Still walking through central Paris

I'm still walking through Paris, looking for a place to have lunch. I decided against the Brasserie Balzar because it was too early and I wanted to keep walking. I looked at the menus at the Bar à Huîtres Saint-Germain but decided against that too. I wasn't sure I wanted to eat oysters, because the weather seemed too warm. Then I walked by Le Reminet, down closer to the river, but it seemed a little expensive for a quick lunch alone.

Yesterday I posted a couple of photos of Notre-Dame cathedral that I took from along the river on the Left Bank. Right after taking the second one, I looked back over my shoulder and enjoyed the view above up the Rue de Bièvre. President François Mittérrand had an apartment on this narrow street back in the 1980s and 1990s, so it was often closed off to traffic. It's open again these days.

I crossed the Seine on the Pont de l'Archevêché onto the Ile de la Cité and walked behind the cathedral to the pedestrian bridge that crosses over the to Ile Saint-Louis. I was enjoying the weather, which improved steadily as the day and the walk continued. The sun started breaking through and the view of the Right Bank was pleasant. The tall tower in the photo above is the Tour Saint-Jacques, which I had the pleasure of climbing to the top of (300+ steps on a narrow spiral staircase) in July 2013, when it was open to the public for just about the first time ever. I posted a whole series of photos from up there in August  and September 2013.

Above is the Paris Hôtel de Ville, or city hall, which is on the right or north bank of the Seine. The neighborhood to the north and east of it is called Le Marais ("the swamp" because that's what it was centuries ago before the land was drained and built up). It's one of the trendiest areas of Paris these days, after being a Jewish ghetto up until the 1970s.

Here's one more view of the Tour Saint-Jacques and the area around the big square called La Place du Châtelet (there used to be a "little château" there that was used as prison for years before being torn down) on the Right Bank. The biggest building, with the cupola on top, is one of the theatres at Châtelet. I still hadn't decided on a place to have lunch before getting my 4 p.m. train back to Saint-Aignan.