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Published: September 9th 2012
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Today was the day where we were going to set everything straight. We were shifting to the room in the hotel where we should have been all along, we had tickets booked online for the Musee D'Orsay so we didnt have to queue and we were going to be at Notre Dame before the tower opened so we didn't have to queue too long there either. We were also going to get to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur as we hadn't managed to fit that in yet.
We didn't want to have to pack everything properly and so we insisted on keeping one of the rooms until the afternoon when the other room would be ready. The concierge didn't seem too happy, but as they had messed us about we stood our ground.
We jumped on bikes once more and went straight to Notre Dame. The tower had a sign on the door that stated the opening time as
10am and we got there at about
10.15am We waited on the line for quite some time with nothing happening before we went to look at the door once more and we saw that for some reason they were opening
late. We weren't giving up today though and so we waited. In the meantime Harriet and Fiona sussed out where the point zero marker is and where to buy tickets for Disneyland. Point zero is the place where all distances from Paris are measured and there is a bronze marker in the square in front of Notre Dame. We couldn't find it yesterday and realised today it was because people had just been stood on it.
Eventually it was our turn up the tower. We saw the gargoyles up close, the biggest bell which is called Emmanuel and the great views over Paris, down the Seine and of the deportee monument which we visited yesterday.Toby misjudged how far we had walked and ridden yesterday and thought we could walk back to the Museum D'Orsay. After the debacles we had had with parking bikes, Fiona and Harriet didn't want to insist on riding only to find no parking station. So we all set off on foot. Ages and ages later we got there.
Unlike yesterday there was absolutely no queue. Having our online tickets didn't make much difference. The museum was beautiful. It is in an old railway station
and the building is as amazing as the paintings housed in it. One of the most fantastic features was the clock. We stood and watched the enormous hands move for several minutes. Fiona did however get irritated with a bunch of girls who kept getting in the way every time she tried to take a photo. They were from a certain country that shall remain nameless, but we have become a little racist towards. Every time we hear someone from there, because you usually hear them before you see them, Harriet and Fiona give each other a code red warning.The art in here was much better than in the Louvre. We especially liked the Toulouse Lautrecs, the Monets and the Van Goghs. We also decided that we have no idea what makes some art better than others. We must be Philistines.
As the Sacre Coeur was quite a distance away, we finally got on the metro instead of bikes. We took the funicular up the hill to the church and had a look inside. The security man wanted Fiona to put her camera in her pocket as there were no photos allowed. She wasn't sure how she was supposed
to do that and just ignored him. He wasn't very happy, but he finally let her in when he saw the lens cap was on. Toby thought the security from the Sistene chapel must have sent a notice around the world telling other security guys that Fiona takes clandestine snaps when she isn't allowed. We had a bit of a déjà vu moment when we saw the statue of St Peter. It is exactly like the one in the Vatican and even has the foot worn down the same from pilgrims kisses.
Harriet finally saw her cliched idea of Paris when we walked by a man playing an accordion. We wandered down the cobbled streets stopping for a drink at a bar and came out at Pigalle. Harriet was still a little wary of city life after her little scare in Athens and wasn't sure if she liked the area. She had felt safe all over Paris as there were soldiers in threes with big guns at most tourist spots. Here there were none. We insisted that the pimps and bouncers kept this area safe. We saw all the sex shops etc. and took the obligatory photo of the
Moulin Rouge and then took the metro back to the hotel.
We had finally got the room we had booked at the hotel. When we got back we moved our stuff up to the new room. It had a huge balcony and we had been missing our aperitivi. Toby and Harriet went off to buy goodies to share whilst Fiona got the awesome task of sitting in the launderette. We drank champagne, ate strawberries, yummy French bread and cheese and played cards.
As we hadn't got to the planned restaurant last night we went tonight. We didn't have a reservation, but it wasn't very busy and so they showed us to a table and handed us the menus. Half an hour later, the wait staff still hadn't been to see us. They kept walking past and serving every other table, even clearing dishes and bringing them menus for dessert. However much we tried we couldn't catch their eye and eventually we gave up. We picked up our coats and walked out. It had been a recommended restaurant by lots of websites but definitely didn't make our top 1000.
Down the road we stumbled across the George Pompidou
Looking east down the Seine
You can see the deportee monument at the end of the island centre and ate at a restaurant opposite. Harriet loved the modern art sculptures in the park nearby and so we were glad we had come this way instead of our planned evening. We finished the meal with crepes from a stall at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and walked home feeling like we had finally completed the Paris to do list.
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