Art in Montmartre, Our Last Day in Paris. July 19th

Today we took the Metro to the Montmartre district of Paris. It was the mecca of the artists of past and present in the city so we wanted to experience it on our last day. We joined thousands of others on this Sunday that wanted to do same as the many Metro trains we took were cram packed. We have gotten pretty good at catching the correct subway trains and pride ourselves at never once getting on the incorrect one.

from the Dali Museumthe wrong train or making the incorrect transfer here in Paris.

Montmartre was a great place to visit and we thank our neighbors, Patti and Bill for suggesting that we see this area of the city. The streets were something out of a movie with hundreds of artists showing their paintings along with hundreds of tourists having sittings for portraits everywhere. The streets were packed with shoppers and the cafes were buzzing with people sipping wine and eating crepes. Quite a delightful scene.

We walked by the original Moulin Rouge before heading up the hill to the art district and the busy Sacre Couer Bascillica which was another crowded spot in the district. It is a beautiful church sitting on the highest hill in Paris. From there we walked to the Salvador Dali Museum to view his rather unique sculptures and paintings. We were familiar with this modern surrealist artist and his unusual work but it is very interesting when seen in person.
We took the funnicular down the hill and walked the lower section of the district before taking the Metro south of the city to go to the tallest building in Paris, the Montparnasse. We got our tickets to ride the elevator to the 58th floor observation tower and it was a wonderful view of all sides of the city. We were able to look out at all the places that we had visited during our fabulous stay in this beautiful city.

We had a marvelous French dinner at a neighborhood cafe called Chez Papa. Donna ordered what she thought was a salad and it turned out to so much more and different than any salad she had eaten as it was a large bowl with a little lettuce and wonderful home grown tomatoes and then filled the rest of way with blue cheese and roasted potatoes. John ordered an omelet which was stuffed with blue cheese and he ordered wine. The dinner also included a basket of hard crusted bread and a slice of other bread with two types of melted cheese.

There was so much food that neither or us could finish this dinner. After walking for a few blocks to try and help this meal to settle in our stomachs, we went back to our hotel at about 9 and packed our suitcases in anticipation of our next city to explore, Brussels. We have scheduled a taxi to take us to the train station early in the morning so we can take the high speed train to Belgium where we will spend another 4 nights. The adventures continue.

Our Explorations of Paris Continue

Paris Continues Day 3 July 18th
After a nice hotel mini buffet breakfast, we boarded the local Metro and changed at a station for the Eiffel Tower stop.
When we got off the subway, we walked to the location of the boat cruise on the Seine for a one hour narrated trip on the river. It was very interesting and a lovely morning to cruising outside. The boat rode by many of the same spots that we had seen on our bus tour of the city but from a completely different perspective. We had bot realized that there were so many bridges and so much boat activity on the Seine.When we got off the boat, we walked over to the Eiffel Tower to see it from the ground as the other view we had gotten was from the double decker bus. We were taken back with the enormity of this structure, something that we had never realized from the pictures we had seen. It is a massive  architectual wonder with it iron work and rivets soaring skyward.

We walked to the Metro station and navigated our way to the military museum house in Les Invalides. This large building houses all of the weapons and splendor of the French throughout history.  From there we walked a few blocks to the Rodin Museum to see the masterpieces in sculpture done by this artist, including the famous Thinker statue.

Statue of Liberty in Luxembourg Gardens

We were tired by this time in the day so we worked our way back through the Metro transfers and returned to our hotel neighborhood where we bought a small baguette and some drinks for our dinner in our room. Later in the evening we walked our neighbor and bought another of the wonderfully delicious frozen delights that the French are so famous for and watched the late Saturday night diners in the streetside cafes.