Paris - Is it Still "the City of Light"?
We settled into our seats on the Eurostar for the 2 hour and 20 minute ride to Paris. If you are thinking of taking the Eurostar (I highly recommend it for the speed from downtown London to downtown Paris - or the reverse), try to book it as far in advance as you can to take advantage of the discount fares. Otherwise, it is expensive. The train pulled out of St Pancras Station and immediately went underground. Marie asked if we were in the Chunnel already - she had been reading the newspaper and did not notice we were moving. However, we were just travelling underground to get out of London and soon we were in the English countryside. It took about 30 minutes to travel to the English Channel and then we did plunge underground into the Chunnel. Another 30 minutes passed in complete darkness as we travelled under the Channel. Once we emerged in France, the train started to really move, travelling at up to 300 kph. Cars along the four lane highway beside the tracks seemed to be standing still.
We pulled into Paris around 2 p.m. (the Continent is one hour behind London time), got a map of the city at the Gare du Nord station, found a taxi and headed out for our apartment which on the map looked to be about a 10 to 15 minute drive away. However, we immediately got stuck in traffic. I asked our driver if we had arrived at an early rush hour; he explained that since it had just rained and Paris drivers did not know how to drive in the rain, everything was slow. I replied that he is lucky it does not snow in Paris.
The slow traffic, plus a couple of detours for construction combined with very narrow streets near our apartment meant the 10 minute ride turned into 45 minutes. The apartment (which I found on the web - all accommodations, train travel, car rental for this three city tour was done on the web) was ideally situated at the border of the 3rd and 4th Arrondisement (like Wards in Ottawa) in the Marais district on the Right Bank. The outside of the building did not look very inviting and indeed the people living in cardboard boxes across the street did not seem to auger well, but once inside we found a delightful one bedroom place complete with a small kitchen and living area that doubled as Kerri's bedroom. The beams in the ceiling were original wood timbers. Unfortunately, the aparment was on the 3rd floor (4th floor in Canada since the first floor is the 'Rez de Chaussee') and there was no elevator. Another reason to pack lightly, right ladies?After recovering from hauling the suitcases up the flights of stairs, I completed the paperwork with the person who was there to greet us, paid for the apartment in cash - this seems to be the norm in Europe - grabbed our cameras and walked less than a kilometre down Rue du Temple to the Seine, Paris City Hall, and across the Pont Notre Dame to the Cathedral of the same name.
Notre Dame Cathedral is located on the Isle de la Cité, the exact centre of Paris where the city started as a settlement of the Parisii tribe. A marker in the cobblestones immediately in front of Notre Dame marks the spot where all roads in France supposedly start. 
Notre Dame itself is located where the Romans had a temple to Jupiter and where an earlier Christian church, St Etienne was constructed. The building of Notre Dame began in 1163 C.E. and was completed in 1345 C.E. (And we complain about construction projects that take a couple of years!).
Notre Dame is the most visited site in Paris, even more than the Eiffel Tower, and upon entering the Cathedral one can see why. The soaring Gothic interior, amazing stained glass windows, gilt decorations, paintings, statues and other religious icons and paraphenalia make for a beautiful church. The church, unlike Westminster Abbey, is free to enter. Audioguides can be purchased, but may not be necessary if you have a tour book that explains what you are looking at. 
Or you can purchase a small guide to the Cathedral which we did and share it among your party. Expect to spend at least an hour inside the Cathedral. We went by Notre Dame several times over the next four days as it really is located at the centre of town. Twice Kerri and I stopped; once to take pictures of it at night and the second time so Kerri could climb up the 387 steps to the towers (having climbed a similar tower in Prague a couple of years ago, I decided to wait for her in the plaza in front. We will come back to these two visits later in this blog.When we emerged from the Cathedral, we headed around the back to the pedestrian bridge that leads to Ile St. Louis,
a small mostly residential island that has very narrow one way streets, little vehicle traffic, charming shops and boutiques, several restaurants, three ice cream parlours, a school, a couple of 'mansions' that are fairly unassuming from the exterior and of course, a church. The rents and property costs to live on the island are some of the highest in Paris. I imagine that during the summer months, the island is crawling with visitors, but when we were there in October, we had the place pretty much to ourselves, except for the locals. Ile St. Louis was built in the 17th century as a planned community, one of the first in France. It is well worth the time to take a stroll around the island and to do some window shopping.We walked back across the Pont St. Louis to Ile de la Cite and since it was getting on to 6 p.m., headed back to the apartment along the Rue des Archives which parallels Rue du Temple to rest up before going out in search of dinner. Given that are apartment was only about three blocks from the Pompidou Centre which is surrounded with restaurants, small grocery and vegetable stores, this is where we headed. It is a very lively spot in the evenings, with many pedestrian only (motorbikes are the only vehicles permitted) streets and alleys. We ended up at a Brasserie and enjoyed our dinner, sitting outside on the square. A short note on eating in Paris. If you want to eat at a traditional restaurant, reservations are usually required.
