A quick trip to Paris – part 3

A Saturday in Paris, my way.

I was pretty exhausted after my Friday in Paris but I was up early anyway. By early I mean like 6 AM. I vaguely remembered wanting to go see the sunrise at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. I looked it up and it didn’t look to difficult to get to. I left my hotel early enough to make it and took two different metros to Abbesses.

I just realized that I forgot to take a picture of that gorgeous old metro entrance sign. I’ll just have to catch that next time.

Anyway, if you ever do the same thing, I would like to warn you. This station has 180+ steps to get to the top. There was a sign for an elevator - one of the few if not the only one I saw in the metro. It was there for a reason… I felt less like turning back than I felt like walking up the steps. When I got to the top I decided to walk up the hill and not take the funicular. I could already see the sky starting to light up beautifully. So, I took a couple of breaks to take pictures. The funicular looked super modern and I decided right then and there that I would take it on my way down.

When I arrived at the top the sky had turned red. The view was stunning. And wherever I read to do this, what a great idea!

Remember when I said that I came to Paris completely unprepared? And that I went all spontaneous when I was there?

Well, what happened next was an example of that. I was almost ready to go back down, but then I thought I’d walk to the side a bit to get a look at the Eiffel Tower (you couldn’t see it from where everybody was sitting/standing). And I then went up a back road back to the church, i.e. Sacre Cœur. That’s when I saw two people exit the side gate and I actually took a moment to look at the opening hours. That thing opens at 7 in the morning. I had no idea. So, I obviously went inside for a few minutes. Pictures were not allowed so I can’t share any. I guess that’s why it was free or the other way around – because it is free people are not allowed to take pictures. Who knows. I liked it.

When I walked out I heard two Swiss women talking about one of my favorite topics – recycling. What a weird moment that was. Weird – funny.

The funicular was as modern as it looked and taking it down was probably a bit of a waste of money as I could easily have walked it and it cost me as much as a metro ticket. Cool either way.

I remembered that since Notre Dame was still closed for repairs somebody had mentioned Sainte-Chapelle and said that it was way nicer anyway. So, that’s where I headed. I took the metro to Châtelet and figured having some food would be a good idea. I bought the most gorgeous pain aux raisins ever and instead of walking straight to Sainte-Chapelle I walked around for a bit first. I noticed the nice bike lanes they had in that area.

After I finished my pain aux raisins, I found the correct line to enter the Sainte-Chapelle and waited to go in. There were three lines. One for the xx.30 timeslots and one for the top of the hour ones. I hadn’t booked a timeslot because I had no idea how long I would spend in Montmartre. Anyway, the way the system works is that the people without a ticket get let in as soon as the timeslot line is empty. That didn’t seem to be happening though. Now looking at the timestamps of my pictures I couldn’t have been in line for more than 15 minutes. But for somebody in explore mode – that’s just too freaking long.

At that point - it was 9.56 - I went online and bought a ticket for the 10 AM timeslot. I moved over into the correct line and got in pretty quickly. The no-ticket line had not moved yet. I might have made it in on the same timeslot had I stayed there, but this felt like I was actually in control. I then got yelled at by one of the security people because I was not putting my bag etc. onto a tray fast enough.

Well, tell you what dude, maybe announce what you want people to do or put up signs or something. Could help with the yelling. Also, if people don’t understand what they’re meant to do, saying it again louder doesn’t really help. I translated what was happening for some American tourists. It was a weird experience.

Have I mentioned that I was extremely unprepared? I had no idea what I actually bought a ticket for. There was Sainte-Chapelle and some other thing called the “Conciergerie”. I figured I would just follow everybody else. That little chapel was amazing. Different from anything I’d ever seen. When I first walked in I was like “this can’t be it” – and it wasn’t. You have to climb a spiral staircase up to the first floor. And that’s where it’s really stunning. It was a tad too crowded for me, even though it was still early for a Saturday. Wouldn’t want to be there in the summer. They did make us wait at the entrance for a bit. I guess they only let a certain number of people in at the same time.

There was construction work going on so you couldn’t really get a good outside shot of the chapel - I tried anyway. It then took me way too long (i.e. a couple of minutes) to figure out that I had bought a ticket for two different things and that the Conciergerie wasn’t where I was. I had to exit the Sainte-Chapelle area and walk just a few yards to the entrance of the Conciergerie. There was no line at all. I could walk straight in.

This one really blew me away. Sainte-Chapelle took me seven minutes to see. Mainly because there were too many people and then I read some of the information outside after. The Conciergerie took me 50 minutes. Yes, I know that’s still pretty fast, but have I mentioned that I was in explore mode?

The Conciergerie used to be a courthouse and prison. It was where Marie Antionette was sentenced to death. They had a tablet for people with information on it. You just pointed it at certain things, and it would tell you more about them. I didn’t take one as I have trouble holding something like that in my hands while walking around. Bum thumbs. People seemed to be enjoying them though. I guess it was similar to the audio guides you can get.

I loved the exhibition. You follow it around and you see the cells the prisoners were held in and there’s a small courtyard too. It was just really well done. And this is also where I bought my only Paris souvenir.

I should let you guys guess what it was. Then again, I might have told a bunch of you already. So, I might as well tell everybody. It was a guillotine bookmark. I saw it and I couldn’t resist. It was just too perfect. There might be a picture of it in one of the next parts. Stay tuned.

I then walked towards Notre Dame where the reconstruction work continues. They put up something that looked like bleachers and I sat down for a bit. I just sat there, and people watched. I also had no real plans for the rest of the day. I was gonna walk around the Quartier Latin for a bit and just take in the atmosphere.

Tell you what, I’m going to leave you sitting there taking a break and tell you about the rest of my day in part four of what is now looking like a 6-part series.