The first thing we went to see in Montmarte (wanting to get their early and avoid the masses of tourists) was the Basilique de Sacre Cur. Walking from the station, we passed through some back streets but made our way fairly successfully to the church. Just as I remembered, it was a grand sight, sitting up on the hill, up all those steps, and set against a blue sky. Really, quite a beautiful building.
It wasn´t all that crowded yet and we took the opportunity to take some great photos with the three of us (thanks, Franz!). We got a great jumping photo in. We made our way up the slope and up to the church. We decided that we would climb the steps up to the top of the tower and get the great view of Paris. At the ticket machine down where the stairwell began there was a group of several elderly ladies with their grandkids. I don´t know what could possibly confused them about using the machine, but it took them nearly 20 minutes to buy themselves tickets. It took us 20 seconds.
The walk up was okay, not as bad as I remembered (or was I remembering Pisa?). The winding stone staircase was narrow and steep but wasn´t too hard to get up. I liked the bit of the climb where you walk along part of the roof, or at least a path on the top of the building. You can see lots of the gargoyles from there. Dani took a time-lapse video of the whole climb up. We thought it would go great with the Benny Hill music! The view from the top was amazing, giving us a 360 panorama of the city, with all the sites visible to us on the clear day.
When we´d had enough of the view we made our way back down. I found it a bit worse going down the steep stairs rather than up. I think, when you are climbing up you´re not looking down at how steep it really is, so it´s not quite as bad.
We made our way through Montmarte and found ourselves at the main square. There were lots of tourist shops and a myriad of artists trying to sell their talents to the tourists. Some were quite forceful, reminding me of the merchants in Egypt. Em got a bit vicious trying to get rid of one.
We kept making our way through and went down to find the Moulin Rouge. We took some photos, of course, and pondered the prospect of going all out and seeing a show there. Way too expensive, methinks. So, we kept walking down that main street and went into the Musee de l´eroticisme.
Very funny place. You really have to go in there with a great sense of humour and, I guess, an open mind too. The first floor had erotic art and objects from around the world and from different times. The next floor was about the history of the Parisian brothels and prostitutes, and the upper floor had an exhibition of modern Japanese erotic art. Interesting but some really disturbing things there.
We wanted to find a certain patisery store that Dani´s Time Out guide recommended, so we walked around trying to scope out where it was. First, we sat at a cafe called the Black Cat.
Turns out that the place had shut down since the time of printing. What a shame. Instead, we bought a few slices of quiche and sat on the steps of a random church to eat them.
We had wanted to get one art gallery done this day and we decided on the Centre Pompedou. We caught a metro over to the place and found the amazing building, with it´s structure and piping built on the outside. What we didn´t realise was that the stupid thing was shut on Tuesdays! A bit disheartened, we walked across the square and bought us some ice cream.
This was fantastic ice cream. It was gelati quality and was presented in the cones in the shape of a rose. They did this by putting the second flavour on in patches around the centre flavour. Amazing. Well worth the money; it was a work of art! I had crème caramel and amaretto.
It made sense then to try and get over to the d´Orsey gallery while there was still day left. We made our way south and traced a route on the map that would take us through some tourist sites on the way. We went via Notre Dame and stopped for a bit of photo taking. It was completely packed out with tourists by now and seemed very cheesy.
We kept going and got to the Louvre. We had all agreed that we didn´t feel we needed to go inside again. We had already done it, seen the Mona Lisa and the Venus, and weren´t too interested in the classical artwork that was in there. We did stop by the pyramids and did the tourist thing once more, though.
The d´Orsay was just across the river from us now, and we made our way across to go see some art. It was around 4pm by now and when we got there, there was a line coming out of the building. It might have taken an hour or more to get through that thing. So, disheartened again (and in discomfort from the beating down sun) we decided to move on.
After a short interlude to find some toilettes we started walking down the Champ Elyses. All of our feet were aching and our mouths were parched.
Somehow, our feet survived and we walked all the way from the Louvre to the Arc d´Triumph! We really had done a lot of walking that day...
At the arch we took some photos but none of us were really too enthused. We were hot and tired and sore from a full day of touring and walking. Em dropped her camera for the first time and it got a little scratch on the casing ;(
We all thankfully caught the metro back to our hostel. We sat for a bit downstairs at the bar and used the internet on Ozy while nursing some pints of Strongbow. Then we headed out to find food. What a challenge! (it reminded me of our time with Kate in Rome).
The first place we stopped at was a bit too trendy and the prices were a bit too out of our budget (we discovered after we sat down). The second place we sat at advertised couscous but upon getting the menu (and after ordering aperitifs) we discovered they weren´t doing couscous this night. So, we were forced to sit and finish our drinks while the waiter tried to convince Dani that she wanted salad (their menu being a bit short on vege dishes). The thirds place was a Japanese restaurant, which became a problem when we realised Dani couldn´t really order anything there.
We finally made it to a miscellaneous Asian cuisine place by around 10. We all were able to find things to eat, and we got free prawn crackers too. it was a nice little place but very cheesy. After stuffing ourselves we headed back to the hostel. We sat downstairs where we caught the end 10 minutes of Fight Club. Then, bed.
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