Paris Day 7… Invalides
As I awoke for the last full day, I looked out of the window. The weather had, once again, turned out for us. It was absolutely glorious. This was a nice surprise, considering last year, and the torrential downpour that greeted us on the final day.
We wanted an early start, to be up for 9. Therefore, I went and woke C+J up. At 10:05, I was still sitting in my room, taking photos of the ceiling.
EVENTUALLY, they both surfaced, and we headed off to La Terrasse, for our final awesome brekkers, consisting of the usual tea, baguette, OJ and croissant. Oh, and I forgot to mention, you get a little biscuit with your hot drink too.
Thankfully, it was Monday, so the Shoppy was open, so we were able to stock up on supplies and bottled water for the day out. We planned to stay in the hotel for this final night, seeing as we had a very early start the next day, so it was a case of stocking up on food-like supplies for the night. I was especially looking for biscuits, similar to what we’d just had for breakfast. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any, but I’ll tell you what I *did* find…
Cherry Jaffa cakes.
Oh, man. I remembered these from when the short-lived “Pims” brand was over here. I mourned their passing, and was absolutely delighted to find them again. I opened the box up, took one out, took a bite, and was in biscuit heaven. It’s like all of my xmasses had came at once. I have no idea why they don’t do them over here any more, but by the time I’d gone the short walk from the shoppy back to the hotel room, the box was half empty.
So, back in the hotel room, we made the final preparations to visit the catacombs. I had my camera ready, batteries charged. We then consult the book to find out their exact locations when… BOLLOCKS! The sodding things are only closed on a Monday, aren’t they? ARGH! I must admit to being a bit gutted, as it was one of the things I was looking forward to seeing.
Never mind. It just meant that we had to revert to the backup plan of visiting Sacre Coeur, which is the big church on the hill, and was highly recommended by one of Jonathan’s friends. It can be seen in this picture which I’d taken a few days before. Sacre Coeur, translates to Sacred Heart, and is a Roman Catholic basilica dedicated to the sacred heart of Jesus.
So, off we went, leaving the hotel behind again, for the journey on the metro. this time, we all got two tickets each, just in case we came across one of those “ticket only”stations like we did before.
A long metro journey later, we arrived at Montmartre, I think. We departed the metro station, and began to walk about, in the general direction of Sacre Coeur. It soon became apparent that everything in Paris is uphill. There are no downhills to this place, and this was no exception. What was even worse, is that the side streets were packed with tourists. Argh. We reached the base of Sacre Coeur, only to find two things. a hell of a lot of steps, and hundreds more of those damn souvenir sellers, all lined up in a big row.
Suddenly, their mood changed, and one of them began shouting something loud in french, whilst walking towards somebody. I could only recognise one word… “pickpocket”. Yes, it turns out that these sellers also have the added bonus of being able to recognise the persistant pickpockets and chase them away from the tourist areas. Wow. I was so impressed, I almost bought something from them. Almost.
Up the steps we went., but not before I broke out the camera…
Halfway up the steps was another one of those sellers, but this time selling large, 6-ft long inflatable things with the usual “I love Paris” type shite printed on them. He kept throwing one in the air. Unfortunately, his location was right next to a fountain and a large pool of water. Every few throws meant that the large inflatable thing would blow off-course and land in the fountain. He would get a round of applause each time he rescued it successfully without falling in.
Further up the stairs was possibly the best street entertainer I’ve ever seen… now this is the first time I’ve embedded video from flickr, so apologies if it doesn’t work right, but here it is…
We stopped off for a good 20 minutes whilst slowly sipping the afore mentioned bottled water. Looking at that small 30-second video clip, you can just see how many kids put money in his hat (probably because their parents didn’t want to look like idiots). If he could keep doing it all day, I’m sure he’d be making a fortune.
Of course, there was also some scruffy idiot approaching him and pretending to dance very badly next to him.
Next stop was the actual building itself. Thankfully, unlike the tourist trap outside, it was a lot less busier on the inside. In fact, you weren’t even allowed to take photos or video. Following on from how touristy Notre Dame was, this felt a much better place to see. It was also a lot smaller on the inside than ND, so it didn’t take too long to see all of it.
