J'adore Paris!

After a great night's rest, we awoke ready to conquer Paris! We decided that we would test the water with a nice, comfortable bus tour of the city. Yes, it is the cowards way to see Paris, but we thought that it might be a nice overview for what the next 4 weeks hold for us!

We headed off, found our bus stop and waited and waited! Finally the tour bus came by, we hopped on and bought a two day pass and off we went. We had met 3 couples from Kentucky at the bus stop, so we sort of tagged along with them for awhile. The bus has four different routes you can take. Route one is right out side our apartment. We use that route to get to the others. The next route took us around the Historic Paris route. Now we're talking! Finally before our eyes was the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, and The Arc de Triomphe. That's what we came here to see!

When we got over to the point where the bus intercected with the third route, we decided to hop off and get on the next bus that toured the Montmartre and Sacre-Coeur. As soon as the bus dropped us off so that we could walk up the long hill to
Montnartre, Jim's batteries died (no pun intended!) and we had to say au revoir to our new-found friends. We found batteries and looked ahead at the long hill and the many stairs and decided to have a bite to eat for energy. We looked for a sandwich shop that looked tasty and decided on a diet coke instead. As Jim ordered the "Diet Coke" from the lady, she promptly pulled out a "Croquette" and popped it in the microwave. I told Jim don't worry, we will just get it. So she handed it to us, we ordered a diet coke again and proceeded to see what we were having for lunch. Well a croquette is 2 pieces of white bread, with a piece of ham in the middle, melted cheese on the top of the sandwich! That's it. Kind of like a ham and cheese but the cheese ended up on the outside instead of the middle. After our refreshment, we headed up the long hill and many, many stairs that take you to the most beautiful view of Paris around. (After we reached the top we saw that a funicular would take us up also!!) Sacre-Coeur is beautiful inside and outside. It is made from gypsum and it continually bleaches white in the sun.


As far a churches go, Sacre Coeur is young. Built between 1875 and 1914 on the "hill of martyrs" (Montmartre), which was the place where Saint den's, the 1st bishop of Paris, was decapitated for his faith, the Basiclica was consecrated in 1919 and dedicated to the Sacred Heart (Sacre-Coeur). An interesting side note to Bishop Denis (and not for the squeamish) is that the Romans who had sentenced him to death for spreading Christianity got tired of marching him up the hill. So they beheaded him about 3 miles from the top of the hill. But St. Denis popped right up, picked up his head, and carried on another 3 miles north before he finally died. The stone statue we found in the park, shows him cradling his head in his hands.

Part of our purpose on this trip is to get off the beaten path a little and see some of the places and things that the usual tourist doesn't have time for. One of the reasons we like Rick Steve's tour books is that he creates little self-guided walks through historical areas. With that in mind, and guidebook in hand, we headed down the hill, around the corners and through the alley's learning all sorts of interesting facts about the area.

We saw the houses and places where Picasso lived, where Renoir painted his famous "Bal du Molin de la Galette" (the one in yesterday's blog), where Van Gogh transformed into an inspired Impressionist, the path Toulouse-Lautrec used to go to the Moulin Rouge to paint, and the many other artists who got their beginning in this area full of life, freedom and controversy.
The Montmartre is the artist's haven. There are artists everywhere; painting and hoping that someone will recognize their talent. I got the feeling that even if we don't, they don't care. They are doing what they love and they love what they are doing.

Tomorrow we continue with the bus and see all the areas we didn't get to today. We finished the day by going to a creperie. We had four different crepes today. A chocolate-filled crepe, a kind-of pizza crepe (with everything on top), a ham, tomato and cheese filled crepe, and a caramel filled crepe. Yummmmmmmy--they were all good! (I don't know where we got the idea that we might lose weight on this trip!)
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