Paris Part Trois

The next day, Tuesday, we slept in a little (finally!) and had breakfast at a Boulangerie Pattisserie  near the hotel. I am not exaggerating when I say we had the best quiche frommage and croissants aux amandes I have ever tasted. We tried to go back to that place a few times but they were never open again (who knows what hours they keep?) so it will just have to be a delicious memory.

This day we tried to take the bus thinking it would be fewer stairs and walking than the metro stations and then proceeded to miss our stop and ended up walking back, ha. We had gotten off in the Marais, a trendy neighborhood, and walked over to Notre Dame. The line wasn’t too bad to get in and the cathedral was beautiful inside, especially the windows. We had one of our only encounters with a rude person there, as the lady behind the counter selling the audio guides had no patience for Tom, but she was speaking French so it was just sort of funny.

After touring the inside we waited in the long lines to walk up the towers to look at the gargoyles. I think Tom was not excited to wait another hour or two to climb stairs, but once we were up there it was totally worth it. Unfortunately, they have put a cage and lights around everything up there (for safety I’m sure) so it’s not quite as picturesque, but still awesome.

A sad side note, while we were up there, unbeknownst to us, a radical right wing writer shot himself inside the cathedral, you can read the story here. We had no idea, but did notice the line to get in was huge when we were leaving (probably because they were in the middle of evacuating and closing up). We found out after we got home and our friend commented on our InstaGram pictures, funny the way we got the news all the way from Arizona. I can’t express how glad I am that we didn’t have to see that and that he didn’t hurt anyone else in the process.

On our way back we stopped at a couple of vintage shops in the Marais, I ended up with a dress for €10. I did find an awesome Yves St. Laurent skirt, but it was €60 and I’m a cheapskate.

We then rushed over to Père Lachaise Cemetery where we had about an hour before it closed. I could have spent a day there, it was such an interesting old cemetery. The ceiling of old trees, moss everywhere, crumbling headstones and statues, and the telephone booth sized tombs . . . They say over one million people have been buried there, and with one million different memorials it seems. I have a fondness for old statues so that amazing. We did of course find Jim Morrison’s grave, but it was fenced off, covered in graffiti and trinkets, and not the most impressive. I do love a good Doors song though so I don’t mean any disrespect.  When it was closing time more than one guard driving around made us leave, I wondered if people hide and spend the night there? It seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to do.