After 5 nights in Montmatre we were moving to our next Parisian accommodation and although I loved The area we had stayed in, I can’t say I was at all disappointed to be leaving our hostel. The problem wasn’t the fact that it was a hostel, it was just the general lack of cleanliness and the abundance of noise which inexplicably was worst after 2pm. It was also safe to say that after 5 nights of very poor sleep in a ridiculously uncomfortable bed, I was looking forward to staying somewhere new.
Our next place was a little less central but also a lot less touristy, so quite different to where we had been before. We got lost finding the place but I have come to accept that we only ever get lost when we are lugging around our heavy suitcases and walking ten minutes in the wrong direction makes you want to lie down and give up. All was fine though and the streets aren’t really clean enough for lying down so we found the hotel and went for a coffee at a great little bistro while we waited for check in. I think it might have been the first time we actually had a rather good coffee in France. So far our experience had been that an espresso, the French know and love and do it well (not that I would know because it all tastes like burnt tree bark to me). Unfortunately, whenever we get any kind of coffee with milk, be it a latte, cafe au lait or a cappuccino it tastes like crap and often is just spat out of a machine. So this rare occasion where the latte was actually quite good did not go unrecognised.
We checked in and although only one of us could fit into the elevator at a time with the bags, the hotel itself was great and the room was a comparative luxury with room to actually open our suitcases as well as a shower and bathroom that wasn’t a stairway away and actually smelt clean. We head out to explore the area and picked up some quiches and pastries to eat for lunch beside the canal. The quiches were homemade and divine but they had nothing on the amazing fresh raspberry tart that we had to follow. I wish I had time to stay in France and undertake a 6 month intensive patisserie course so I could recreate their delicious pastries and cakes.
The last thing I really wanted to visit in Paris was the cemetery of Père Lachaise as it was where quite a few famous people had been buried, and was supposed to be quite an interesting cemetery to walks through. We got to the cemetery and found a map with the locations of all the famous graves and monuments. It felt a little bit strange, almost like a more morbid version of those tours they do in Hollywood where you drive past all the celebrities houses. To be honest, despite my initial reservations, the cemetery was rather wonderful to wander around and more interesting than I had expected.
We visited the popular graves of Jim Morrison (sadly kind of cordoned off due to his enthusiastic fans), Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Gerciault (probably my favourite grave stone) and others. We also walked past huge and rather ominous monuments for things like Auschwitz. The war and holocaust memorials were pretty powerful with skeletal figures and rather threatening compositions but they made for an interesting walk. The cemetery is larger than I could imagine so we spent a good couple of hours walking in the shade of the trees and only occasionally coming across other people. It was a rather peaceful way to pass the afternoon and quite a contrast to our busy days we had been undertaking.
On one of the many metro trips we did that day, one of my more memorable metro moments occurred. There are often live performers and buskers on the metro who walk from carriage to carriage, usually with an accordion. It’s something I quite like but today, there were a couple who came up to our carriage where I was standing holding the central pole (the metro always seems rather busy so getting a seat is rather rare). The couple came and decided to do their performance right where I was standing, one one each side of me with their speaker by my feet (Edd somehow managed to sidle off to the side). I kept my typical poker metro face right up until the moment when he music started and they began to shout rap (like rapping but a lot louder) and dancing around me. At that point I broke into uncontrollable laughter, along with most of the people in the carriage. It’s not everyday you get to join in with metro buskers.
We didn’t do a whole lot more that day, walking the streets takes up quite a lot of time and then trying to find a vegetarian dinner is a mission in itself. We eventually found a lovely guy who makes these fresh homemade pizzas that were being pulled out of the oven as we walked in so we grabbed a few slices and enjoyed the amazing cheeses that the French love putting on their pizza. It was the perfect low fuss meal to end a pretty low key kind of day.
1. Our new local canal (St Martin)
2. The best little tart I ever did eat
3. It feels weird to have a favourite gravestone, but I do and Gericault’s was it
4. The very popular grave of Jim Morrison
5. I didn’t think a cemetery could be so photogenic
6. One of many Auschwitz memorials
7. Oscar Wilde (covered in red kisses)
8. We spent a lot of time looking for these
9. Ended the day with these
My Foxy Travels 