Three Months in France March 31 – June 28, 2007

Today’s Photos

Today’s adventures began deep beneath the city in a series of tunnels and rooms known as the Catacombs of Paris. These tunnels were originally Roman-era quarries but they were converted into a rather large tomb in the 18th century . There are over 6 million people resting in these tunnels, their bones and skulls stacked neatly along the sides of the passage ways through which we walked. The dim lights and water dripping from the ceilling gave me the creeps as I walked along these corridors of bones. It took us around 45 minutes to make our way through and after climbing a very long spiral staircase we made it back to ground level and emerged in a residential neighborhoud in what would appear, from the outside, to be someone’s home.

We spent the next few hours touring around by foot and subway seeing many beautiful areas and buildings including the Pantheon, the Jardin de Luxembourg, Notre Dame de Paris and La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre. Notre Dame is a stunning cathedral but we enjoyed it only from the exterior as the lineups to enter were a little too long. Near Notre Dame on the adjacent Ile St Louis we found a terrific gelati place called Amorino which had some of the tastiest gelati I’ve ever had.

Prior to visiting Sacré-CÅ“ur we walked around Montmartre where we passed through a very aggressive swarm of bracelet weavers. John, Anne and I made it through unscathed but Marissa unfortunately fell pray to their clever tactics and next thing you know she’s getting a “good luck” bracelet weaved on her wrist. When I noticed I turned around then spent the next two minutes rejecting a never-ending swarm of weavers who approached me in the hopes of selling me their good luck charm. While weaving Marissa’s bracelet the fellow subjected us to a sales pitch cleverly disguised as pleasant banter. My favourite line was “Oh, you are canadian, for you its only 5 euros. Canadians are so nice, not like Americans…I charge them 20 euros”.

We concluded the day with dinner at Chez Denise, a wondeful French brasserie specializing in large helpings of meat, mostly off-cuts. I enjoyed the côte de boeuf served with marrow bones and heaps of delicious frites (french fries) while Marissa had a beef brochettes. Mark Bittman of the New York Times says that Chez Denise is “friendly, truly unpretentious, fun – and filled with meat” and that sums it up quite nicely. We enjoyed chatting with a nice couple from Moscow on one side of us and two ladies from Manhantan on the other side. The only thing we found unpleasant was the often present cigarette smoke but this is an issue everywhere in France and its nearly impossible to get away from it. Thanks to John and Anne for taking us to such a great restaurant and for being our wonderful tour guides once again.