Shaping up to be the warmest day of our trip, we opt for shorts and I'm back to my comfortable GT Boutique wear of cargo shorts and a t-shirt (the cargo shorts are probably Amazon Basics - not Giant Tiger). On Friday some very loud construction had started in the morning just before we headed out. We tolerated it but this morning the noise was too much as we had to shout to hear each other. Carrie asked the hotel to address it and they happily changed our room to a room facing the Eiffel tower with a bit bigger bathroom and a lot less noise. We had to pack and unpack all our stuff though but it was a good inventory before the next day when we had to pack for home.
The insane noise in the morning in the bathroom
We are heading to the Montmartre region today in the 9th arrondissement to see the view from the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. We get off the metro and there is beautiful violin music playing which we stop and listen to for a bit. We wind our way up to the Basillica forgetting that there is a funicular to avoid some steps - that was quite a workout. We make it to the top and it is another great view of Paris but from a different vantage point. The line going into the church is long and winding so we opt to skip this and just take a few minutes to take in the view and have a snack.
We ride the funicular on the way down as going downstairs seems to hurt my knees more than going up. Not crowded at all on the way down. We then wind our way through the narrow, sometimes steep but lined with interesting shops streets of Montmartre.
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| A store dedicated to rubber ducks? |
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| Those pies look good enough to eat! |
The area of the Moulin Rouge is clearly more for night life as there are adult stores, lots of bars and pubs and live cancan show venues. People camped out waiting for tickets to the Moulin Rouge and surprisingly there aren't throngs of tourists taking snaps of the Moulin Rouge itself. Again the public toilet here is vile.
We do a bit of window shopping and Carrie picks up a beret in a shop. For a while we saw a fair number of people wearing berets but we think it's just tourists and not a Parisienne thing like the baguettes, cheese and wine (only one sighting of a someone carrying a single rose, a few accordion players, lots of people wearing scarves but no black and white striped shirts - just to round out the French stereotypes). We head over to a large cemetery right in the middle of Montmartre. Lots of famous people are buried here like André-Marie Ampère, La Goulue, Edgar Degas and many others. The cemetery is quite beautiful and some of the tombs are very elaborate and beautiful.
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| Zola burial tomb |
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| André-Marie Ampère - nerds (computer and electrical engineers) appreciate this |
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| Built a roadway right over top the cemetery with only centimeters of clearance of the tops of the tombs |
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Rather unassuming tomb (and it's not "The Family of Gas")
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| People were dying to get in here |
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| Ceramic Wreaths were on several tombs |
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| Holding a spider web |
This was free and not crammed with tourists but a very beautiful space. The public washroom (which I didn't use) according to Carrie was "by far the most disgusting toilet yet".
It was getting later in the afternoon so like any attraction that has it's gift shop at the end of the attraction, it was time to bookend our trip with some shopping. We wandered our way through the streets of Montmartre and Pigalle region, grabbing a coffee and stumbling across a beautiful cathedral on the way.
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| My cappucino was literally over-the-top |
Carrie wanted some specific tea so we walked to the closest place where they were selling the Mariage Frères which happened to be the Printemps Haussmann location. We figured out it was a department store and not just
a department store, a very high-end designer department store. It was beautifully laid out in 3 separate buildings with 1 building dedicated to women's fashion, 1 to men's fashion and 1 to fragrances, housewares and food. Google maps was saying the tea store was on the third floor which was just men's clothing but after going up and down all floors we finally deciphered
the map which indicated we needed to go to another building. The view out the walkway was neat.
We finally found the tea shop inside the Printemps Haussman and Carrie got her tea.
The lady in front of us dropped almost €150 on tea and took a tea's steeping amount of time doing it!
We headed up to the fragrance department - which like many other things in this store or in Paris, has an overwhelming amount of selection of high-end products. Ultimately Carrie found a refreshing summer fragrance with a lovely experience with the lady guiding her through the choice.
We head back to the hotel and given the lavishness of the previous night's dinner we opt for some cheese, a baguette and some dipping sauces along with another couple bottles of wine and another cigar for myself. We enjoy this on the terrace again and meet a mother and daughter from Chicago while there who openly discuss their disgust of their president. Getting another American's take on their current political situation was interesting, but we didn't just discuss politics. A couple of German ladies came up after that but they couldn't speak any English. I got to try out one of my known phrases as I reached into my pocket and grabbed my few Euro coins and said "Das ist kleingeld" (this is small change). A rather useless German phrase to know - but I also knew Danke as they shared the one ashtray with their cigarettes and my cigar.
Back to the room to pack and get ready for a fairly early start to head home the next day.
