Tuesday - Paris!

I had asked Linda to wake me up between 8 and 9am. I didn't want to sleep through the trip! I was soon wide awake and starting my auto-pilot mode. I had slept like a log so I was refreshed. Breakfast looked extremely well presented and was a "help yourself" and remembering what I was told and not knowing when I would come across food I recognised again, I filled both tanks up until full, washed down with a sharp bitter tasting coffee. There were croissants, bread rolls, cheese, French toast, honey, jam, chocolate and cereal to choose from.

The view from my room was perfect in every way; so many roof tops and chimneys as far as the eye could see, with Sacre Coeur in the far distance and all with  white on the  horizon.

 Sandwiches packed and maps in hand we started to walk through the main streets and into the back streets. We came across another church but I don't know what its name was.

We went inside and it was beautiful with lots of windows and stone figures. The sound of the beeping, bikes cars and police sirens started to make my head fuzzy. Strangely, due to the environment's 24 hour life and nowhere to escape to you begin to feel weighed down with "a grittiness feeling".

When we arrived at Montmartre, before us was a square full of artists busy at their easels. This was a view that I had expected to see but on a much larger square. I had my portrait drawn by an artist which was something I wanted to achieve in Paris. I went around and eventually chose an artist whose style I liked the most.

This day we also took a walk to the Moulin Rouge. I had seen this on a film with the same name and in my mind I had envisioned what I would see in front of me.

What I actually saw, to my utter surprise, was nothing like my vision! It was still cool to see the windmill, but I hadn't realised that the street was connected to the sex industry. The openness of this environment made me feel uneasy. The thing that made up for this with me was the police activity. In  the street there was what seemed like an island between 2 roads. It was an area for walking. It was like a mini park area with trees and  benches and it brought a little calmness. There was also a large fan that came from the railway and I took a picture of Linda sitting on this. The air coming up reminded me of the famous scene  of Marilyn Monroe with the air blowing up her skirt. It could be from the film "Some like it Hot"? Also it made me think of the film with Kelly Brock - "Weird Science".

We sat and ate our lunch while observing the view of Parisian life below Sacre Coeur.

 I was finding  that veggie meals were a bit difficult to find -  couscous was getting a bit boring! The money was also becoming an issue for me. The prices seemed expensive when I tried to convert it. The first night we had found a restaurant and I had ordered spag-bol which had been very tasty. We did find some really nice chatty people in the other 2 restaurants we went to. One we went back to as the waiter was exceptionally hospitable. The  night of the "spag-bol" I found the waiter very nice and friendly and then he just turned into someone totally rude, which I picked him up on!! Sometimes as we were walking past places we were trying to be enticed to go in and eat; quite a few of the places we went to spoke a little English, which made it easier.

At Sacre Coeur I had been really shocked to see armed men in army gear!!