Sunday 27 December - Mouffetarde, Dancing in the Street

We took the metro to the Monge market which was very quiet and then walked to the Rue Mouffetarde.  This is normally busy on a Sunday but today it was very quiet indeed.  Tourism is obviously down heavily but it may be that Parisians have taken the opportunity to go out of town for the period between Christmas and the New Year.  So far as we were concerned it was good being able to move around easily.

On Sunday mornings a group of locals get together with a piano accordion and a guitar and sing and dance in the area at the bottom of the street close to the church. When we passed first the accordionist was trying to get people together by singing La Mer.  A little later a couple were dancing and the seats for the spectators were beginning to fill up.  I found the video was a little difficult because of the constant stream of people.

Seats are provided, along with song sheets, for the spectators.

The pigeons were enjoying the entertainment

This was a truly local Parisian experience and we spent some time watching the crowd and the dancing.  We had a hankering to go back to a restaurant on Mouffetarde to which we have been several tmes.  Mary liked the poele de St-Jacques which many tourists took as being chicken rather than scallops.  This time the menu has been changed slightly to St-Jacques a la Provencal which is more explicit.  It was very very good as was my confit de canard.  As usual we started with the onion soup which was very good but in a large bowl.

Confit de canard

Scallops

The Jardins de Luxembourg were quite busy in the warm sun but surprisingly there were no boats being sailed in the pond in front of the Senate building.  The gulls and mallards had the water to themselves.

The restoration work on the front of St-Sulpice has been finished and it looks great.  Once again, there were few people around.

A large Wallace fountain at St-Sulpice