Traditional restaurants are the most expensive option in Paris for dinner; lunches are about half the price. Bistros also often require reservations in the evenings. Brasseries on the other hand, do not require reservations and are often open from early morning to late evening. If you are just popping in for a sandwich, or for a croissant and coffee in the morning, standing at the bar to eat costs half of the cost of sitting down. For example, a cafe au lait at a Brasserie is 2-3 euros if one stands or 5 euros if one sits at a table. We walked around the Pompidou Centre after dinner. It is a public library and Modern Art gallery and is itself an architecturally different building. 
Kerri was not overly impressed with its design; indeed it reminds one of an oil refinery with all the pipes and conduits on the outside of the building. However, the whimsical fountains on one side, and the activity around the Centre make up for this. We did not visit the Centre's art works, but the collection includes works by Picasso, Braque, Max Ernst, Magritte, Chagall, Matisse, Delaunay, Kandinsky and Klee among others.This is also where we had our first but not last encounter with the terrible, and in my view worsening service and hospitality ethic of Parisian workers. We had stopped in a small grocery store to pick up some provisions for our apartment. As we approached the cash, the cashier was busily berating a Japanese woman who spoke very little French and was not sure how to use her debit card. Then it was my turn to be abused. I had not weighed the tomatoes I bought (I forgot that you have to do this yourself in the produce section) so as she started to complain, I set them aside rather than go back to weigh them. She was not happy with this and made rude comments about tourists to her co-cashier at the next cash. Then, when it came time to pay the 10.70 for the items we had, I gave her a 20 euro note and searched in my pockets for the 70 cents which I found and tried to give her. Of course she was already in the process of making change and my offer of the 70 cents was met with another bout of derisive language. She did not know that I understand and speak French, so I managed to get the last word in as we left (unlike her, I did not use abusive language) but I think she got the point that serving customers is what paid her salary - needless to say, we did not frequent that store again.
Day two in Paris and we had made plans the evening before to head out to see the Chateau de Versailles as we did not want to visit on the weekend. Visiting Versailles takes at least a morning or afternoon (better to arrive before 10 a.m. and thus avoid 'some' of the tour buses and if you want to see other parts of the grounds - I suggest you do - plan on being there for most of the day). Marie decided to take a day off from touring; she and I had been to Versailles before and she needed to catch up on some rest - she had gone on this vacation the day after arriving from Buenos Aires where she had put in long hours on her contract. So Kerri and I were up and out the door at 7:45 a.m. We hoofed it down to Place St Michel where one catches the RER train to Versailles.
A tip - buy your entrance ticket to Versailles at the St. Michel RER stop as it includes the return rail fare for the same price as an entrance ticket at Versailles proper. And you don't have to get into the ticket lines when you arrive at the Chateau. The train ride is about 45 minutes to the end of the line, the Versailles stop. A short walk from the station brings you to the huge cobbled forecourt of the Chateau de Versailles and its enormous frontage and golden gilded fences. The Chateau started as Louis XIII's hunting lodge, but it was Louis XIV, the Sun King, who had the hunting lodge expanded over several decades to become one of the largest, most opulent royal palaces in the world. If you arrive before 10 a.m., you should start your tour in the main apartments of the King(s).
Make sure to pick up your audio device as it is included in the price. Unfortunately, Kerri and I had not gotten very far into the tour before the tour buses had disgorged their hordes of pushy and loud tourists. The best thing to do when these people arrive in by the gangload is to find a gap between two groups and try to stay in this space. Tour groups are whisked through only the main apartments, so they do pass by quickly and they do not go into other areas of the Chateau or out into the gardens and two other smaller palaces (Grand and Petit Trianons). Each room of the Royal Apartments is magnificent and grandiose, as are the chapel, the Hall of Mirrors and various music rooms, libraries and studies. 
