Sightseeing and Moulin Rouge

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Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097

Sunday morning, a little sleep in till 7.30am, wow, the first real sleep I've had since the start of this trip, there was no traffic noise....what???? This is Paris and there is no traffic on the street, they say not much is open on a Sunday, day of rest!! Well, again we had no breakfast, but we did have coffee. We left about 10am, walked to La Fayette building, then we waited for the Le Open sightseeing bus to arrive. This morning, we need the yellow line, which goes along past Moulin Rouge, Gard de Nord train Station, past Republique, and back to where we got on. First we went past Opera, which is a beautiful building, never actually went in it but think inside it would be spectacular. Next we travelled to Clichy, and travelled towards Montemarte. Clint Nikki and I got off at Moulin Rouge, hundreds of people lined up along the street we thought to buy tickets, but they were there for a show starting 11am. We went into the ticket office, bought our tickets for tonight's show at 9pm, and we also got one for Nikki too! From here, we went to the corner crepe store and as it was so cold, Nikki got a Nutella crepe, Clint and I got ham and cheese crepes. It was so nice to get warm food into you, it was only about 0 or -1 degrees, but with the wind, that's what made it so cold. We wandered up and down the street, looking through the souvenir shops just going in to warm up. We went along the main street, in search of somewhere nice to have dinner, as tonight we were going to meet up with Rene, who is one of our customers from work, who happened to be travelling through Europe and he also arrived in Paris on the 13th Jan, we had messaged prior to now and decided we would go to the show the same night, and we would also go for dinner together. Walking past so many Cafes, Sex shops, night clubs and sex supermarkets, Clint was in awe, Nikki was horrified, last time we went past this area, we were on a bus and never even stopped! We had a laugh at some of the "things" on display!! A little bit further, we found a restaurant on the corner, La Chat Noir Cafe, and checked out the menu, looked good so we booked it for 7pm. Back on the bus again, I was listening to the commentary through my earpiece, and thought it would be good to get off here. Nikki wanted to go back to the hotel, so we left her to continue. Again there was a lot of tourists, we walked up the cobblestone road, lots of souvenir shops here too, good place to get warm. We walked up the hill, a big hill, to the top, the Basilica of the Sacre Church. We went inside to discover beautiful stained glass windows, many years old and took some photos, although we weren't meant too! This church was amazing with spectacular views overlooking the whole of Paris. The view was amazing. From here we went in search of a man that had been playing the harp, I'm sure his fingers would have been absolutely frozen as mine were with gloves on. I sort of lost Clint at this point, I thought he went down the stairs, but couldn't find him so I went back up the top to see if I could see him, when I got to the top, Clint was freaking, and just behind him was a protester wanting him to sign petitions, I wasn't sure what he was on about but he kept saying, "she's stolen the camera, she's taken the camera, one of these people has my camera" which then he started feeling her pockets ( a strange look coming from the lady) but he was adamant she had pick pocketed the camera out of his pocket. With that, I searched the plastic bag of souvenirs properly, to which, I found the camera, right where I had put it, meanwhile I'm sure the lady enjoyed the frisking!!From here, after having a laugh about Clint frisking this burka clad woman, we walked back down to the base of the steps, which at this point, I was busting for the toilet, we asked where the closest toilets were, and went to line up, it was free so about 10 ahead of us. While Clint waited in line, I ran over to some souvenir shops but came back to wait. Just standing there gazing, next thing Rene, our customer, was heading towards us, the whole of Paris, and we bump into him, unbelievable!! We met Sheree, who he had met years ago in a Contiki trip, told them about our restaurant booking for tonight, and then they went on the chairlift to the top of this same church we climbed all the stairs for. How uncanny, bumping into someone we know!!Finally, our time came for the toilet, and we continued on our journey. We walked slowly back along the cobblestone road, wandered up the street a little further, then waited at the bus stop. We had no idea what time the bus was due to arrive, so we just waited, freezing our arses off at the stop. I said to Clint, "do you want a coffee?", which he replied, if we miss this bus, we have to wait at least half an hour. So I took the chance, ran across the road to the shop, ordered 2 cappuccinos and I could still see Clint was waiting for the bus. As I was about to cross the lights, yes, Rene and Sheree were waiting to cross the road too, they were looking for their bus stop!!We continued our journey right around this yellow route, and we went back to our hotel to get ready for Dinner and our Moulin Rouge show. Rene and Sheree were meeting us at our hotel, then we got a cab to Moulin Rouge. We arrived at 7pm, into the cafe for dinner, by now all the flashy lights on, this area looked amazing. Dinner was nice and it was happy hour, so we ordered cocktails, including Nikki. Time for the show, we managed to get a table together, and we shared the champagne. Our table was elevated, high enough and overlooking other tables. Show started, no photos allowed here, so what we saw, lots of legs, boobs, bums, hot young women and men dancing and singing and it was very good, I actually thought there would be more nudity than what there was, it was actually quite subtle. The show finished, we said goodbye to Rene and Sheree and caught a cab back to our hotel. Another exiting day, but exhausting!!

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Comments

[michbarn68]

Love this, can't stop laughing at the thought of Clint frisking the burka clad woman. Glad I'm not the only person to loose their husband in a foreign city, at least it was only briefly and not 4 hrs. Still laughing