Monday, October 28th, 2024 started out as a mix of sun and clouds, with more clouds than sun.

We headed out for a late breakfast.

One of the things I had researched for our last trip to Paris was which cafes Ernest Hemmingway had frequented in his lifetime. We never did get to check any of them out last time, so I was bound and determined to get to at least one this time.

He had spent a lot of time in a couple of cafes in Montparnasse, which wasn’t all that far from the apartment. So we headed in that direction.

I think the wall needs a good scrub.

A little farther up this road is Centre Pénitentiaire de Paris-La Santé – a prison that opened in 1867. It was partially closed from 2014 until 2019 to undergo rehabilitation. Which seems ironic to me as rehabilitation is supposedly the goal of prison.

I liked the door. Apparently, it’s a retirement home.

We arrived at La Closerie des Lilas about 10 minutes later.

I was kind of glad it wasn’t open as I looked at the menu board, both because it seemed to serve mostly seafood, which isn’t my thing, and also because it was ridiculously expensive. It was a pretty nice looking place however.

Luckily, it was only about a 5 minute walk up Bd du Montparnasse to La Rotonde. That was another establishment Hemming had spent time in. Not only was it open and still serving breakfast, but it was not very busy so we could sit outside.

I tried to channel my inner Hemmingway by visualizing the scene in front of me as black and white. I tried to figure out how much would have changed since the 1920s. I like to write, as evident by my blog, but I’m no Hemmingway, again, as evident by my blog. But I did think it was cool to sit and look out at the world like so many had before me.

We sat an enjoyed out continental breakfast.

We could see the stairs of our subway stop, Vavin, from our seats.

The #4 line was the one we needed to catch to go up to Montmartre. It is a fully automated subway line and has no operators on the train. It was kind of neat to sit near the front and see where we were going. It was about a half hour journey to our stop at Barbès – Rochechouart. It was a fairly short walk through the neighbourhood to the steps below Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. I’ve seen many churches labeled as sacred heart, but none have been as spectacular as this one.

It is a lot of steps up to the church and there were plenty of people all over them.

There were also plenty of tourist taking photos.

It had clouded up pretty good so the view from the hill didn’t show as much as it could have.

@spookie_bugz wanted to have a photo or two taken of himself while we were there.

Even though I have no use for any religion, I would have been happy to go see the inside of Sacré-Cœur, but there was no way I was going to stand in that line to get in. I probably would have if I was a devout Catholic, but that would be the only way I’d line up.

We decided we’d go see what it looked like from the side.

We discovered that there was a road that went around the back and through the neighbourhood.

It was a lot quieter back here.

We started to explore the neighbourhood on our way through.

I really liked this balcony and tried to imagine sitting there with the plants, sipping a coffee, and looking over the city.

As we wandered around, it became apparent that the area right behind Sacré-Cœur was going to be the quietest spot in the neighbourhood.

The market was a busy spot.

We had been walking downhill and soon came to some stairs. Not as many stairs as we had climbed up though.

Apparently I don’t get out enough as I had never heard of them, world famous or not.

We found ourselves at the “I love you” wall. Well, Lucille did lead us there, but still.

I thought it was interesting, but it didn’t wow me like some of the things I had seen on our trip. We headed off in the general direction of Moulin du Moulin Rouge.

I liked all the flowers.

Between the people and the traffic, getting a good photo of Moulin Rouge is a bit tricky, and I wasn’t in the mood for tricks. I suspect that it’s a lot more interesting all lit up at night, but during the day I found it a bit, meh. I still acted like a tourist and took a couple of photos however.

Lynda was getting a bit thirsty so she stopped into the Starbucks across the street for a drink, and Lucille and I discussed walking back to her apartment. We figured it would take a couple of hours if we didn’t stop anywhere. We thought as long as Lynda had a drink to keep her happy, we’d not mention that.

So we started heading towards the river.

More doors that I liked the looks of.

We found ourselves at the Louvre Museum. It looked as busy as the other times we were there.

We were about a third of the way home when we crossed the river to the left bank.

I almost looked for a book, but I didn’t want to carry any more weight.

We decided that since we were so close, we should got to Galway Irish Pub for a drink. Galway was the first place Lucille and Curtis took us for lunch on our first visit and it was a favorite of theirs.

Lucille took us on the scenic route to get there (because the 16 thousandish steps we had already gotten didn’t seem like enough.)

Galway served up a good, stiff margarita and I really enjoyed my little drink.

The sun was starting to set as we left the pub to go meet Curtis for supper.

The last time we walked past Fontaine Saint-Michel, there was a market happening there.

We passed an Au Vieux Campeur – The Old Camper, well, we passed a few as there are literally 20 of them in a 20 block radius. They spread out which gear is in which store to keep the rent down vs having a really big store.

We passed within a few blocks of the Panthéon. I’ll have to get back to Paris so I can go see it one day as we hadn’t been yet.

As we were heading to Place d’Italie, we passed by Arènes de Lutèce and I ran in to get a photo with much less contrast than my last visit.

The light was fading and I took a couple of photos before we met Curtis at Hippopotamus.

We enjoyed a good meal and got what we ordered this time. Last time we were there we got a really nice steak skewer, but we’d ordered chicken. No food photos but I got a lovely cell phone shot of our drinks. I had sugar but no alcohol.

It was about a 20 minute walk back to the apartment and we’d managed just shy of 25 thousand steps today.