Most of the furniture is from this period although not original because the Chateau was ransacked at the beginning of the French Revolution when peasants from Paris marched on it. Shortly afterwards, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (who presumably was eating cake at the time) were captured and the Chateau was declared part of the new state of France with most items that were left being sold. Over time, the Chateau and Grand Trianon were redecorated for State use (Napoleon and Marie-Louise lived here). The paintings and tapestries displayed on every wall are copies but still are amazing. What we did not like as we toured the Chateau proper was the inclusion of a piece of 'modern' art by some contemporary artist that was plunked in the centre of most rooms. Come on, Michael Jackson and his monkey do not belong in the same room as Louis XIII, XIV, XV and XVI, I don't care who would argue that it is artistic. Kerri and I both agreed that it was tacky.
We escaped from the Chateau itself to the grounds that lie behind the Chateau. The scale of the grounds, with their gardens, fountains, a lake, arboretums, two more palaces, houses, and statues is unbelievable. Particularly so when you find out that what is left as part of the Chateau comprises less than 20 percent of the original holdings. It takes 40 minutes to walk from the Chateau to Grand and/or Petit Trianon in the back right hand corner of the grounds. From the Chateau to the back of the grounds is almost five kilometres. There are various other ways to tour the grounds other than on foot. 
Bicycles can be rented near the lake, as can golf carts (expensive since it is impossible to get to Grand Trianon, see it and get back within the 2 hours allocated - extra hours are mucho dinero extra). Or one can take (as Marie and I did on our previous visit) a slow moving train type vehicle which makes several stops at key locations. Kerri and I chose to walk as it was a beautiful day. We toured Petit Trianon which is best known as the private residence of Marie Antoinette (Grand Trianon was lived in by Napoleon among others). To the back of Petit Trianon is Marie Antoinette's garden. 
It is well worth visiting (better than her 'house'). And behind the garden is an area that I had not visited before, but probably was the most picturesque area of the Chateau de Versailles. This is a farm that Marie Antoinette had built for her use and to provide meat, eggs and vegetables for her personal retinue.
At any given time when the Kings of France lived at Versailles, there were between 14,000 and 20,000 nobles, servants, soldiers and other official residents of Versailles and its annexes. I imagine the King had quite a food bill.
We spent a lot of time walking around the farm which still has cattle, sheep and chickens in the fields and a small vineyard. 
We watched and listened to the swans hiss at us and the ducks that made a laughing sound kind of like a loon at us (they probably all knew the cashier at the grocery store) on the small stream and pond, and the large goldfish that swam under the stone bridge that we rested on. 
By then, it was getting on to 2 p.m. so we started the long walk back to the Chateau, past Marie Antoinette's garden that we had walked through earlier and where legend has it that she was captured by the peasants in a small cave (although probably not true) and up the hill to the back of the Palace. After trying to exit through a door marked exit (but was locked) we walked around the back of the Palace to a second exit and left the Chateau behind and headed back to get our train back to Paris. This is where we had our second encounter with a Parisian's indifference to service. One of our train tickets would not work in the automated turnstile, so we lined up behind a gentleman who spent the next 10 minutes complaining to the station agent about the signage in the station, the cost of the trains, the fact that the agent would not answer his questions(in his defence the agent did a lot of shoulder shrugging though) and the general state of the government, citizens and country of France. He complained for so long that we missed our train back to Paris and had to wait about 20 minutes for the next one. But so did the complainer - served him right. I only had to ask the agent twice for replacement tickets as he did not want to give me the two I needed on the first request - that would just be too efficient and courteous.We got back to Paris, stopped at a different grocery store for some provisions and got back to the apartment around four p.m. Marie had also done some shopping for provisions so we had lots of beer and wine on hand now (and even some food). We went out to a restaurant for a late dinner and got back around 10p.m. Thus ended the second day in Paris.
