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sunday morning

Paris Bird Market

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We can’t imagine a more delightful way to spend a Sunday morning than visiting the charming Marché aux Oiseaux in Paris. Monday through Saturday, Louis-Lépine square on Ile de la Cité is home to a famous flower market. On Sunday, the birds arrive. Traders set up cages teeming with colorful, chirping birds of all kinds. Delicate doves and bright canaries, exotic parrots, multihued budgies, and screaming macaws vie for attention, as their owners chat with fellow traders and would-be buyers. On the ground, lining the street, are more cages — some ancient and ornate — filled with chickens, hens, and roosters, and aquariums filled with hamsters and guinea pigs. The sights and sounds of this enchanting, twittering market, in the shadows of Notre Dame Cathedral and a stone’s throw from Fontaine Saint-Michel, stayed with us long after we left.  Place Louis-Lépine, Ile de la Cité metro station

DIANE BAIR AND PAMELA WRIGHT