Paris : Sacre Coeur & MontMartre!
Paris : Sacre Coeur & MontMartre!On Sunday (13th April), I awoke with a jackhammer in my head. Truthfully, I'd had a headache overnight - it had kept me tossing and turning all night and well into the morning. I was not impressed and I think Steve was like "Oh No, not another headache!". I couldn't eat breakfast at all that morning hardly even though St Christopher's Inn had thoughtfully included one in the cost of the overnight price.
After an evacuation of my stomach contents before breakfast, a dry bread roll and some pain relief for my head around midday I thought we had better get moving. THIS IS PARIS after all! Right? We had a tentative plan to visit Sacre Coeur and the Montmartre Cemetary and maybe visit the museum of Science and Industry which was not far from the hostel. We didn't bring a map of Paris with us because a) someone forgot it and b) we thought we couldn't get lost in Paris... or so we thought. I mentioned in the previous blog that our hostel was thoughtfully placed right on the Basin De La Villette which was just lovely - today we started our exploration of Paris by following it around to see where it went. It did take us to the Science & Industry Museum, but at 1pm we thought we had plenty of time to come back to it since it was open to around 8pm.
I don't think I mentioned it previously that before we left London, Steve brought himself a compass. I guess he figured it would help us if we got lost at some point in time as well as helping us navigate to certain places around cities we were new too... who would have thought we would need it in Paris? All we had to do was head WEST of our location from the Science & Industry Museum... even with the compass THAT seemed difficult because we ended up doing a whole circle and ending almost back up at the hostel!
Eventually, we found our way in the right direction and found ourselves standing at the bottom of the hill leading up to Sacre Coeur! It looked just magnificent from the bottom of the hill but all my brain could think about was "There is no way in Hell I'm climbing up there!"... More to the point, I hadn't slept much at all overnight and was feeling my body, but mentally made up my mind that I was going to get to the top! The weather was cool that day, but we hadn't heard of any forecast of rain and hadn't brought an umbrella with us. So, for me the hill was conquered and we found ourselves standing at the entrance of the great Basilica not really knowing what to expect. From a distance, externally it doesn't look that big...and so you think it is modestly sized inside, but truthfully you really have no concept of depth until you get there. Inside, it is more than just sizeable, it is also really looking at a piece of art and interpreting it for yourself. The architecture inside it something to be admired. Ok, so it is a church, but so far all the ones we've had the pleasure of visiting they have never been disappointing in any way. Sacre Coeur itself has an old and rich history. Incidentally, the Sacre Coeur Basilica came about because of an agreement between two men made before the outbreak of the Franco - Prussian War. This religious vow was that if France was spared from assault then they would finance the Basilica. Despite the war and the siege of Paris, an invasion was averted and work on the Basilica began in 1875.
After walking around the grand basilica in an orderly clockwise direction and fashion and taking a few minutes to sit in the church aisle for a bit and take in the structure around us, Steve and I were greeted with a grey sky and rain! Just about everyone was huddled at the entrance, some desperately finding their umbrella's, some making the dash hoping that if they ran they wouldn't get as wet... and others hoping that if they stood there long enough the rain might stop. We took the middle idea and made a dash out of the place to find somewhere less crowded to wait out the rain and then found ourselves trapped in an overcrowded art gallery trying to wait out the rain. It was still pouring, so Steve and I made another run down the street and found ourselves standing outside the house of Pierre Jacobs - some French Poet. Thinking to ourselves "Jee, a map would be good right now" by shear luck a few people looking as lost as us (and with a map) came down the street. I saw an opportunity to find out just where the hell we were and politely asked if we could have a squiz at their map so we could find our way. Turns out we were not far from the Moulin Rouge and so decided to head that way to see what all the fuss was about!
Apart from the Moulin Rouge,we found this street to be a somewhat of a little red light district with several shops selling products of a sexual nature as well as an Erotic Museum should you feel the need to explore that side of things some more. I was almost tempted, even if it was just for a laugh... but at 9 Euro's each, it just didn't seem worth it. For US anyway! Thoroughly wet, cold and miserable I spotted an Irish Bar across the road and promptly dragged Steve in there to dry off, warm up and think of what we could do next if the rain didnt stop. I at least had a few layers on and was insulated somewhat. Steve as usual was Mr Tough I don't need to rug up and just had a T-shirt and his thin jacket on (which wasn't waterproof) I new the rain had soaked through and also dragged him into the pub to force him to dry off... MEN! After a nice fluffy hot coffee, served to us by an English Speaking Irish Girl, Steve and I had actually decided to catch the Metro back to the Science and Industry Museum to use up the rest of the afternoon productively.
The rain had actually stopped and on the way out of the Irish Pub I spotted a sign directing us to Montmartre Cemetery - so we changed plans and headed there instead. After all, I had heard stories about the place and how magnificent it was...even if just because it was a cemetery. I had somehow actually convinced myself that some famous people were buried there.. I was half right.. but wrong cemetery as I later discovered. The cemetery was just beautiful, with roads and tree tops covering the monuments. And what amazing monuments....! Some sections I noticed were dedicated to those of Jewish Religion and beliefs, we also found a few patriotic Poles buried there and stumbled across the monument of Jean Bernard Leon - Focault. The guy who invented the pendulum, the Focault Pendulum that can be found in the Pantheon in Paris. The other odd thing that struck us about the place, was that there were a number of cats roaming around the place as well as resting in some hollows in the monuments. I guess the Egyptians believed that cats were the protectors of the after life or something to that effect, so perhaps that was their purpose to protect those at rest in this cemetery...
The cemetery that I had confused the Montmartre one was the Cimetiere Du Pere Lachaise. This is where Frederic Chopin was buried and his heart is in the church of the Holy Cross (Kosciol Swietego Krzyza) in Warsaw. Laid to rest at this cemetery is also Honore De Balzac and more recently Jim Morrison and Simone Signoret. This was were I actually think I wanted to go, but the MontMartre Cemetery was just as rewarding even if in a different way.
Before we knew it the afternoon had run away from us - and then we found ourselves being hailed by whistles like dogs in the cemetery.. The keepers were walking around, blowing whistles to let us know that they were closing the cemetery and if we didn't wish to sleep there overnight we should make a dash for the front gate.
One the way home, Steve and I picked up some more salads from the Casino (supermarket) for our dinner. Like I said, if there is one thing that the French do well it is fresh food. In just about every supermarket, small or large you can get a prepared salad of some sort. In Grenoble, we had actually kept our plastic bowls so if we were without breakfast we could get a small cereal and milk and have our own little breakfast!
Anyway, I think we were both really truly tired by the time we reached the hostel and we were more than ready to have a nice hot shower and tuck ourselves into bed!
Our photo's from our rainy day at Sacre Coeur & Montmartre : http://picasaweb.google.com/hillsj/SacreCoeurMoulinRougeAndMontmartre
