Paris! Part II

Above are the beautiful stained glass windows of Sainte Chapelle, a stunning gothic chapel built in the mid 1200s. Sainte Chapelle is located on the same island as Notre-Dame de Paris, Île de la Cité in the river Seine. Unlike Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle is no longer a church.

We actually started our day at Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. We used a helpful app called CityMapper to get us from point A to point B, which you can use in any location, not just Paris. It will tell you what the quickest options are. Unfortunately for us, we were unfamiliar enough with the area that we didn’t know that it was going to put us down in kind of a seedy neighborhood. It wasn’t horrible, just not the best. We ended up coming to Sacre-Coeur from the side, which means that we didn’t get to walk up the famous stairs in front, which are iconic, and which Carey really wanted to do. Anyway, we came from the side, and as we approached the basilica, it was being evacuated due to ‘a security incident’. We had no idea what was going on, but decided to go to a nearby cafe and do some people watching while we waited for things to clear up. Eventually they opened back up, and we went inside. It is a beautiful church. There were signs indicating no pictures, but I couldn’t tell whether they meant no pictures, or just no flash. So I didn’t take any pictures inside. Unlike Sainte Chapelle, Sacre-Coeur is a working church, and there were people there worshiping. It’s beautiful.

There is a little plaza/square nearby, with quite a few restaurants, cafes, and a lot of artists there wanting to paint/draw/color your picture quickly for you. It was fun to walk around and see the artists doing their thing, but we didn’t want to have one done ourselves. The restaurants were all crowded and looked a bit too touristy for us, so we went off in search of something better. We have learned to do an internet search on our phone and look for places with high ratings.

From there, we walked down the hill to a tiny restaurant, L’Annexe. So many restaurants close between lunch and dinner, and we often found ourselves in that in-between time. Thankfully the kind staff were happy to serve us lunch, even though we were there right before they were supposed to close. The food was excellent, though the portion of risotto we ordered was far too large, and we could have easily split it. I decided it was too good to waste, so I took it to go, planning to give it to the next homeless person we encountered. The only other table that was occupied was a couple (Marcos and Ethan) who were in town for only a couple of hours. They had arrived in Paris, rented a car, and were on their way to a wedding out in the countryside somewhere. One of them was American (Seattle), and the other was Brazilian (Santa Catarina). We had a nice chat while we waited for our meal, it was nice to speak English to someone about more than what we wanted to order or buy.

We then walked to Sainte Chapelle, waited in line, and viewed the stunning windows above. From there we went on a hop-on/hop-off boat on the Seine. I liked seeing folks hanging out near the river, just enjoying themselves.

The boat dropped us off at the Eiffel Tower, which was insanely crowded. SO many people, hucksters doing shell games and selling trinkets, tons of tourists, it made me nervous. Not so much about getting pick-pocketed (though that is a real danger in crowded areas of Paris, much more so than any violent crime), but just too many people close together made me worry about COVID. I had taken a test the day before, because I had a gloppy throat and a bit of a runny nose. I think it was just big city air affecting my allergies, but best to not take a chance. Thankfully it was negative, no one wants to spend their Parisian vacation stuck in a hotel room sick! So we hightailed it out of there, found a place across the river to have a nice dinner and wine, and watched the tower light up for the night. Then it was back on the Metro and home for the evening. Another amazing day in this amazing city.