I made breakfast at the apartment on the third morning which if you want something other than a croissant is what you have to do. Having an apartment facilitates this greatly and although we did not make other meals here,
if one were staying longer in Paris, it would be advantageous to have a stocked kitchen. After breakfast, we down to Rue Rambuteau, one of the major east west shopping streets in the Marais and headed east towards Les Halles and the Louvre. We did not have coffee at the apartment, so we stopped at a cafe near the back of the Louvre and indulged in cafe-au-lait. Marie and I had visited the Louvre before on our last trip to Paris and Kerri had no inclination to go in, although she did comment on the book The Davinci Code and that it starts at the Louvre. 
"It was just after walking through the Louvre courtyard and while we were heading into Les Tuilleries gardens that we bumped into a scam artist. A woman heard us speaking English and she immediately made a bee-line towards us, bending over at the last moment to pick up an enormous 'gold' ring, exclaiming in English Look what I just found". Her next line was going to be to one of us, "Did you just drop this?", but I had read of this scam and I knew that after we said it was not ours, she would offer to sell it to us for a good price. Beware this scam; the ring costs 2 euros at a market.We made a slight detour here to go to see the public gardens at the Palais Royale. The Palace is closed to the public but the gardens are not. Several Parisians were taking advantage of the warm weather to sit out with their kids away from the hustle and bustle of the traffic as it passed along the River Seine embankment a couple of streets over.
Then it was back to Les Tuilleries and a slow walk through the gardens towards the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Élysées . The Place de la Concorde has had other names. First it was called Place Louis XV who commissioned it. Then it was renamed Revolution Square. This was Paris's site for public executions and where the Guillotine first made its appearance after the 1789 Revolution. Several people were separated from their heads at this spot, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793. In fact, in July 1794, over 1,300 people got a too close shave here including one of the father's of the Revolution, Robespierre. After checking that my head was still firmly attached to my shoulders, 
we crossed the busy square and the traffic flowing around it and embarked onto one of the most famous avenues in the world, Avenue des Champs Élysées This six lane wide, two kilometre long avenue runs between Place de la Concorde and Place Charles de Gaulle.
The sidewalks are some of the widest in Europe and the street is always full of strollers, shoppers and of course tourists. Several expensive and extremely expensive stores and even high end car dealerships line the avenue, as well as famous hotels (King George V from which Princess Diana left on her last trip). I suggested that Kerri stop in at some of the stores, but she and her Mom share the same shopping rules; if you can't afford the merchandise, there is no sense looking at it. If that were the case for men, hardly any of us would visit Futureshop or car shows. The Champs-Élysées runs slightly uphill from Place de la Concorde to Place Charles de Gaulle where the Arc de Triomphe is located. Since we weren't shopping, this became our destination.The Arc de Triomphe is big; it stands almost 50 metres tall, 45 metres wide and 22 metres deep.
But it is only the second largest triumphal arch in the world which is located in North Korea. Which begs the question, why is the Korean arch triumphal? But back to France.The Arc de Triomphe features the grave of France's Unknown Soldier from World War I, as well as inscriptions and art to France's military triumphs from Napoleon (who commissioned the Arch) through to the end of the Second Word War. One can climb to the top of the Arch for a view of Paris and the twelve streets that radiate from it, thus the former name for this square, Place de l'Etoile. To get to the Arch, do not under any circumstance try to cross the circular street (or Paris race track) that surrounds the arch. Instead take the underground passage that can be found on the right side of Avenue Champs-Élysées. It is worth going over to the Arch to see the underside as well as the artwork of the nude French youth fighting off the bearded mail-clad Germanic warriors and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which has the first eternal flame lit since one that stopped burning for the Vestal Virgins in Rome over 1700 years ago.
After visiting the Arc, we made our way west towards the Seine and the Eiffel Tower. We decided it was time for lunch as well,
but unfortunately, the area around the Place du Trocadero is not populated with eating establishments (at least none we found) so we ended up buying crepes which were good, and filling, from a vendor in the square. The Place du Tocadero is the best place in Paris from which to see the whole Eiffel Tower. Trocadero also contains several museums in the Palais de Chaillot and in surrounding buildings. But the major draw is the view across the Seine of the Eiffel Tower from the raised balcony at the end of the square. 
The Eiffel Tower is not supposed to be there. Gustave Eiffel originally wanted to build it for the World's Fair in Barcelona, Spain, but his design was rejected as too strange. Undaunted, he submitted his plans to Paris where it was accepted. Construction started on the Champs de Mars in 1887 and the 18,000 different iron parts were joined together with over 2.5 million rivets in time for the 1889 Paris World Fair. From the start, learned people complained about the structure. A letter to a Paris newspaper in 1887 signed by a multitude of people, stated: 'We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects, passionate lovers of the beauty, until now intact, of Paris, hereby protest with all our might, with all our indignation, in the name of French taste gone unrecognized, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the construction, in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower...'.
