Our last full day in Paris, and we surprisingly covered a lot of ground. And you'll see that the ground we covered was spiritual as well as physical.
Our apartment across from La Trinité is also not far from butte Montmartre, and we decideed to march up the hill to see the church and the view. Now, you can see the white domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur above the street where we breakfast every morning (yes, my first ever use of the word breakfast as a verb), but walking towards it you absolutely lose sight of it. Luckily, along our wandering way towards the butte, we came across another landmark that Barbie wanted to see.
Bring on the dancing girls... But even better than this famous, windmill oriented burlesque house, are the establishments around it.
As you can see, this establishment has a rather descritpive name that in no way forces you to wonder what the entertainment entails. There were several more pics taken of the neighborhood business, only one more of which will be included here.
I had to note that this place promotes itself with pictures exlcusively circa 1982. Do I need to mention that I was 14 in 1982?
What do you do after taking pictures of Parisian burlesque clubs? You walk up a steep hill in search of Jesus. (Sadly, I didn't find out until coming reading wikipedia that Picasso and other artists lived up on butte Montmartre. I'd love to have known that whenI was up there.)
We walked up this street, and another, and another, until finally we saw this.
The Basilica of the Sacré Cœur. Not all that old, as far as European basilicas/catherdrals/duomos/churches go, but the location and architecture sure make it stand out.
This is my attempt to show the view from the steps of the basilica.
There were several "No Photos" signs on display as you enter the basilica, but my iPhone is small and flashless, and I'm a non-believing sinner, so it seemed like a small risk to break the rules of the church concerning photography. Had they tried to stop me I would have shouted, "Hail Satan!" and hauled ass out of there. No, Barbie wasn't in on that plan.
This is the view as you exit the basilica. Could not have asked for a more beautiful sky.
Exiting, we walked down the steps instead of taking all the sidestreets that brought us there. I took pics at every level, but from the very bottom it was most aesthetically pleasing.
Barbie had been jonesing for a new scarf, and found three for 5 Euros each. While she shopped, I snapped this pic. Good, yes? I should add that the area is pretty rife with beggars, hustlers, and general scum. After our experience in Zimbabwe last year, we have a zero tolerance policy for people who try to get us to buy worthless trinkets. And the people trying to scam us in Paris are millionaires compared to the Zimbabweans. (That's a plug for later this summer when I retro-actively get the Africa trip onto this blog. Blogplug!)
Since tomorrow we leave Paris, I made Barbie hold open the gate to our building's courtyard so that I could drop to one knee and get this pic. See. La Trinité really is outside our front door.
For dinner, we met some friends of hostess Robin's who flew out today from Santa Monica. Delightful people who own an apartment in Paris that was designed by Jacques Garcia.
It is amazing. A one bedrooom apartment with a closet sized ktichen, yet it would please me to live there for the rest of my life. The picture does it no justice, but you can imagine the rest, no?
What trip to Paris is complete without a picture of Steak Frites? None. Sadly, the place where we ate acutally realoads your plate when you finish. Last night in Paris, so I ate it clean again.
And then ordered creme bruleé.
And that completes week one. Or, as they say here, week un. But soon we will be in other countries who have like a different word for everything, so there's really no need to learn how to count beyond one in French.
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