Amelie, Montmarte

Much like my trip to Avignon, the train strike was still in effect which meant I only had to find a train going my direction and see if I had to pay once I got on. I met a girl while checking out of the hostel who was trying to get back to London, but her flight was canceled due to the ash from the volcano in Iceland. She was trying to take trains from Marseille to Paris to London, but didn't understand about the buying a ticket piece. We ended up walking to the train station together and sitting across from each other on the train. She didn't talk much and we both ended up napping on our way to Paris. Once I'm on the train I get in the mode to find my place and figure out transit.

Finding the metro at the Gare de Lyon station was quite confusing. The map of the station shows where it is, but the orientation of the map is not easy to understand. I finally found the connection for line 1, bought a ticket and dragged my bag up and down stairs to get to the platform. What no one tells you about the Paris metro is that the connections to different lines require quite a bit of walking. Sometimes this involves stairs. Fortunately I hadn't done much today, so I had the energy to move my things around. The change to line 5 was pretty easy and finding my stop was simple. Finding the turn for the street of the hostel was somewhat more difficult. It was either not marked or listed under a different name: both very common problems in Europe. When I spotted the next metro stop I knew I had gone too far. Fortunately there are maps of the metro at almost every stop so I was able to navigate my way back relatively easily and checked in. I noticed on the welcome map that there was a tour of Montmarte at 6pm. It sounded like an easy way to see some of the city and check off something on my list of things to see.

The tour was excellent. We started outside the Moulin Rouge (red windmill) and heard the stories of how this poor part of town bred artists as well as seedy characters in the red light district. We walked all over Montmarte [Martyr Hill--where Christians were taken to be executed in Catholic France during the revolutions] (which is quite lovely by evening stroll) and our guide Ann Marie from Ireland was chipper and made the stories quite interesting. I learned about Van Gogh's distraught and challenging life when we passed the place where he used to live. We saw the Au Lapin Agile where Picasso challenged the owner to feed him in return for artwork which later turned the owner into a millionaire. The buildings and apartments are quaint and places you can only dream of living unless you have say E500,000 you just want to toss at a small European apartment. Sacre Cour Cathedral was by far one of the best stops we made. The views of Paris are excellent (including the Eiffel Tower) and the church is gorgeous. Made out of travertine stone, the building is self-cleaning (like the free public toilets on the street :) ) when the rain naturally whitens the stone. We wound our way down the hill through Place du Terte where local artists vie for a lifelong seat in the square doing portraits. We also stopped at a few of the places where the movie Amelie was filmed including the cafe and the market. The director spent 18 months going each day to the cafe to ask the owner if he could close the cafe for 4 months in the high tourist season to film. He's glad he consented now! Business has never been better.

After such a busy day I opted to eat at the hostel where I had a large plate of lasagna bolognese style filled with beef, green/red peppers, cheese and onion. Tomorrow I meet up with my friend Manuel to discover more of Paris, so a good night's sleep is in order.