Tuesday 27 April - Paris (last day)

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the morning booking all my train travel from now until I arrive back in Munich on the way home. Glad that's done. Now I have dates and a little more structure. Will be a really good trip, and one surprise is that I will actually travel across the alps area of Switzerland on the way from Chamonix, (to Lausanne and on to Basel) to Cologne. Looking so much forward to this.

In the late morning, Cheops and I headed for a walking tour around the Notre Dame area, and the little back streets around the Latin Quarter, which includes the Sorbonne.

Notre Dame itself is one solid looking cathedral, and I was surprised to see it wasn't like the cruciform ones I'd seen in the UK. It's easy to see why it's a Paris icon though, and a wander around it allows you to see both the Norman beginnings and the later more Gothic changes made to the design.

Something I've noticed about Paris from being with Cheops and using car parks, is that the entryways to them to go collect your car are not marked. They're just down sets of stairs hidden away. So it's a case of trying to backtrace your steps to when you came out in the first place, then making an educated guess as to which 'hole' in the ground you go down. In the case of Notre Dame, it was the one marked 'toilets'.

Getting lost and disoriented in the small interweaving backstreets of Paris is a load of fun, and interesting all the way. We ended up at one point at the Luxembourg gardens, which were so vibrantly green and lined with luxuriant trees to walk beneath and between. All the tulips and other flowers are in full bloom now and everything is photo-worthy. We finally found the Pantheon and wandered in, but both of us were more interested in the outside than the tombs inside (which include Napoleon).

We eventually wound our way back to the car, and as I said, found the relevant set of stairs disappearing into an apparent hole in the ground.

It wasn't until we got back to my hotel and I was about to get out of the car that it occurred to me that I would be leaving Paris in 1 day. A sad moment - so we'll have dinner together tomorrow evening after our respective days.

Woke up this morning in a panic - for some reason I thought I had to leave today. Once I calmed down and realised that I'd put today aside to wander the streets of Montmartre, I was fine, so mid-morning saw me sat reading my book drinking coffee in one of the local cafes, then off up past the Moulin Rouge to start the walk up the hill along the delightful little cobbled streets to the centre of Montmartre. Along the way I passed the oldest existing Windmill, a load of really interesting architecture, and crossed the artist's square to the Dali gallery.

Looked out across the expanse of Paris looking south with the Eiffel Tower dominating the skyline, and all the time thought, so many of the artists, thinkers, poets and storytellers that make up our global cultural consciousness had also walked these streets, and sat in the cafes. If you can see past the overt tourist-serving crassness, there's still a charm and vibrancy about the place that makes it easy to understand why it inspired so many, and why they chose to live up on this hill above the Cemetery.

The Eiffel Tower can just be seen on the right through the trees.

Spent some time wandering around the quite beautiful, if relatively recent Sacre Coeur cathedral, and took my time over lunch, red wine and reading my book. The weather is still absolutely beautiful and walking in the sun is a delight. Chatted to a number of very friendly people of all sorts, and overall had a truly good time.


Sacre Coeur on the top of the hill at Montmarte


Wandered back down the hill, and over the bridge which crosses the Montmartre Cemetery. What interests me is the similarity to the New Orleans ones. Loads of little family crypts. And I wonder if they're buried that way for the same reasons as in New Orleans, though I doubt the use of the Louisiana hot weather plays the same part here in Paris.

The painter Degas is buried somewhere in here

We're heading out to dinner tonight - so long as the rural worker protest (2000 or so of them have made their way to Paris for some political point-scoring or another). My bags are packed and ready, and I know which underground trains I have to catch to get to the Gare de Lyon in the morning to begin the next bit of my trip - south to Avignon.