Paris - Slowing down a bit

And so we get to the last couple of days in Paris, needing a bit of downtime given how absolutely full it’s been up to this point, before we make our way out to the coast and get to Porto.

Wall of Love

Sacré-Cœur

Saturday, after a slow start we jumped on the metro and headed out to Montmatre to have a look at Sacré-Cœur.  Montmartre itself is a beautiful part of Paris and after walking a little off the beaten track we managed to track down a really nice little cafe that Serena had found online.  They had a wall with love messages written up in different languages, but missing the most important one, so Serena added Aroha Nui to the wall and much to Zach’s delight, the waitress commented on how much she liked his mullet… We then finished the walk up to the top of the hill to admire the grandeur of Sacré-Cœur and sat for a while on the steps just below it admiring the view out over Montmartre.

View over Montmartre

Catching the Funicular down, we then went and explored some of the little side streets in and around the town, grabbing lunch at a little French/Italian place where me and the kids had our first taste of Escargot (which was exceptional) for Serena having been here before it wasn’t her first, however she did say that the way they were prepared this time was the best she’d had.

Sunday started out very relaxed.  I wasn’t feeling particularly well, but Serena managed to wrangle the kids into doing a bit of school work with Zach (protesting all the way) sitting down to write a story about his time at Disneyland as well getting through a bunch of maths, while Kaia continued working on her sight words and a bit of maths as well.  The original plan was to head out early afternoon once the kids had gotten through some of their learning, but with me not feeling the best and only a couple of days left, Serena went down to the local shops in Vincennes to grab some baguettes and visit the local market where she also managed to find a lasagna that we could just reheat for dinner.

While I’m on the topic, we’re staying on the edge of Montreuil and Vincennes in a small little apartment on the 4th floor.  It’s incredibly quiet in our little neighbourhood, (apart from the constant partying and music that’s kept Serena up most nights since Thursday).  It’s about a 12-15 minute walk from the RER Station in Vincennes or about 10-12 mins from the Metro Station in Montreuil, once you get within about 4 blocks of either township the whole place starts to come alive.  Bikes and scooters are pretty much the main form of transport for the locals, at least from their dwellings to the main hubs anyway, with a massive amount of rental bikes as well as child carriers front and back, lots of e-bikes too.  The townships themselves are kept alive by fantastic small specialist businesses, with a constant line running outside the two or three butcher shops, the bakeries and the fruit and vege stalls.  They have a formal market 3 days a week, and then informal stalls are set up on different days of the week.  It really is local fresh artisan produce first for the way they eat and the way their towns run.

Something we forgot to say about Versailles the other day, while experiencing the most amazing gardens, castle and history that is the Palace & Gardens of Versailles, the highlight for the kids… they got to see a squirrel in real life while walking around the gardens…

After just relaxing and taking it easy most of the day we headed out to the Catacombs and what for me was probably, not quite the highlight (as I think that would be the wrong word and just doesn’t quite represent the solemnity of the place) but possibly the most interesting and intriguing part of Paris.  

Our slot to head down was booked in for 5pm and after making our way there on the ever impressive Paris Metro, we managed to walk around the block a few times struggling to find the entrance that was just about literally right in front of our noses.  Tickets are timed, as they allow a maximum of 200 people down there at any one time.  As you descend the 131 steps down the temperature drops to a slightly chilly 14 degrees which is pretty consistent all year round  and very much fits in with the gravity of the place you’re heading into.  Once down into the depths it’s then a 1.4km walk one way through what were once quarry tunnels that were used to mine Paris stone since Roman times, and been used to create some of the most iconic buildings and structures in both Paris and Versailles.  As you start to walk past the piles of bones it’s a pretty incredible experience both from a scale perspective (there are the remains of millions of people down there), but also taking into consideration the care with which the bones have been placed.  Bones line either 1 or both sides of the path, with predominantly femur’s and skulls all very carefully stacked into position and patterns made out of the bones along the way, every one of the femur’s turned to face the same way and the skulls lined up either in straight lines or to make a particular shape.  The whole walk was pretty amazing, incredibly grounding and while neither Serena or I felt like taking photos down there would be appropriate for us, we did take one photo before we entered the tomb.