France

This is our last day here, with no commitments and no time deadlines…very relaxed. We set off a bit after 9, and found that the Bastille markets were on (they are on Thursdays too, but that was the disaster day and we didn’t enjoy it!) so that was a fun start, then we got the metro to Place Clichy to have a wander round Montmartre and Sacré Coeur. Another beautiful day, cloudy at first, then the cloud burnt off and it was sunny and warm.

First we wandered through the Montmartre cemetery where quite a lot of famous people are buried…rather like finding needles in haystacks though, and the only notable one we saw was Hector Berlioz. Zola, Offenbach, Dumas…and others we didn’t find, but it was a very pleasant place to walk! Then we walked past the Moulin Rouge, many tourists and lines of sex shops and general sleaze! But when we ventured further, and up the hill it was much more pleasant, millions of cafes and being Sunday, lots of people out and about.

We were high, but still Sacré Coeur was higher still, and we climbed many, many stairs to finally get to its heights. Again many cafes etc, but now just too many people to be fun. The was an enormously long non-moving line of people to enter the basilica and we weren’t going to join it…we have been inside before when all normal, so we cut our losses and made our way down, another way but many many steps (next to a funicular we now discovered!)….

So we had a crepe sitting on a park bench, lovely, and then had a coffee and chocolate and felt restored. There was a metro entrance right there (Abbesses) so we headed in there, and had to descend a LONG spiral staircase down to the actual train line! Good walking practice today.

Next we left the metro at Assemblie Nationale and walked up Blvd St Germain into the Latin quarter, and had a short respite in the little park next to hotel Esmeralda and St Julien Le Pauvre. Very pretty and soothing, and we checked the progress on Notre Dame…the spire is now back, but the roof all scaffolded. The front and towers look so clean, they look almost too new! It won’t be ready by the Olympics, but there is progress.

Then home for downtime before dinner at Bofinger - fabulous Alsace restaurant we’ve been to before. It never disappoints, and Amr had their specialty of sauerkraut but with seafood (rather than the typical sausage accompaniment), and I had a wonderful dish of trout (from the Pyrenees) with fab veges - peas, potatoes, artichoke, asparagus and also clams, with a delicious sauce…yum…I resisted the calves liver as I’d had kidneys last night. So now about to crash, and tomorrow brings new adventures to unknown places…catching the TGV to Arles at 12.13 from Gare de Lyon.Read more