300 Steps to the dome

Getting back to Paris we once again utilised the metro and found our way to the Abbesses station from here it was an easy walk to the Montmartre Funicular – further bonus – the metro ticket (we have a 7,50 Euro all day zone 1 & 2) grants you free access to the funicular – we jumped aboard and about 30 seconds later we had reached the top of the hill and were ready to visit the Cathedral of Sacre Coeur. The Church is lovely but I felt it had a more Byzantium, feel to it as compared to say Notre Dame – there were more murals and mosaics and some of the stained glass had an almost Dali/Picassocesque (is that a word?) feel to them. It was free to enter the Cathedral but for an extra 6 euro you could climb the 300 steps to the dome. I did and it was well worth it. You start with about 150 steps up a really narrow and steep spiral staircase, then it is up and down over the roof and then another spiral to reach the balcony around the dome. The view over Paris is SPECTACULAR, well worth it and really the climb wasn’t that taxing. After that it was back down the 300 steps, down the hill from Sacre Coeur (passing the carousel from Amile) and, via the Montmatre tourist strip, back to the MetroRead more