
I know it's ridiculous for me to still be posting photos from our vacation last summer. But here are the last bunch of photos and the end of that vacation. :)
On August 12, I didn't feel too hot when I woke up, so Bob and Claire went to see Versailles, and I stayed in the hotel and slept for several hours. (I had seen Versailles as a teenager and decided to not be sad about missing it. It probably hasn't changed much, I remember thinking.)
When I woke up, I felt better, so I went for a walk. I decided to head over to Rue Cler, the famous market street.
In general, I do not have a good sense of direction, so I hold the map in the direction I'm walking, and keep turning it so that it always faces wherever I'm going. "North" means nothing to me. The top of the map is "ahead".
But! There are so many landmarks in Paris, and there is the river, and the city is so tidy and organized in general that I seem to always do well there, in that I don't get as lost as I could be if I were a whole lot lost-er. I always do much better on foot than in a car, anyway. So I just started walking toward where I thought Rue Cler was, and sure enough, there it was. It was a good feeling.
The French expression for window-shopping is "to lick the windows." I licked some windows as I walked ... especially the windows in front of this sofa and this outfit. :)



When I got to Rue Cler, I remembered that the market is (mostly) closed on Sundays and Mondays. But that's okay. It was a nice walk, and it was still fun to see the street.
I guess I should remind you that I had to throw my old broken camera lens away back in Dublin, so all these Paris photos are just with my cell phone. Alas.

At the end of Rue Cler, I decided to take the Métro over to the Carousel du Louvre, which is the lovely shopping area underneath the Louvre. I wanted to get a few little souvenirs to take home the next day. (Fragonard was my favorite shop there. It smells so good and everything is packaged in such a pretty way.) I looked around for awhile (and licked some more windows) and then grabbed some lunch before I headed back to the hotel.
I decided to hit the Musée Rodin on the way back to our hotel.


I got to the museum just in time, I guess, because when I came out, a big tour bus had just spewed out a big group of people and they queued up down the street to get in.
I guess I shouldn't say "spewed," as if I myself were not also a tourist. But I wasn't a big group of tourists. I was a lone tourist, roaming the streets.

Our hotel was just a wee bit down from the Musée Rodin, on the same street. I got back in time to greet Bob and Claire, who gave a report of their time at Versailles. (They enjoyed it but it was extremely crowded.)

We went for a nice walk at dusk and ate some dinner, then watched the Olympic closing ceremonies on t.v. in French and tried to figure out what was going on. :)
The next day, August 13, we headed up to Montmartre, to see Sacré-Cœur and the view from the hill.

We had lunch at a creperie (you have to eat crepes if you are in Montmartre), then took the funicular up the hill.
Montmartre is a crowded gaggle of tourists (first I said "spewed" and now I said "gaggle" ... I appear to have a strong and hypocritical animosity toward tourists) but is still delightful.
Something I found out on this trip that I somehow never knew before is that Sacré-Cœur was just finished in 1914.













Bob and Claire were ready to settle down at La Maison Rose for a cup of coffee and hot chocolate, but I wanted to see Le Musée de Montmartre and its lovely grounds, so I ran off and did that for about 45 minutes and then joined them back at the cafe. I felt glad Claire wasn't interested, because the bit of the museum about the Moulin Rouge had some pretty wild video accompanying it. Whoo!
The museum is housed in 12/14, rue Cortot. Number 12 is the oldest house in Montmartre. Fourteen great artists lived there during the height of Bohemian Montmartre.




It reminded me of Madeline's house even though it was not covered in vines. :)




See Au Lapin Agile down there? It is a cabaret where struggling artists and writers (including Picasso, Modigliani, Apollinaire, and Utrillo) used to hang out. Picasso made it famous with his painting "At the Lapin Agile."












After I finished enjoying the museum, I joined Claire and Bob at the cafe for a coffee.

Bob looks pretty tired in this photo. He needs to order an espresso. :)

We were all pooped! It was a wonderful summer, but it was time go home. We flew back to Los Angeles the next day, sad to leave but full of that particular brand of contented excitement that can only come from knowing you're about to sleep in your own bed and see your own people. :)
Recent Comments