Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, and a trip to the Opera

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Being Sunday, food shops close earlier today so we went out and bought the makings of lunch and dinner first thing. The plan today it to head to the artist district of Montmartre, close to the landmark church Sacre Coeur.

As this is a main tourist area, there were tons of souvenir shops and crowds on the way from the metro to the church. Benjamin picked up about 6 Eiffel tower key chains to send friends back home at one of these stores (only to see them sold cheaper by the street vendors further on).

The Church of Sacre Coeur is brilliantly white and set at the top of a hill, making it visible for miles. In the bright sunshine, it was almost too bright to look upon and in the heat we had all worked up a sweat by the time we reached it. There was a long line to get in, so we decided we would skip this one church interior.

The narrow streets on the far side of the church have some beautiful looking buildings and seem to be quintessentially Parisian. We followed the curving lane ways until we reached a main square where artists set up. The crowds were quite dense and it was hard to get close to the stands, but there were some interesting pieces for sale, though a lot of tourist kitsch too.

After that square, we found a park and ate our packed picnic lunch. Afterwards, we made our way over to the Opera house. The Paris opera house, which is the setting for Phantom of the Opera, is quite opulent and has some wonderful architectural details. It seems ideal for conveying a sense of grandeur and glitz. We opted to not pay the 8 Euro each to go in though, and instead just walked around the building.

After the Opera house, we took the metro back to our apartment and spent the afternoon getting some school work done. With our internet connection, we were able to book a bus from the Northern city of Lille to London. From our research, it now looks like we will be home sometime around July 4th, so I sent off an email to my school agreeing to teach a summer course there.

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