Yesterday was Sunday, and it was a beautiful day to go to the park. We took the metro to Jardin des Tuileries, a large city park in the center of town. It's in front of the Louvre museum and used to be a royal park when the Louvre was a palace. Laid out in a formal grid with a round fountain at the center, the park has long, wide gravel paths intersected by lawns that contain statuary and ponds. Lots of green metal chairs are scattered about and people just sit and contemplate the ever changing parade of people in the park. Large lush trees provide shade, vendors sell ice cream and crepes, and several cafes serve wine and food, although they are on the expensive side. We entered the park through huge iron and gold gates and walked to the Seine on the other side. 

We had lunch at a wonderful little café on the Left Bank called Antiquities café . It's in the heart of the antique stores and design stores which were closed on Sunday but we did window shop a bit. I had a cheese plate with a cheese called Cantal. Loved it. I'm going to try to find it at the grocery on our street. Cory had the best omelet he's had in Paris with bacon, potatoes and cheese. Very nice way to spend Sunday afternoon. 

On our way back to the metro and the garden we passed over the Pont de Artes, the oldest pedestrian bridge on the River Seine. The bridge has metal wire sides and on that wire are thousands and thousands of small padlocks. This is the lover's bridge. Lovers buy a padlock, write a message or their names on it, and then lock the padlock on the side of the bridge and throw the key into the Seine. Their love will never be broken, so the legend says. They say if lovers kiss on this bridge, their love will last forever. So, we kissed, but alas, we didn't have a padlock to lock our love. (However, a vendor would have been happy to sell us one!) Paris is still for romantics.