notes along with discussing them with server.  She took pictures of all the bottles with the glasses.  We rechecked our maps and set out for the Theatre des Nouveautes to see "How to Become A Parisian in One Hour", a one-man comedy show that has gotten great reviews.  The show was in the Theatre des Nouveautes on Blvd  Poissonniere and, although it's a main Blvd, the name changes every block or two so we did have a little difficulty and went in circles more than once.  The theater is beautiful, very old and the show was really funny.  It's a French comedien who does the show in English and makes fun of everybody.  The audience was half international and half French and everybody really enjoyed it.  We planned to take the Metro home, but the station there didn't have a ticket machine (and we hadn't bought ours yet) so we got a taxi back to the Place des Vosges and walked from there.  Did a lot of walking today.