Most guidebooks recommend going to the second level (the top level is small, crowded and perhaps too high to really see the sights) which we did. The views from here were spectacular. The Champs de Mars to the south side, the Seine to the west, 
the Place du Tocadero to the north and Montmartre (more on this later), Notre Dame and countless other buildings to the west and beyond. We also watched several parachutists float down to a park behind Les Invalides (where Napoleon is buried). The Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris, yet despite the fact that every Hollywood movie about Paris shows it out the window of every café and hotel, it is difficult to see from most places in Paris because buildings are so close together. We spent over an hour on the second level of the tower and thought momentarily about walking down the stairs to the first level for additional views, but this thought was quickly put aside as we had already walked about ten kilometres and it was getting very late in the afternoon. We wanted to wait until dark to take pictures of the Tower's light shows, but we agreed that we were too tired and would come back the next night. So we took the elevator back down and walked the three hundred metres to the Eiffel Tower metro stop and headed back towards our apartment. 
By the time we got to our neighbourhood, it was around 6:30 p.m. and dark and we were hungry. So we went in search of a restaurant. As we passed a group of policemen, I noted that several were wearing roller skates and I immediately thought they were going to join the weekly roller skate through Paris, but when we turned the corner we realized they were dressed this way for another reason. Apparently, we had walked right into a confrontation between the police and immigrants (Paris has racial riots - black immigrants from Africa have an official unemployment level of 45%). Actually, we were between the police and the agitated crowd and as more police dressed in riot gear arrived, our choice of restaurant was instantly made for us as we deked into a hamburger joint (not McDonald's, but the French equivalent) and bought hamburgers while waiting for the police and crowd to disperse. After about 45 minutes the excitement was pretty much over, although we heard police sirens and saw the blue lights of the police all around the area as we walked back to our apartment.
Our fourth day in Paris was a day to explore the Right Bank including the Marais where we were staying. It was a beautiful sunny day and we headed out towards Place des Vosges. But before we found it, we wandered down la Rue des Rosiers which is the centre of Jewish Paris. All around this area several elementary schools display plaques to indicate how many Jewish children were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps by the Vichy French government and the Nazis.
The Jewish sector was much, much larger before World War II, yet this street still has several Jewish delis, shops and a synogogue located either on the street or close by. The smell of sweet pastries baking pulled us into one eastern Europe style deli where we each bought a pastry, hot out of the oven. Mine had fig filling and was delicious. Then it was on to Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris having been built in between 1605 and 1612 by Henri IV. The houses that surround the square are all identical, or at least built to the same design. Some famous former tennants of Place des Vosges include Cardinal Richileu and more recently, Victor Hugo. 
It is a beautiful, peaceful square, with several fountains and a statue of Louis XIII who inaugurated the square in 1612. From here, we wandered a bit further south and west towards La Place de la Bastille. The Bastille of course is famous as the fortress/jail that was stormed during the French Revolution in July 1749. The revolutionaries did such a good job that they totally destroyed the building and today there is nothing left but an outline of where the building stood that has been put into the cobbles of the road on the square. There is a column in the centre of the square, but this actually commemorates the Revolution of 1830 which also took place in the month of July. Apparently Paris in July can be a riot. The golden statue on the top of the column (called the July column for some reason) is called the Spirit of Freedom as evidenced by the fact that he is free of all clothing. On one side of the square, the relatively new Bastille Opera fills the sky. 
A guidebook I read at our apartment said that the many Parisians are contemplating another revolution because of the design of the Opera (incidently, designed by a Uruguayan who lives in Canada). Our host suggested that we visit the Bastille Market, and Kerri's keen eye spotted it across the square. We walked among the vendors of predominately produce, although cheeses, meats and some crafts are clothes are also sold here. Marie picked up a couple of necklaces for our girls while I tried to get picked up for taking photos of the vendors, their customers and the merchandise. All kidding aside, visiting at least one market in Paris is fun, educational and can be rewarding from a material point of view.
