Paris to Normandy, Day 7 -- Montmartre

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Photos from Day 7, Montmartre

Montmartre. Artists and Sacré-Coeur. Barb couldn't wait to show me this place. She knew I'd recognize the feeling, but never anticipated the final feeling we got of this place. This was May Day, the day all of France celebrated the workers. This was the day I thought it would be fun to serve our servers on Viking, but it turned out to be one in which they worked even harder. After a quick breakfast we bid them farewell and boarded our buses for the highest part of Paris. The city was asleep with its employees waking on their vacation schedules, the streets were sparse with traffic, but the crowds would soon be among us. The buses couldn't get through the narrow streets taking us uphill, so we debussed at Moulin Rouge and took a little tram to the top. I took a shot of our crowd reflected in the doors of Moulin Rouge while we waited for the tram, photo 2. The streets were starting to fill with many visitors taking advantage of the holiday to see some of the wonders of Paris.

When we got out just below Sacré-Coeur our guide knew right away that there would be no way we'd all be able to stay together, and there was no chance of meeting as a group when we were through on this artistic hilltop. The idea was walk around, shop, get an artist drawing of yourself or whatever and try to find the 3B lollipop in front of this shop at a prescribed time. She wished us luck and we were carried off by the crowd. No, really. The crowds were so dense that if you passed out, you wouldn't fall to the ground but be moved along as if floating to a weekend at Bernie's. Our group of 6 tried to keep together, but picked a small cafe off the beaten path to rendezvous before looking for the rest of the Viking travelers.

We mob-walked our way to Sacré-Coeur but couldn't get a good shot, and only Dan & Fran decided to slide over to the mob line that moved toward the entrance, hoping to spin off in time to see the inside. We shouted out some hope of seeing them at the rendezvous point as their new crowd carried them off, and we started making our way to wherever we were being herded. Barb & Lauri gathered some old shopping talents for dealing with the crowd and managed to allow themselves to be sucked into a souvenir shop, and Charlie and I managed to work our way back to them.

Eventually, finally, we made it to the rendezvous cafe, and there was hardly a soul inside, relatively speaking. The four of us waited inside for the small miracle of having Fran & Dan finding us, then we collectively gathered our strength to return to the moving mass of humans outside. We picked a stream that seemed to be heading in the direction our guide told us we'd meet, and jumped in. Not being close enough to the edge of this river of traveling tourists, we almost missed our 3B exit. Our guide was quite frazzled with the task of getting everyone back down the hill to meet our bus. She was handing out cardboard tokens for the people-mover ride down the 300 steps, and promising we'd all find a bus at the bottom.

Barb mentioned the steps even before we left home for this trip. Her and our daughter Celeste had climbed them on their previous visit and thought I'd want a cool shot looking up. She was right, but cool shots just weren't to be a part of this holiday visit. There are two unmanned people-mover cars each carrying about 50 passengers at a time parallel to the steps. Having no problem with the walk, and probably preferring it, we nonetheless did as we were instructed and crammed in the first car, hoping there might be some roller-coaster-like thrill in the decent. At first the doors wouldn't close until several people got off reducing our load to the maximum weight. After they closed, the car still wouldn't move, and eventually someone came to open the doors and tell us to move over to the 2nd car because this one was inoperative. We complied. This time we seemed to cram even more folks in and couldn't even turn our bodies to see if others in our group made it onboard, and this time the doors had no trouble closing. Then we stood waiting for movement. Nothing. Claustrophobia was starting to set in in various degrees among the passengers, then some initial rumblings of panic. Soon I saw out of the corner of my eye that a worker on this national holiday had opened a panel on a column some distance behind our car and presumably was intending to rescue us. Suddenly he had a look of panic on his face, and he threw up his hands and ran away. Then a stronger surge of panic overwhelmed many of the claustrophobic insiders who started banging on the unbreakable windows. We already had caught the attention of most everyone crowded outside, so this action was more of a release of the OMGeebies that accompanies the fright. I tried to breathe less and count my blessings, although the atmosphere wasn't really conducive to the math. Soon some on the outside started clawing at the door in an attempt to pry it open, and finally the alarmed worker returned with some kind of crowbar. When the doors finally parted and let in a rush of fresh air, most everyone, including those most paniced moments earlier, simply walked across the way into car #1 which was working ever since we left it. They waved as they passed us on the steps in our nice leisurely stroll to the bottom.

Well, I didn't get the shot of the 300 steps, nor any of any worth at Montmartre, but at least we got to see the lily vendors around town on this special holiday.

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Most of the rest of the day was spent onboard the Neptune, and tonight was the captain's diner. Charlie was usually the first one to the dinning room and he was always personally escorted to our special table by Cyrs Tyna. She seemed to be our very own private server, but she had the ability to make every guest feel that way. Her and Ana made a great team, and Ana was always right there with a refill whenever I put down an empty wine glass. Here is a shot of our table with Cyrs Tyna and Ana standing behind us. Seated left to right are me, Barb, Charlie, Laurian, Dan & Fran. Josef, my photographer friend and drink maestro, can be seen in this shot with Ana coming out of the kitchen. Many, but not all, of the vast staff of the Viking Neptune can be seen in this shot. On the far left nearly cut off from photo is Robert, who was an incredibly entertaining pianist. The dark-coated girl with an ascot next to him was just married to our chef and they were spending their honeymoon with us. The only guy with a coat was our 2nd captain, an amazing fellow who really cared for his passengers and knew how to make them comfortable. The gal with the mic is Karine (Carrie) who called me her photographer. A wonderful cast of characters who all should have had the day off.

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