A last lap around Paris for now…

Today is a last day in Paris for this leg of the trip… so it’s with mixed feeling I write today’s post. We have absolutely loved living the Paris life this week, but am also looking forward to tomorrow’s TGV (Fast Train) trip down to Avignon and to the next stage of our time here.

Anyway… back to today. After the customary breakfast, as described on previous days, it was back to the metro to make our way to Montematre. This area came to prominence in the late 1800s as the impressionist painters based themselves there and established an artists commune. These days there are still many artists plying their trade, however many just want to do tourist portraits and can be very persistent (irritating)… but in saying that there are also some quite talented artists selling quality work.

Once we wound our way through the artists community, we visited a couple of museums … one based on the work of Salvador Dali and another being the house where Renior and his friends worked from… again reall interesting …. From the Dali museum…

On top of Montemarte is a Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) cathedral that was built in the mid-1800s. There was a service on while we walked through which was a amazing opportunity to experience the acoustic perfection as the choir sang. On the down-side … I do take issue with people that insist on taking photos in these places when the custodians request that no photos are taken. I am grateful that we are allowed access and am happy to abide by the conditions they put in place.

We stopped for lunch on the way down the hill before jumping back on the Metro… with the intention of visiting the Grand Palais and Petit Palais. We found out after standing in a queue for a while that you really can’t visit the Grand Palais without a ticket to a show… so we went to Petit Palais … (over the road) and wandered through. Another great collection of art and sculpture…

That pretty much wraps up Paris for the time being…. we have a couple more things  to tie up when we come back in a couple of weeks time … but for now it’s back to the apartment for a final night … of yummy stuff.

Cheers

Rob