Started at the very civilised hour of 11am in the catholic cathedral to hear a Palestrina sung Latin mass. Yes, I can hear some of you switching off now but I can tell you that when you hear a superb 40-strong choir singing unaccompanied in a stone building which provides stunning acoustic reverberations that take some seconds to die away at the end into utter silence, you are transported into another realm. Of course, as it was in Latin, I understood almost none of it, but it didn’t seem to matter. Pure spiritual magic.
We attended to the temporal as well in the form of a return to the Meat and Meet cafe. It was a morning of superlatives – first the Palestrina and then the ham rolls. Thick-cut proper ham with eggs, mustard and some other unidentified things of likely French origin. If Palestrina had been known for his culinary skills, this is what he would have made. We will be back for more (is gluttony still a sin?)
Fast forward to 2pm and we found ourselves in Cafe En Seine, decorated in over the top turn of the (20th) century Art Nouveau, listening to a live Jazz quartet while enjoying a Guinness.
Not a bad day at all.
Great pic of cafe en seine but hard to capture how cavernous and ornate the place is!! Enjoyed my Guinness there 🙂