Montmartre

First, yesterday: Last night two friends from Carleton, Sean and Emily, came and stayed with my Aunt and Uncle for the night as they travel from England to Germany. We're not the only grads who decided Europe was an awesome idea. It was really nice to see them; we had a pretty relaxed afternoon. We went for a walk along the Marne with Nimbus, the dog, and got to visit and exchange trip stories. It was fun.

Earlier in the morning my Aunt sent Michael and I over to the open farmers market on the other side of town. That was a fun adventure. I'm reasonably proud of my speaking skills... we ended up with all the correct produce!

And on to today:

We went into Montmartre and climbed up the hill to see la Basilisque du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre. It's really an impressively pretty church. We followed the crowd through the doors to look around inside and were shocked to see that they were holding service, while streams of tourists wandered around the edge gawking. The priest's voice had a very ethereal quality to it, since it resonated around the building. So the visit was a little odd... I don't think that's the church I would pick to attend a service. All the same, the basilica was beautiful... there were really gorgeous paintings on all of the walls, and the stained glass was also really pretty.  But of course, no pictures since the church was in use.
Anyway, we decided that the area was much much too touristy, and headed off down some streets that had fewer English signs. We ended up wandering around very quaint cobblestone streets, which was really pleasant. Our walking took us past le Moulin Rouge (which I dragged Michael too, since it required an excursion down another tourist trap road... he said it was cool once we got there) and eventually to l'Arc de Triumphe. So I believe at this point we've hit most of the major Paris sights, besides the Tower and Versailles, which we've visit once we come back into town. 

The crookedness adds character. But seriously, it's a beautiful building.

I liked this ivy-covered building and the tiny, twisty street. So it got photographed.

Le Moulin Rouge

We always seem to find the parks.

Testing a new photo pose

It was deemed useful.

But we like the other one, too.

Tomorrow we're probably going to spend around Saint Maur (since today is the last day of our very handy ride-the-metro-as-much-as-you-want pass), do laundry, and get ready to go explore Blois. If we do anything worth posting I'll go for it, otherwise it'll probably be a day or two. (: