paris-- day 3

another early start. remember that hairy bakery, by now that place has become our breakfast provider. i learned my lesson not to eat brushetta from there. instead do as the french do. eat croissants. yummy. soft yet crunchy and warm.

this is going to be another busy day.
-visit the cluny museum which is only a block away from our hotel. medieval museum with large high ceiling and stone walls.
-walk around sorbonne university to get to luxembourg gardens. it is such a sunny day. people sitting around the big circular fountain and sun tanning.
all this time we were in the left bank section of paris, now we need to cross to the right bank to go to sacre coeur, mont martre. we walk to the metro stop only to be redirected by riot police to another station. something serious must be going on. there are so many heavily armed police standing in a closed-off street. we have no idea as to what it is. we see 15 people at the most, holding some kind of a flag but the ratio of the 15 people to the 120 police is remarkable. we need to get to our stop so I ask a french girl passing by where metro is. my french speaking of "excuse mua" is short-lived. she understands that we don’t speak french so she starts speaking english. what a nice, helpful and chic girl! she says she can take us to the stop since she is also heading that direction. during our walk, we talk. the crowd, she informs us is foreigners wanting legalized paperwork. she says “it siz too much poliz for very few people” with her french accent.

we are in finally sacre coeur, on top of the hill looking down on paris. inside the cathedral are nuns chanting repetitive words. very elaborate, ornate cathedral with lots of stained glass windows.

curling down the narrow and hilly streets of mont martre, we stop by a very cute café to replenish ourselves with coffee.

we make our way to Pompidou; colorful piped building with stravinski fountain outside. climbing through the escalators covered with glass on the outside of the building rewards you with interesting city views. it’s a flood of red chimneys on the rooftops of the buildings. inside is a great modern art exhibit with bizarre, cool installations, photos, furniture, art etc. i love this museum.

then the miles long walk begins to cross to the other side of the town to visit rodin garden. what a lovely, peaceful garden filled with rodin’s sculptures. the thinker. yes you got it. he is still thinking about that. i have him all to myself, no one around. click! picture perfect frame of my smiling face underneath his buttocks.

exhaustion and sleep deprivation cannot stop me from our next and final sight. musee d’orsay. again more walking and we are there. woowww what an impressive building. it used to be a train station. those days they really invested in train stations, you can tell. after sponging in all the paintings by renoir, monet, manet, van gogh, picasso, toulouse-lautrec then we check and make sure that our feet and legs are still operating like humans do. however, we realize that they are no longer willing to cooperate so we check them into metro and head to our hotel.

there is no energy left to walk even 5 feet so we eat at the japanese restaurant right next to our hotel. ironically enough, this is the second best food and service we had in paris after the greeks. go figure.

paris: city of stylish frowning women and men, perfume, excellent wine and croissants, cool window-shopping, amazing architecture and art, bad food and really bad attitude.

au revoir paris!