Bagels, quiche lorraine, and some strange and delectable puff pastry with almonds and pastry creme kick started day three. On our way to dinner the day before we walked through the Notre Dame Cathedral and across the Seine. Today we continued on the tourist trail and walked along, around, and on top of Montmartre. We visited Rue de Clichy home of the famous Moulin Rouge and various sex shops, peep shows and even a museum dedicated to the dirty. I wanted to get tickets to go see a show at the moulin rouge but they were around 90 euro so I decided that money was better spent on food.
We walked up to the top of Montmartre, which is literally a giant hill, and wandered along the cobblestone streets. At the peak of the hill sits Basilique du Sacre-Coeur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris) an incredible church that towers over the city of Paris. You can literally see the entire city from the church. There is some pretty cool history behind the construction of the church and it's role in French history so here's the wiki-link.
The temperature plummeted and it started raining once we reached the top of the mountain. So after taking in the sights we darted in to a small restaurant near the church before it started pouring. Another prixe fixe menu and another chance for me to get another well known Parisian dish, escargot. Snails are decent but snails doused in butter with chopped parsley are even better. I ordered the sea bass, which was perfectly seared and just melted my mouth. Toni got pasta with with a light basil cream sauce. The French can cook.
Day 4
Our final day in Paris was all about the Louvre. I was a little scared we wouldn't be able to go because we had our carry-on bag with us, which was slightly oversized for their baggage check, but the staff was very kind and let us through. A quick note to anyone who decides to visit. DO NOT wait outside at the central entrance for access and tickets. The staff out there are probably a little miserable from being out in the cold and dealing with thousands of tourists everyday so they were very brisk and unhelpful in shooing us out of line when they saw the size of our carry-on. I had read online that the underground gift shop/mall entrance at the Place de Carousel was a better place to go, so after getting kicked out of one line we walked a couple blocks down to the other. The staff here was much more helpful and allowed us in even with our slightly over-sized carry on and the line was probably an eighth of the size of the central entrance.
This post is running a little long so I won't bore you with all the things we saw at the museum. Needless to say it's an absolutely amazing experience. There is just so much history, world history and french history, stuffed into one museum. We spent 4.5 hours there and still didn't see everything but we did get to the Big 3 (Mona Lisa, Winged Triumph, and Venus). We didn't want to take a bunch of pictures at the museum but I couldn't help taking a few.
In Summary
Paris was incredible. I don't know how Parisian women are so skinny and all the men don't weigh 400 pounds.
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