All of us slept in on Monday morning because, for once, we didn’t have a timed reservation. Kathy and I ate in our room (coffee, tea, bread, cheese, salami, orange juice, butter, and jam), while Hosanna and Matt went down to the little bakery next door and enjoyed their coffee and pastries al fresco.
Around 10:00 AM we caught the subway to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur Cathedral. From the Anvers Metro stop we rode the funicular up to the cathedral. Most of Paris decided to join us. However, walking around the side of the church we left most of them behind.
From the cathedral we followed the Rick Steves’ Montmartre walk (from his guidebook), heading down to Pigalle and the Moulin Rouge.
Down the hill we found one of the last two windmills remaining in Montmartre; once there were thirty. This particular windmill was made famous in Auguste Renoir’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette. As in the painting, there is still a restaurant next to the mill.
A little further down the hill Hosanna and Matt took a look at Le Bateau-Lavoir, which was Picasso’s first studio which he shared with Georges Braque and Juan Gris as they invented the modern art style called cubism. While they were exploring, I sat on a bench in the leafy square, resting.
Our next stop was Vincent van Gogh’s house which he shared with his brother Theo in 1886-1888. All that is really left is the plaque on the wall and I didn’t take a picture of that. I’m also really sorry that I missed the Cafe des Deux Moulins which was featured in the movie Amelie (which Kathy and I watched on the plane). At the bottom of the hill we stopped and took a picture of the Moulin Rouge. The posters on the wall in front were very “Las Vegas” like. Hosanna was expecting it to be more like the movie with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor.
It was now lunch time and we were hungry, but we didn’t want to eat in Pigalle. So we took the Metro to the Pere Lachaise cemetery where Matt found us a pizza restaurant.
As we were leaving the restaurant we noticed this stunning Art Nouveau staircase and lamp.
Although I had a Rick Steve’s guide to the cemetery we entered on the south side and it was hard to find all the tombs on the tour. I had also forgotten that the cemetery wasn’t flat and so I got quickly exhausted and turned over my guiding responsibilities to Matt and Google maps.
We found Chopin and a few others. Then, we followed a few tourists to Jim Morrison’s grave, and called it an afternoon. When we got back to our rooms, Kathy and I went back to Shawarma Lovers for a take home dinner and a few hours of napping.
Matt and Hosanna wanted to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night, so I got back up and we joined them at the Trocadero at 9:30. According to the Web site, the Tower was supposed to light up every hour on the hour, after sunset. Tonight, sunset was at 9:45.
We ended up waiting until 10:30; Matt and Hosanna stayed until about a quarter to 11:00. The Tower lit up, and it was impressive with the moon right beside it, but while we were there it never sparkled. In 2007, Kathy and I saw it lit up and sparkling, but that was in October when it got dark much earlier.
Tomorrow we get to sleep in again, and have another unplanned day.
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