Paris, France
(written 27/2/2006 5pm by
Liz)
On Saturday, we weren't going to do quite so much walking due to our big walking day on Friday. The only problem is that we keep finding more and more places that we want to spend hours exploring on foot. Our feet are starting to protest loudly.
Anyway, we started out by walking along the St Martin Canal, which is not too far from our hotel. We spent quite a while looking at pretty views along the water and taking photos.
At Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad we turned off to the left along Boulevard de la Villette, and more towards Sacre Cour. This was a very busy street market, crowded with saturday shoppers buying all manner of fruit, vegies, fish, poultry, meat, cheese, odds and sods for the home, and just about anything else you could think of.
We came across an olive store, and after explaining to the man that we don't speak french ('Je non parle pa Francais'), and attempting to ask for what we wanted in french, he beamed at us and chucked in a whole load of free goodies for our efforts!
After more wandering through busy shopping streets, we turned our heads at one corner to find ourselves looking up the green grassy hill that
Sacré Coeur sits on top of. We stopped and sat halfway up the hill to munch on olives and enjoy the view, and stopped again at the top. I love the views from here (although it was a cloudy and grey day), and I think the Sacré Coeur is one of my favourite buildings in Europe.
After a look inside the church, and a look inside the smaller one next door St Pierre de Montmartre, we spent quite a while walking around Montmartre, stopping in a great little café for coffee, then more wandering, and then stopping in a wine bar for lunch and a bottle of wine. We were surrounded by friendly locals, and had a really nice lunch, not to mention the good french wine :)
A couple of hours later, we decided we should start making our way back to our hotel. We were going to catch the Metro, but started walking and just kept going. Sometime later, with protesting feet, we arrived back at our hotel.
We were feeling really tired and worn out, so dinner was at a nearby Chinese restaurant, where I thought I was getting chicken something or other for entree and ended up with fish soup! Have to say I love ordering things off a foreign menu and really having no idea what you are getting a lot of the time, but nearly always enjoying whatever it is that turns up :)