23/10 A day in Paris

Sunday 23 October

Sound sleeps all round and we were waiting for it to get light and getting the daily blogging done when Courtney (C's daughter) popped up on skype. She had pictures of her graduation, which was very good, although I would have preferred her to be wearing something more substantial than beachwear. There were also photos of my(Chris') son at an SES function, where I would have preferred that he wasn’t wearing a dress and a Monroe wig. Lovely to see her anyway.

We decided to recce out the station for tomorrow morning and then discovered there was only 1 ticket for the Milan-Venice leg.  The other one must have got lost at the airport at KL. PANIC!! It turned out that in fact the Italians only issue one ticket for both passengers so all was well. We should be able to catch the train with little trouble.

We carried the freezing weather gear just in case but it was somewhat warmer today. We headed off to Montmartre  to the Sacre Coeur. There was a communion service in progress (don’t they know it’s the prime day for tourists?) so there was little opportunity to have a look and the Inquisitor Nazi was ensuring that no photographic record left the premises.

Just loved this 2 storey carousel at Sacre Coeur

From there we wandered back down the steep hill to have a look at the Salvador Dali museum. Weird as expected with frequent examples of his trademark soft clocks dripping over the landscape.   The local area is full of cute cafés, artists and lovely cobbled streets.  Music playing and very jauntily dresses waiters.  Very French.

Artists at work

Cutest restaurant

 Back across the river to have another try at Musee d’Orsee, which was still closed. The 27 gallant public servants were selflessly bearing the burden of restraining the public from the dire hazards of venturing through a museum with insufficient clones to protect the guests and exhibits from one another.

Least we could enjoy the artworks outside the Musee

 Another long walk down to Invalides, site of the military museum and Napoleon’s tomb. We didn’t go in but enjoyed the long ramble through the parks which, like the Champs Elysees, form a major axis through the city. These open spaces are as much a statement as the grand and elegant buildings. Each complements the other.

Our destination was the Rodin museum, delightfully located in sprawling landscaped gardens. It is rightly one of the most popular tourist stops in Paris and, although it was well patronised on this lovely sunny day, there was plenty of opportunity to see the major works or copies thereof. Some of the better-known were The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, and of course The Thinker.  J wandered through the chateau type building, which had works of many other major artists, while I sat and admired The Thinker.

We had just about done everything that was on our list and took a train back into the middle of the Champs Elysees to walk the other half down to the Louvre, particularly to see the gilded statue of Joan of Arc.

We knew the big supermarket would be closed but were a tad horrified to discover that the other one was as well. Interestingly, we were in time to see the resident beggar fold up her cardboard bed, roll off her voluminous rags, and then saunter off down the road as a 20 something man in jeans!

We bought  some baguettes from a local wine shop and stocked up on a couple more for the train trip tomorrow.