A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .: Day 16 - Paris - Wednesday

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Day 16 - Paris - Wednesday - July 17, 2013

After breakfast we headed back to the Montmartre area. I really like that part of Paris. I decided that since I didn’t see it on the first time, I would go and see the Musee de Montmartre this time. We took the metro to the Abbesses station. This metro station is one of last original Art Nouveau stations left. Even the glass roof is still the original one. We walked past the other windmill that is still there, the Moulin de la Galette. And then we also went by Au Lapin Agile restaurant where lots of famous artists used to go. I went to see the museum while Jeff went shopping and looking around the area. The museum was not as good as I thought, but still nice. They had a lot of paintings, sketches and posters from Toulouse Lautrec and other painters from that era. Several used to live in that building and the one next to it, some of them were Renoir, Valadon and Utrillo. The building next door is not yet available for touring. They also had a small vineyard right next door. There used to be several vineyards a long time ago, but this is the only one left. They have about 2000 vines and they sell the wine they produce for charity. From there we did some shopping and then decided to walk to the Chateau Rouge metro station, since it was the direct line to where we were heading. The area from Sacre Coeur to the station was not the nicest in Paris. It was run down with lots of ethnic families living and working in the area.

Climbing up from the Abbesses Metro station

Abbesses Metro station

The Moulin de la Galette

Au Lapin Agile

Montmartre Vineyard

Musee de Montmartre

Montmartre sightseeing train

We got off at the Cite station which is on the Ile de la Cite. We had a lunch at the same restaurant we ate when we were here a year and a half ago, just across the Ste Chapelle church. After lunch we walked to the Crypt near Notre Dame church. It was neat to see all the old ruins underneath the street level. Paris was occupied by Romans and they used to call it Lutetia. Both Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis were several islands and the Seine shores where all marsh. They still had ruins from the roman baths and other buildings, same as some medieval ruins and old wells. We went to see the Notre Dame but the line was too long and we didn’t want to wait in the heat. The temperature must be again over 90. We ended up taking the metro back home and just cooling down before getting something small to eat.