Monday, since most of the museums were closed, we decided to see the non-touristy side of Paris. Leah and I walked and walked...and walked all throughout the upper northeast side of the city. First, we went to the cemetery Pere Lachaise which had the graves of many famous people such as Oscar Wilde, Auguste Comte, and Theodore Géricault. The Day after I saw one of my favorite paintings, the Raft of the Medusa, I saw the artist's grave with the same painting engraved on it. What a coincidence!
Next we went to Parc des Buttes Chaumont and looked around at all the flowers. We began walking to the Sacré Cœur in the Montmartre district and realized we were in a part of Paris two girls should probably avoid. We then hopped on the metro and arrived at the Sacré Coeur. I have to say this is another part of Paris to avoid! It seemed to be that everything people don't like about visiting big cities was concentrated to this one tourist site. The panoramic view of the city from the top was a good experience, but the men trying to tie bracelets on me and force me to buy things as I walked up was not.
For dinner, we cooked a great homemade dinner and went to the Montparnasse tower to watch the sunset from the top, the 59th story. The lift is the fastest in Europe, only 38 seconds to take us to the highest overlook in the city.
We even got to see the Eiffel Tower light up when the clock hit 10 (the middle photo).
We had a long several mile walk home from the tower next to the Seine, and on our way we heard some music down below us on the banks. There was a spontaneous concert with a tuba, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and drums and there was a very lively audience.
Tuesday morning, we went to the pantheon and the Luxembourg gardens, but not because we planned to. The line for the Catacombs of Paris started at the entrance and wrapped around the whole block back to the entrance! We figured out that if we took a mangled strip of colored paper from the man and took a tour at noon we could simply walk in, so we spent the time beforehand walking over to see the gardens and the Pantheon. We kept asking the man selling tickets in French If this loophole to skip the hours of waiting in line was really that simple, and his only explanation was "sometimes there is wonder in the world."
Luxembourg gardens
The pantheon
I love the towers of this church
Well, there really was wonder in the world and the man's directions weren't a practical joke, because the next thing we knew we were descending hundreds of winding stairs to tour the Catacombs of Paris. The catacombs are located in a quarry underground. The stone from this quarry was used for building the basements of Notre Dame, and the metro lines of Paris run on top of the quarry! We could feel and hear the metro lines rumbling above us while we were down there.
In the 1770's the ground fell through in parts of the city and the quarries were rediscovered. They had to stabilize the 11 thousand square meters of quarries for safety reasons.
Paris was having major problems with their cemeteries, the mass gravesites they would use were too full. Usually, the mass graves would be filled with about 100 bodies and then they would wait 30 years before removing those bones and replacing them with new. The ground was too full of "organic material" which was making the people of Paris very unhappy. Someone had the idea to use the quarries as a site for all the extra bones.
There are actually two levels to this quarry that we explored. It is rare that quarries have levels because it means there will be much more fragility.
For just one cemetery to move their bones to the quarry it took 18 months, they would move them each night and have a procession of the bones
"They were what we are now
Dust, games of the wind
Fragile like men
Feeble like nothingness"
"Where is death? Always future or present. hardly is she present before she leaves again"
Following this, we went to the Eiffel Tower and climbed the stairs to the top! It was beautiful!
All of those dots below my feet are people. This is the view through a piece of glass floor on the "second floor"
At the top
At this point we were completely exhausted, but we wanted to check off a visit to the Arc du Triomphe while we were so close and the famous la Durée (which sold the original macaroons).
When I got home and opened my box, I realized I had been given the wrong order and had many more macarons than I had ordered. I had won the La Durée! (Cheesy I know)
Finally, we could go home for the night! We had walked many miles and climbed the Eiffel Tower, along with standing all day and stairs down into and up from the catacombs. We barely made it home! I was icing my back and knees with the only things I could find in our hosts freezer.
More street art
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