Paris - Day 3

Heather and I woke up to a beautiful day yesterday morning. The sun was out and it was a nice cool morning. On our way over to the local market, that is between us and Place Bastille, we stopped to get an almond croissant. This was our first one, the previous days we'd been too close to the tourist sections and we were unable to find an authentic pattisserie. With food in hand we continued to the market. It was very alive with people picking out fresh ingredients for the day's meals. The fish market was amazing, it had such fresh looking fish, and so much of it. To think there are markets like this all over Paris each day explains why when you go into the local monoprix there isn't any type of veggy section. We walked up and down the isles looking at all the different booths for a bit, but not buying anything because we were on our way out.

We made our way over towards Rue St. Antoine where we stopped at Cafe Modern for a Cafe Creme et une Chocolate. The owner was a younger guy in his late 30s and was working as hard as we Americans do, very un-typical. We've been trying to keep our meals under control because again that Euro is really kicking it to us. We took what we felt as a long time to finish our small breakfast, but I'm sure we were in and out of there in record time compared to our counterparts.

We met up with Chuch and Coryn at the Pigalle metro station. Its at the bottom of the hill that Sacre Coure is built on. I felt a little bad for Coryn and HB, who was not feeling well, because there was no easy way to get up to the top. Luckily, there are a ton of little shops that serve as mini rest stops along the way. I picked up a few small things for the kids and found a Poste to buy some stamps for our post cards. I hope these make it home before we do for the kids.

We stopped and had lunch at a fondu place on the way up and were greeted with the French service I remember from back in the day. Coryn was really offended, but I was glad she saw it because the service we had been getting up until that time was nothing like what I had grown up with. The waitress threw her pad of paper on our table, turned and walked away when Chuck asked for a few more minutes to decide. I think we won her over by the end of the meal, but that's only because of all of her follies like spilling my Perrier on the table next to us.

As we made our way to the top of the steps at Sacre Coure, we took a rest on the steps with tourists from all over the world. The sun was brilliant and there was a constant wind from being up so high. We saw a sign for the "Crypt-Dome" that looked interesting and we paid our 5e and stared the ascend of a spiral staircase. I'm glad I offered to go up alone because it was a challenge for the girls, but they did great getting up there. After a bit more than 300 stairs, we reached the top of the large Dome for a spectacular 360 degree view of Paris. There weren't many people up there so it was a great to gaze out and identify different landmarks and just revel at the sights. I was amazed at the detail that was put into the simplest of things when they constructed the place. This observation tower, so high above Paris gets few visitors, but everything was ornate, from the seating benches to the arched doorways.


After descending, we made our way over to the artist's square. This is the same square we visited on our last visit when we bought Coryn a painting. We met a very nice French painter who spoke very little English. I find myself enjoying talking to the people with less English a bit more. I guess it reminds me of growing up here and always having to struggle through a conversation with both sides only halfway understanding the other. We had already purchsed a small painting of his of a little girl and were talking to him about another painting of a village scene. His style of laying the paint on very thick was quite unique and really worked with the tree that was predominantly place in the foreground. He told us that it wasn't a particular French village, but merely from his imagination and memories from his travels. The paint was still wet so he constructed a protective shell out of cardboard for its safe shipment. When we get home I'll need to inspect it for tree debris that I'm sure it picked up on that windy day. Chuck and Coryn also bought a very interesting painting of Notre Dame.

Heather is ready to head out, so I'll need to finish this post later. This picture is of a shop we passed where the butcher was wrapping a piece of beef with bacon. You can see the bacon in the background on the table, right behind the smiling piggy. :) More Later.