Today the weather had turned a little on the wet side again. On today's agenda was the area of Montmarte. This issued us with our biggest challenge yet. The Metro. We tried to make it easy on ourselves and found a station that would give us a direct line. But we had to find that station. On the way we managed to stumble across the St Eustache church. The one with the large head outside in the courtyard. This was a bonus we had not planned for. Inside the place was enormous. ?In my humble opinion I think it was one of the nicest we saw. It had a certain atmosphere and ambience that was different from the rest. Did I saw how big it was. It makes you wonder how they built it. No aid of a crane of large lifting devices. Makes us look pretty lame nowadays.
Ten off to the subway. In fact we walked straight past it before doing a little circle work and returning. Bloody tourists : )
After buying the tokens and having the lady explain the system to Jana (in French), a friendly Parisian informed us that the lady behind the counter was not feeding us any bullshit. How kind of her. We jumped on the next train to get us to the big white church on the hill. The Basillique du Sacré Coeur. The only thing between us and the church was a huge flight of stairs. So up we went. Half way up we realised how humid it was. We went inside to have a look. The church was nice, but after all the gothic stuff we had seen it looked a little plane. But the outside was quite nice. A lot of people around and there was a good view of the city to be had as well.
We went down another flight of step, the ones next to the inclined railway. Then realised that Montmarte was up near the top of the stairs we had just come down. Up we went and headed down to the square. The first thing that entered my mind was "Jacksons square in New Orleans." I suppose this was actually here first though. It was very similar. Artists just hanging out making sketches and painting prints. Cafes surrounding and in the middle of the square.
After this is was time to say farewell to Jana and Honza at the Metro station. We were now heading for the cemetery. We were off to see Jim Morrison. On the way we passed Chopin and a few other famous people. Some of the crypts were like small houses.
After this we had to double time it over to the bus ticket agency. For some reason we decided to walk. Well it is the best way to see a city. Off we went past the Bastile, over the river and into the ticket office to buy our bus tickets to London. 10:30 to 6:30, an overnight bus. We were very happy at that so we walked back past the Notre Dame and sat down on the bank of the Seine and watched the evening drift by. We also took this opportunity to check our e-mails. The only problem was that French keyboards are all arse about, no qwerty here. So only very short e-mails sent from here.
Then back to our hotel. Must admit it was not 5 star, maybe not even 1. It was called the "Hotel de Fez". We managed to get a room with a bathroom so that was cool. It was nice and cheap. As long as you did not want to run a spirit level across the floor you would have been alright. The only problem with an undulating floor is that is it real easy to rip a nice piece of skin from you toes. Well that is my excuse and I am sticking to it : ) All in all I must say I have fond memories of the hotel and would stay there anytime.