Saturday. Butte aux Cailles and muddle

Today was muddled. I decided to have breakfast somewhere different, so went around some streets where  I knew there were lots of the French bistro/  corner bar places.  This was about 8.30. Noone else was around, As an aside, I have not heard any English in a 4 or so block radius. Plenty yesterday in the Marais..   Most of the bistros were also  closed. Then I finally found 1 who did not have croissants and gave me the wrong coffee. I didnot argue. So I went to a fancy patisserie, queued up, out the door,  and bought a croissant to have in my apartment.  Delicious. 

I had read 4 years ago about a neighbourhood Butte aux Cailles south of Place d'Italie in the 13th arrondissment. The article I read said it still had a village feel to it, but easy access to the rest of Paris. So I walked, caught a train, and walked to get there.  Again, no locals were wandering around, only other tourists. Other people must have had the same idea over the last few years because several of the menus in the nice looking cafes had English translations. Back to my apartment via a place for lunch. 

In the afternoon I went on a 2 hour boat trip . It was a smallish boat because it started in the Canal Saint Martin and then went into the Seine. I got there early and was able to get a seat in the front row.  It was a bit frustrating because the commentator always started in French, which I could sometimes half follow, then he would say the same thing in English, except  he would miss out bits in his English spiel. This happened repeatedly. Going along th canal was interesting. Sometime ago part of the canal was covered over, so we were going through a tunnel. We went through quite a few locks. A  bigger boat, like most of the tourist boats on the seine, would not have fitted. It was a bit blowy on the seine and I got wet and was freezing. I have been around boats for long enough to know better, but had left my rain jacket behind.  I took lots of pictures. In 2019, when I was here before, I made a point of taking pictures of all the 33 or 33 bridges across the Seine within  the periferique, but only from the land ( or another bridge) . Now I have more  photos. My previous ones are carefully labelled  and I will have to make time when I get home to sort these ones out before I forget.

Photos and some odds and ends tomorrow. Early to bed tonight