Day 16 - The real Paris on foot - May 16th




Posers...

 

Smokers had moved into the room next door and as there is no smoking inside the rooms, needless to say, they smoked on the balcony.  No escape it seems, so more coughing for me and a more disturbed night for Paula, who is rapidly coming to the conclusion that I am not the best of travelling companions!

After a light breakfast, we met in the lobby, a small group this time, to head for the cathedral “Sacre Coeur”. It was still cool and long trouser weather, but bright sunshine thank goodness.

I find it most odd that most cathedrals, magnificent old buildings, have succumbed to cheap and nasty money raising slot machines for commemorative medallions, and/or glass and concrete souvenir shops. It does rather grate, although we all know it costs a fortune to maintain them and they have to raise money somehow.

The steps up to the cathedral were littered with literally hundreds of cigarette ends, Heineken bottle tops and a fair bit of broken glass. It appeared not to have been swept for several days.  Whilst the younger or fitter ones opted to climb the tower, Paula and I sat with Greta Hulme and she told us about her very early days with Denny, NZ’s only F1 World Champion.

We then walked round the corner to Montmartre, part of the real Paris we hear so much about.  Heidi and Rod had their portraits drawn by street artists, whilst the rest of us headed for a coffee stop.  They soon joined us, a few Euro’s lighter.



Self portraits?



The square at Montmartre was a hive of activity, with quite a few artists not only selling their works, but also actively painting them.  Styles varied as did the techniques, but a place that you could well spend a fair bit of time just observing.  Of course, there were many commercialised Eiffel tower pics but also one artist seemed obsessed with doing a load of what looked like self portraits!  They were beautifully done.  With his unkempt log grey hair and with a cigarette permanently in his lips, with one or two pics depicting a pipe smoker, I was even more convinced that they were a type of self portrait.

We all walked towards the hotel and just around the corner from the hotel, the others found a small cafe serving hot soup and ciabatta rolls. We carried on and used the facilities in the hotel, before doubling back to join them.  The small cafe was doing a roaring trade and we managed to squeeze in (just).  Nice enough, but the soup could have been a lot warmer.

The others of our small morning group (5 of them) were going to try and meet up at the Eiffel tower at 3pm with several others, but after due consideration and the chance of an afternoon lie down, we opted to stay at the hotel.  Probably not a bad choice as it happens, as the others never really made it in time and were very late back at the hotel. Traffic was slower than normal.

Once again, we ate in the hotel (table of six of us), but opted for just two courses of that small menu.  We settled our bill to save time in the morning and finally crashed at about 11pm – far closer to our normal time than of late.

Well, tomorrow we head for the UK and say farewell to the group and start a new phase of the trip, catching up with family. Much as we have enjoyed the trip so far, family are still an important part of it and seeing young Noah’s growing up is pretty special.  Very little else has been planned for the next two weeks, so it may well be that I can catch up with this blog by condensing the days.