Stamp Market...Charade it was not.

 We started our day heading down the Avenue Gabriel near the Champs-Élysées toward the famed stamp market where we discover the big secret to the prized letter in the 1963 film Charade.  On a Friday morning however, it had none of the electricity felt in that film.  Avenue Gabriel is vast yet sparse with parks on both sides and an intense security presence for government buildings including a huge US Embassy.  We walked large stretches without seeing anyone, beyond black clad and heavily armed police.

We liked the sign because of it's mid century modernist appeal and a visual footnote to our Musée du Quai-Branly visit.

Here's some repair being done on a gate to some unknown government property, or at least nothing we could discern. Note the FR for République française and faces on either side- maybe it need extra gilding or something.

The stamp market itself was pretty quiet with vendors conversing among themselves and eyeballing us as we browsed.  We didn't linger long at any stand for fear of actually buying something neither one of us know a single thing about.  A lot of the stamps were really beautiful and Ned was particularly fascinated by a grouping of voiture de pompiers (firetruck) stamps from nations like North Korea and Somalia.

Melissa toying with the idea of starting a new hobby, on second thought, better to leave it to the experts.  The experts being retirement age men, exclusively.  Around the corner was a similar scene of coin vendors with smaller spaces or just suitcases trading information with little interest from the passerby.

Back to the Marais for lunch.  We had a date to visit the Musée Carnavalet, a museum devoted to the history of Paris in that neighborhood but we had to stop at the Rue des Rosiers first.  

Melissa with a bounty of falafel.

Not so pretty but really yummy.

Then we took a helicopter ride over the neighborhood...just kidding.  You guessed it, another diorama!  In fact one of many at the Musée Carnavalet...

Time to hit the streets again to retread our steps, several times, in fact. Until we hopped on a bus to head home.

Hotel de Ville with a neo Renaissance façade and an interior refurbished in the late 19th century, after the original building from the 16th century was destroyed in a fire.  All seen from the bus window, tourism American style :).

Almost home, ahhhhh.