After visiting the market, we started to walk back down the Rue St. Antoine towards the new Jewish memorial to the Holocaust, called the Shoah in France. After going through the security gates, we immediately entered the courtyard of the memorial and into several walls full of names - 76,000 of them of which 11,000 were children, all sent to concentration camps by the Vichy government. Only about 2,500 French Jews survived, none of the survivors were children. The museum provides an excellent and detailed record of events leading up to World War II, many personal mementos (letters, postcards, photos) of the people deported, historical films and of course, because the Germans were such good record keepers, a card on every person arrested and transported to the camps. It is sombre, but a good reminder of why we can never forget what happened.We stopped at a boulangerie which sold sandwiches and bought some for our lunch and took them back to our apartment since we were within four blocks of it. After lunch, Kerri said she wanted to climb the bell towers of Notre Dame - to look for Esmeralda or a man with a bad back I presume - so while Marie stayed behind to rest, Kerri and I walked down to Notre Dame where she got into the line to go up the tower. While we waited in line (remember that I said I was NOT going to climb up) a busker kept us entertained by putting on a hideous mask and sneaking up to walk alongside tourists passing by (he often took the hand of one of them). As they turned to talk to each other, their startled look at seeing his mask kept us laughing. He would do this for 10 minutes or so and then come by the front of the line to collect small change.
After Kerri went into the tower, I walked across the square in front and descended the steps down the embankment to the Seine. I watched several canal boats pass by, including one where the owner had his car parked on it. 
How we gets the car off and on must make for an interesting story. I took a couple of photos of Notre Dame from this location which is probably the best place to capture the full cathedral, then went back up to the front of the Cathedral and sat at the back of the square where we agreed we would meet once Kerri came down the tower.
I guess the steps up must have taken her some time because after I sat down, I put my telephoto lens on my camera and scanned the top of the Cathedral and lo and behold, I
found Kerri among the people at the top. She was very close to the most famous gargoyle (actually chimera since it does not serve as a drainpipe which a gargoyle does) of Notre Dame and she got a closeup shot of it. It sits, head in hands, looking out over Paris as if bored with what it sees (I guess I would be too if I stared at the millions of tourists who have frequented Place Notre Dame over the past for hundreds of years). She took several other photos of the other chimeras and real gargoyles as well as of the city from her vantage point, 387 steps up. 
She could certainly see the Eiffel Tower from this location, as evidenced in her photos from the top. She even said she could see me waiting in the square in front and took a picture of me as proof. If I had of known she was taking a picture, I would have done something other than just sit there, perhaps even waking up the chimera with his head in his hands.On our way back to the apartment we stopped to pick up a few items since we had decided to make spaghetti for dinner as a change of pace before going out in the evening to take photos of the Eiffel Tower at night and to take a boat ride on the Seine.
The Eiffel Tower puts on quite a light show at night, for about ten minutes every hour on the hour. It is nothing like the fireworks that millions of us saw to mark the year 2000, but it is something I recommend you do. Unlike the Tocadero, the best place to watch the light show is in behind the Tower on the Champs de Mars. The last time Marie and I did this, we could sit on the grass but now the grass is fenced off and you have to pick one of the walkways that crosses the Champs de Mars as a vantage point. Go back far enough that you can see the whole tower, particularly if you want to photograph it. And take a tripod for the best and steadiest shots.In between the ten minute show when thousands of lights sparkle and blink, the tower is lit with blueish purple lights. I have included a video clip Kerri took of the glittering lights so you can get an appreciation of what it is like - but it is much better to be there in person.
After the light show, we went down to the Seine and took the one hour boat ride that cruises down past Ile d'Orleans and back up to the Eiffel Tower (several different companies operate on the river, this was the one suggested by several tour books). Sitting on the left side of the boat provides the best views of Notre Dame once you reach it. Then it was back to the apartment for the night.
We wanted Kerri to see Montmartre (the church and the artists area behind the church) as well as Pigalle and she wanted to see Pere Lachaise cemetery, so we took the metro to a stop close to the bottom of the steps that lead up to Sacre Coeur basillica on the top of Montmartre hill, the tallest hill in Paris. 
