Saturday morning, bright and early (lunchtime) we went to the parisan flea markets, Les Puces, over on the other side of Paris. It had everything from a whole store of just buttons, worth a few euro cents to a old, ornate, covered in gold leaf bed worth 65,000 euros. After spending a few hours browsing through the markets we headed on to the Sacre Coeur, via a "paris city walks" card, which took us on a extra long walk to the top, going upstairs that never seemed to finsh, zig- zagging along the streets of Montmarte. Mum swears that the "paris city walks" are better than a lonely planet guide so that must be saying something. At the highest point in montmarte, we finally found the Sacre Coeur, and the stunning view was well worth the walk. From the top of the Sacre Coeur we could see all the rooftops of Paris.(ruby)
We were also lucky enough to see a wedding in the little church next to Sacre Coeur, St Pierre de Montmartre, built in 1133!! All the guests were assembled in the small garden inside the church grounds and spilling onto the Place de Tertre. Montmartre was very beautiful - but hey, what in Paris isn't? After Sacre Coeur we wound our way down to the Metro at Abbesse, passing Bateau Lavoir, the laundry boat, named because of all the laundry hanging from the windows and where Picasso and other artists lived in the early 1900's and in the place de Abbesse we were entertained by a brass band of young musicians who were dancing and performing in an avante garde style all dressed in orange.
We arrived back at our apartment pooped and then Ruby got us all fired up and motivated at 9pm to go to Tour Eiffel. Well worth it tho' we were all a bit shabby when we got home at midnight!!
Sunday morning we crossed over the seine into the Ile de la Cite and went to mass at Notre Dame - along with a couple of 1000 other people. We crossed back over at Pont Neuf and then walked back into Le Marais and had lunch in the Paris version of Carlisle St - the jewish quarter. Amazingly everything in Paris is mostly closed on Sundays which is refreshing but of course the jewish quarter was buzzing. We picked up yummy falafels and shawarmas for lunch and because the bread here is so ordinary (ha!) we thought we better grab some bagels and a challah and while we're there une petite gateau fromage s'il vous plait! With full stomachs we headed back and for the first time since leaving Melbourne splintered into 2 groups. Murray, Audra & Eva went back to the apartment while Ruby & I got on the metro and went to the Musee Nissim de Camondo which is an amazing house fully decorated in the 18th century style left to the state when Monsieur Camondo died. It's right near Parc Monceau which was pretty spectacular too! (the park guard makes sure you don't climb trees or go on any out-of-bounds grass areas by blowing her whistle and yelling! - can you imagine that in Melbourne?).
We topped off the day with a stroll to the Pompidou centre - no need to even carry a bag as it was free for the first sunday of the month. Very interesting artworks and of course, being free, chock-a-block! The girls and mUrray bailed after the fourth floor and went down to the square to watch the street performers - an aussie! can you believe it. And we think we saw the same act in Sydney a few years ago!!
Today was a MFD - museum free day - and fully dedicated to shopping! And we did ourselves proud! We managed to get a few bargains too. R&A got winter boots for Croatia. We found the Paris equivalent of Target - Monoprix and the equivalent of Officeworks - Gilbert Joseph both on a much smaller scale of course and delightful to shop in. Murray made his way down to the basement in Monoprix to check out the wines and discovered a massive supermarket full of - you guessed it - gourmet foods! If we all don't put on weight here it will be a miracle. Murray bailed about 5pm while the girls and I pulled out all stops and went to H&M for the E19.90 jeans sale - hard work indeed. Just one more book shop before home and collapse. Kids now all in bed and Murray & I sharing a block of Lindt Croquant de Caramel chocolat - yum!
Tomorrow is our last day in Paris - boo hoo! We are going to get up early (today R&A had to get woken up at 11am)and go to marche Aligre 'one of the cities most diverse market scenes'!. We'll see, we haven't been disappointed yet!
