J'adore Paris à L'autumne

Up early the next morning, we set out for the Catacombs. The Paris Metro is pretty easy to navigate, although if you hit it during the rush area you really do get up and personal with the locals.

This is the metro at one of the less popular stations. However, once the train pulled in, you were wondering how anyone would fit in to the carriage. 

We had arranged to meet up with Jo, who we had met the night before at the restaurant, but the shop where we had agreed to meet is a store of many locations.

We got to our metro stop to join a considerable line, but it was interesting watching the world go by as we waited.

The descent into the tunnels at the catacombs was lengthy and a bit disheartening. You know going down, that at some stage, it would be time to make your way up...feel that burn!!!

The tunnels were creepy, even before you hit the cemetery part...

The stone carvings are amazing.

Then it was time to see what we had come for. It is amazing that their are about 6 million ancient Parisiennes are buried here. It is known as the world's largest graveyard. And the person who decided to stack them all up with the femurs constructing the walls and skullbones sitting on top, all in pretty intricate patterns, and all the other bones ribs and all thrown in behind? Sequoia kept on referring to it as Hannibal's lair.

Once we had caught our breath after the unrelenting ascent, we decided to take a walk down to the Latin Quarter.

At this point I'd like to mention what is now to be always referred to as 'bone juice', as described by Sequoia. The mixture of clay and who knows what else that we all emerged from the ossuaire covering our boots:

Yum!

In that note, we grabbed some hotdogs and crepes and picnicked in the park with the locals along the way. Haha.

We wandered down to the stunning Parc Luxembourg.

Further wanderings:

Notre Dame (not a hunchback in sight!):

After our huge walk, we decided to stop for some refreshments. We decided to have a look at the desserts and ordered one that is to be shared between two.

This is what arrived, complete with fireworks spurting out of it!!!

Spot the tourist anyone????

This is what was left, though:

To round out our rat here touristic day, we made our way to the Louvre. The buildings themselves are absolutely stunning!

For those wondering about under the pyramids:

It's actually a huge upmarket shopping mall, with the Louvre entrance and a Metro station!

We were already quite foot-weary by this time and we understand that you could spend a week inside and still not see everything. We just picked an entrance and wandered.

We did manage to find the Mona Lisa:

 

And the Venus de Milo:

Now, we really needed to start heading home. Only, no one ever tells you that you can see practically half the museum trying to find an exit. 

We somehow kept ending up in Ancient Egypt!

And...

We made it back to Montmartre, and just because we hadn't done or seen enough for the day...we climbed the hundreds of steps up to Sacre Coeur.

We weren't disappointed though. We went inside to find what seemed like a million candles burning and a full choir singing a Latin Mass. 

Sharing a bottle of champaign that we had bought along the way, we sat on the steps and enjoyed a most spectacular view of our 'City of Lights'.