Marie decided to test out the funicular (one metro ticket) to go to the top while Kerri and I hoofed it up the stairs. I stopped to take several pictures on the way up - or so I pretended. I actually stopped to catch my breath as it is quite a ways up and keeping up with Kerri was just not in the cards given that she had practiced on the steps of the Notre Dame towers the day before. Just before the last flight of stairs (which are covered with people admiring the view back towards Paris), we watched the buskers who use this location to raise money.
I sure hope the harpist did not come up the stairs with his instrument. I would have paid to see that though. The best busker was a mime dressed all in white to mimic the white travertine stone of the Basillica. He resembled a statue and would stand completely still in some statuesque pose until someone put a coin in his basket at which time he came to life, showing delight that someone would deign to give him money. Good shtick that. The view from the balcony just below the last steps to the Basillica is usually very good. The last time Marie and I were there, the air was clear and the sun was in a different location. This time the air was a bit smoggy and Montparnasse tower was a fuzzy slab without definition. We climbed the last flight of steps and went into the Basillica which was started in the 1870s to commemorate the crimes of the short-lived Paris Commune, yet another uprising of Paris citizens that resulted a form of government by the people, but really only accomplished thousands of deaths in a mini-civil war between the communards and the National Assembly which followed the Commune. The Basillica, which was finally completed in 1912, is beautiful inside.After exiting the Basillica, we wandered around to the back and side and walked into Montmartre itself. Montmartre was one of the last villages subsumed into Paris.
Prior to becoming part of the City, Montmartre was known as the Party Place of Paris in that the citizens and establishments paid no taxes and it probably did not hurt that the local nuns made wine. Soon artists gravitated to the area; some of the most famous over the years were Picasso, van Gogh, Renoir, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. There are countless artists still painting in the Place du Tertre, all hoping to become the next famous one. Many others wander the picturesque streets, drawing paper and pencils in hand, all ready to do a portrait of you. We saw a whole table of coffee drinkers surrounded by 4 or 5 of these artists doing their thing. 
We wandered in the village streets for a while longer, then it was downhill toward another famous area of Montmartre, known for its red light entertainment, called Pigalle (or Pig Alley as named by American GIs during WWII). Pigalle today is full of sex shops and prostitutes who appear to practice their trade even during the day (or the lady I saw was just provocatively dressed to get her picture taken). But at the turn of the 19th century, it was an entertainment district. Many of the theatres and halls that were there are now gone, but one famous one remains. Although never a real mill, the Moulin Rouge has featured many artistes over the years, such as Edith Piaf to Elton John. It is also famous as the birthplace of the Can-Can which was described in hte 1898 Paris Guide to Nightlife as: an army of young girls in Paris who dance this divine hullabaloo the way its fame demands it... with such an elasticity when they launch their legs upwards that we are allowed to presume that they are at least as flexible with morals. Presumably they are still throwing their legs in the air. To attend a show with dinner, be prepared to throw up to 175 Euros ($250) into the air. While Kerri was taking the photo of Marie and I in front of the Moulin Rouge, we encountered another example of Parisian courtesy. A passerby stuck his hand in front of the lens just as Kerris was pushing the shutter button. He muttered something incomprehensible and when we looked at him in exasperation, he gestured something comprehensible.After we told him to drop dead, we decided that it was time to go visit the dead. So we descended into the Pigalle metro station and rode over to Pere Lachaise cemetery. If you visit, go to the Gambetta stop because visiting the cemetery from this point means walking downhill to the Pere Lachaise stop proper. Once located outside the then Paris city limits, the cemetery actually had to resort to marketing to get people to bury their dead here.
In 1804, Moliere and his friend La Fontaine were moved here, followed in 1817 by Pierre Abelard and Heloise, famous lovers from the 11th century. Soon other rich and famous people were dying to get in; today there are about 70,000 permanent residents. We followed the tour from Rick Steve's book on Paris as it covers many of the most famous (and best known to people from North America) graves in the cemetery and helps one from getting lost in this huge cemetery full of named streets, avenues and paths. 
First up after we passed by several memorials to various wars and the working crematorium is the tomb of Oscar Wilde. As one of the first declared (he did not declare it, but a court did) homosexuals, this grave is obviously visited by people dedicated to Oscar's sexual orientation. The red lipstick kisses left behind, on the statue's behind and other parts(some of the kissers must be really tall!), testifies to this. We passed by the wall where 170 communards made their last stand against the National Assembly and were summarily executed when overun, past the graves of Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein, Edith Piaf to Frederic Chopin (minus his heart which he left in Poland) and the flowers that are brought each day by admirers. 
