Walk or Ride?

Wow, sorry we’ve gotten a little behind here! We’ve had a very busy couple of days here. Let’s see, yesterday, we started off with a trip to the local street market. As we’ve noted earlier, this market comes on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There are many booths, such as produce and meats that are here on both days. But the Wednesday market is more home and personal products and the Saturday is more food oriented.

So Wednesday’s market had lots of shoes, pants, shirts, blouses, coats, and hats. The produce stalls continue to be amazing. Not only are there many different varieties of produce, but there are many that we don’t have, such as some of the tomatoes, some of the lettuces, and some funny-looking beets. Maridee has told you before about the meat markets, with all the dogs and cats—no, no, I meant the birds and rabbits! All kinds of beef and pork and fowl and I think I saw a pig’s head too! It’s fun just to walk up and down the aisles and see all the stuff!

One problem, however. We decided to get a crepe. These are about 18 inches in diameter. They make them right on the spot. First they fold it in half, and then they put on the goodies, and then they fold the half into thirds. So you’re left with a wedge about one-sixth of the circle you started with. We always get the chocolate, which is really a product called Nutella. I think Nutella is a European product that is chocolate and ground hazelnuts. It’s very good and I think I have seen it in the States too. Anyway, we went out of our comfort zone and ordered Nutella and bananas! Woo-hoo, now we’re talking. It was very good, but very messy. All of the chocolate and bananas slid down to the bottom of the cone and we were left with a hand-full of chocolate and bananas!

After the Market, we set out on our tour for the day. We’re going to hit two spots, Place des Vosges (history lesson here: the Kings said that the first area of France that paid their taxes on time got to name the square and the Vosges were the winner) and the Cluny Museum. We have been to the Place des Vosges before. It is a series of homes built around a park. Think of them as a continuous row of houses built around a square—nine homes on each side. They were building in Napoleon’s day for the rich and famous. In the center of one side is the largest (tallest) home, built for the King, and on the opposite side, just a slightly smaller home built for the Queen. It is still a very nice neighborhood, kept very clean, no graffiti, and hundreds of people in the park at noontime, sitting on the grass, eating their lunches.

Next, we went to the Cluny museum, which we haven’t been to before. In our guide book, Rick Steves makes a joke about the museum, saying that it contains the relics of the people who survived the Year 1K crisis. It has artifacts from around the year 1000 A.D. and is located at the site of an ancient Church and Roman Bath.

That was about it for Wednesday—lots of walking and we were very tired afterwards. Therefore, we changed our plans for Thursday! Instead of visiting Fontainebleau, we decided to do our wash instead (and pushed Fontainebleau off to Friday).

So Thursday morning we spent some time at the Laundromat. It is just around the corner from our apartment, so it’s very convenient. We’ve got it all figured out now too, so it’s pretty easy to operate. First you put in 1 Euro to buy a bar of soap. Then you put in .60 Euro to buy some fabric softener. Then you put in 4.50 Euros to wash the clothes. Then you put in 1 Euro for each ten minutes you need in the dryer. It all works very well and is a neat and clean Laundromat.

Afterwards, we decided to go visit Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart), the cathedral up on the hill that is barely a century old. It is built of all white stone but much of it is now stained black, but still a beautiful sight. The interior is stunning as well, with all the white stone and huge murals up on the ceilings. But no photographs allowed mean no interior pictures to show!

The main problem with Sacre Coeur is that it is up on top of big hill. We decided to try a new metro stop that would put us closer to Sacre Coeur. Unfortunately it dropped us into the middle of Harlem on a street that had more “hair weaving shops” than we have ever seen in our life. We walked up the 160 steps to get up to Sacre Coeur, but decided to ride the funicular down. I know that’s backwards, but we just planed it wrong. We have to go back next week for the Harvest Festival, so we’ll get it right then!

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