June 15 - I wish you could photograph smells and sounds!

June 15  - I wish you could photograph smells and sounds! 

If you haven’t been here, you must next time you’re in Paris.

The unmistakable wah-o-wah of the French police siren instantly takes me back over 30 years. A picnic and stroll in Jardin des Plantes and we were assailed  by a whole orchestra of heady fragrances - cut grass, herbs, flowers and trees. And the sound of insects - fat black wooly bees with silvery stripes down their backs, tawny bees in many sizes and swarms of others busy insects. The birds were leaping about having a wonderful time in this veritable smorgasbord. Even fat frogs were pretending to sun themselves among the water plants with an eye open for a lazy insect or three. Trees are in bloom everywhere and one of them pumps out a heady intoxicating fragrance. Ah ...! Glorious. All this is watched over by Lamarck himself who, they claim, is the founder of the doctrine of evolution. Hmm ... Me thinks perhaps Spencer kick started that body of thinking, but who am I to challenge!?

After that we went looking for one of our favourite churches first glimpsed in the 90s. Memory is a bit sloppy but we found it!  Chapelle Saint Genevieve tucked in behind the Pantheon on Montagne Saint Genevieve.  This church also goes by the name Eglise Saint Étienne du Mont. more to come .....

Don’t knowledge what these were - sadly all signage in French (and Latin) but the bees loved them. Looks a bit thistle-like.

Lots of water fountains on the left bank (maybe the right too but ....). Remembering that we were on a hill so the source ???? Having spent an hour or more in the Musée de Egouts I wasn’t about to drink the water.

Beautiful but I was still not tempted to drink the water

Chapelle Saint Geneviève