There are so many famous people that if all notables were to be visited, we would have to spend a couple of days to get them all in. One grave which is still heavily visited is Jim Morrison's. Unfortunately, the original bust of Jim was stolen some time ago and his grave is now kind of plain. He almost was not buried in Pere Lachaise. After he died of a "heart attack" in a Paris bathtub, his friends asked the Cemetery Custodian if he could be buried there. The custodian refused. When Jim's friends then mentioned that he was a writer, the Custodian found a place for him. His tombstone is inscribed in Greek, the translation being open to opinion - about the divine spirit within him - or the demon within him. Both are probably apt.
We left the dead to sleep and got the metro back to the apartment where we had a simple supper.
Afterwards, Kerri and I wandered down to the Seine to take a couple of photos of the illuminated buildings. I travel with a small tripod to take these kinds of photos, or photos inside churches and other dark interiors. These small tripods fit in a pocket and can be set up on a post, a wall or other support. I said before that we passed by Notre Dame several times. The other building in the photo taken at night is the Conciergerie, the fortress/prison where Marie Antoinette among others were imprisoned before heading over to Place de la Concorde to have a little taken off the top.The next morning, not having enough of dead people, Kerri and I took the metro over to the Paris Catacombs.
It was pouring rain although once inside the catacombs this no longer mattered. The Catacombs are former limestone quarries and caves that used to be outside the city walls. 
Some of the over 300 kilometres of tunnels are filled with the bones of over 7 million former Parisians which were exhumed from Paris's city cemeteries in the late 1700s due to health reasons and severe overcrowding. The bones were transported at night to the tunnels and stacked from floor to ceiling and sometimes up to 30 metres deep. It has been a tourist attraction since the mid 1800s and although gruesome, is at the same time enthralling. And it was out of the rain. The over 200 steps down are followed by about 1.5 kilometres of tunnel of which over a kilometre is filled with bones on both sides of the path. Just before entering the actual ossuary which is consecrated, a sign overhead reminds one that you are entering the Empire of the Dead. the black line on the ceiling was to mark the path before the advent of electic lights. At the end of the tour, 80 odd steps lead back up to the surface. When we came out, we walked to the nearest metro station and headed back to the apartment where we checked out at 2 p.m. and headed for a taxi stand to go to the Bercy station for our overnight train to Rome.But Paris was not yet done reminding us the city can be a challenge. We waited in the rain at the taxi stand (there was one parked there) since successfully flaging a taxi on the street is as rare as a Parisian being nominated Service Person of the Year before finally a kind soul told us that the cabbies used this stand as a rest place and we would not get one. You would think that the city would have erected a sign that said Taxi Rest Stand instead of the Taxi Stand sign that we were waiting under. So we had to resort to the metro. We dragged our suitcases down the stairs and tried to figure out how to get them through the locked door for luggage beside the ticket machines. I asked the station attendant how we could open the doors (Marie was already on the other side wating) who studiously ignored me while she talked on her cell phone (my French is not that bad). Finally another kind soul screamed at her to open the damn door, which she reluctantly did. We finally got on the train and stood near the doors. An immaculately dressed man in a pinstripe suit stood beside us. As we neared the next to last stop, he brushed by Marie who immediately noticed that her purse had been opened. She grabbed him by his lapel and asked if he had taken her wallet. He pretended he did not, holding up his hands with one covered by his overcoat. Marie did not give up and knocked his overcoat aside, and there was her wallet. She grapped it back. By this time I had grabbed his other lapel. A small woman, probably his accomplice, squeezed by us, her face astonished that the thief would get caught. We alerted everyone in the station that the man was a thief, but there is not a lot one can do (I am sure the police, if called, would be busy on their cell phones). So we continued on our way to Bercy Station. I picked up some wine, sandwiches, cheese and other train provisions and we headed out to Rome.
Paris is a beautiful city. But in the five years since I have been there, I think the city has lost some of its light. Its citizens have become even colder and surlier than before which is self defeating considering the billion or so dollars tourists spend in the city each year. Thus ends part Two of this blog. Part three will pick up on the train ride to Rome
1 comment:
Chief Bob eh? another interesting journey. Thanks for sharing. Cyndy
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