Thursday in Paris

Thursday November 5 – Paris 5 pm
We have just returned from a day of walking, walking, metro riding, walking, walking – mostly in the rain. Even so it was a very enjoyable day.
The main part of the day was Montmartre. We tried to do a self-guided tour out the Lonely Planet. We only got off the path once so that was pretty good. I took a few photos before it started to rain. The main things seen/experienced:
House where Vincent VanGough lived for a while with his brother Theo.
The Moulin Galette – this was the open dining area/café where one of the very famous Monet’s was painted – yesterday we saw the painting at the D’Orsay.
The still existing vineyard.
The little café where Amelie worked in the movie starring Adrienne Toutou.
Getting out of the rain in a very nice café with some nice red wine and cheese. A friendly calico cat sat at our table and let Toni pet her.
Sacre Cour (mainly to get out of driving rain and wind).
The Montmartre Museum which is in the oldest house and once housed many different artists. The museum was great with lots of old paintings, pictures, videos, and an excellent audio guide that gave an excellent introduction to the history and events of Montmartre. Montmartre was originally a village outside of the walled city of Paris. It was agricultural and also had many quarries – the stone from them was ground up and used to make plaster. Hence the product “plaster of Paris”. Because Montmartre was outside the walls of the city it was not subject to Paris’ taxes so eventually many artists, writers, and other bohemian types came here because they could live cheaply. Before long there were lots of “bars” and then the cabarets and the rest is history.
But the best of all was going into the original church – it was very cold and nothing very special. There was hardly anyone there except for 7 men who put some chairs together near the front of the church and unpacked the things they were carrying. Then one of them, who was obviously the leader, pulled out an audio taping device and handed out sheet music to each of them. They proceeded to sing beautiful acopella (sp?) music. The acoustics were incredible and they had gorgeous voices. They sang just the one piece and packed up their stuff and left.
The only other sightseeing activity of the day was going to the huge and very upscale department store, Galleries Lafayette. The main store in very beautiful inside with a big open gallery ornate ceiling. The gourmet store in the basement was awesome but also awesomely expensive (e.g., filet of sole at $45 a pound – we converted this from Euros). Tom was interested in purchasing some shoes and a fanny pack. The fanny packs were $125 and the shoes he wanted $350. So he didn’t buy either but in the Metro hallway downstairs he did find a perfectly good fanny pack for $25 – no shoes though.