We went back out, and had a little bit of a walk around to see if there was anything worth seeing. We made our way into the market square, and walked around. the place was filled with painters trying to sell their paintings. Now, these were genuine sellers, as you could watch them painting them if you wanted to. We kept walking, and came across a nice little food eaterie place on the corner. I got a croissant, and C+J got sarnies. I can’t believe how much I love croissants.
We found a seat to sit on, and watched as a British car attempted to get up the hill, then deciding against it entirely, and reversing back down, causing temporary traffic chaos. Oh, the hilarity.
After we’d sseen everything that the area had to offer, we headed back down through the side streets and throngs of gift shops. I noticed that one of the stores were selling french CDs, lo and behold, the Gilbert Becaud CD I’d purchased was amongst them for €10! Baaahaha! I’d got mine for half of that price! Awesome!
A quick reverse metro ride from whence we’d came meant that within a short time, we were back at the hotel. You know, I believe that’s the worst sentence I’ve ever written. Never mind.
Either way, what I was trying to say is that we got the metro back to Le Hotel Splendid. It was about 3PM at this point, so there wasn’t much point travelling far, and I wanted to see the interior of the Hotel Invalides. After all, a building with such an impressive outside was bound to have something special on the inside. It’s only a quarter of a mile from the hotel along Avenue de Tourville. We walked over, and I got Chris to take some cheesy shots of me…
The entry fee was €8. Now, there didn’t appear to be a ticket booth in sight. Instead there were two ticket machines in a little cubby-hole. Oh, now this was going to be fun.
I inserted my card, hoping to be told that it couldn’t be debited, or something like that. Surprisingly, it went through successfully. I almost let out a cheer as thre little tickets plopped into the tray beneath the machine. The American tourists next to me didn’t have so much luck. Apparently, Chip+Pin hasn’t reached across the pond yet, so their card wouldn’t work in the machine. I thought they were out of luck, until I spied an actual manned ticket booth ahead. I pointed them in that direction, and they were eternally grateful for my help.
Some of the exhibits were closed on Mondays, which seems odd. Mondays would appear to be more of a rest-day than Sundays. Still, we’d paid now. The first stop was, of course, Napoleon’s tomb.
It’s staggeringly impressive.
Sorry for the large burst of photos there, I think it’s justified in this case.
After being suitably impressed with the interior of the building, the next step was the war museum. Now, this was interesting, though I failed to take any photos while I was in there - I didn’t know whether cameras were allowed or not, and I didn’t fancy taking my chances. Obviously, it expained a lot about the past two world wars, though it seemed to tone down Britain’s part in these conflicts quite considerably. There were some very impressive exhibits, however.
It seemed to take ages to get through the full three floors of exhibitions. And that’s because it did. We spent nearly two hours in that exhibition alone.
By the time we got out, it was 5:45… and the doors closed at… a quarter to six. There was absolutely no chance of being able to squeeze anything out of it. a bit of a shame, as it looked like there was plenty more to see.
We took one last visit to Shoppy, and I picked up some Leffes, With these, I was guaranteed a good nights sleep. Therefore, my last meal in France cosisted of this…
Crisps, cherry jaffa cakes and the all important Leffes. Wonderful!
Now, something I haven’t mentioned about this holiday, is that I took a copy of the Hartlepool Mail with me. They do a regular feature called “Put us in the picture”, where they invite you to take a copy of the paper on holiday with you, and then send them a photo of wherever you are.
I was originally planning to do this, but seeing as we were on the last night, I thought we’d never get it done. And, to be perfectly honest, I wish I hadn’t!
We set off from the hotel, after I’d knocked 4 bottles of the Leffe back, in order to take some hilariously ironic photos of me doing silly things with the paper, including reading it upside down. Despite the fact we were absolutely pissing ourselves laughing whilst taking the photos, it was very windy, and they all turned out to be abysmally bad. This is possibly the only publishable one…
Note how fat I look, that’s just my shirt billowing up, honest.
I have added the word “Arse”, and saved it with 83% compression, just to make sure it doesn’t actually appear anywhere else, such as in the Mail itself!
We said goodbye to Le Tour Eiffel, and I took one more “serious” photo of it, before we headed back to the hotel one final time…
We entered the hotel, and the next time we would exit through these doors, we would be leaving our keys at reception for good. Shortly after we returned back, I retired to my room to pack away the final things that were going home with me. The black bag which had carried water and cameras for the last week was going to be used one last time for my hand luggage. I set my alarm for 6. Earlier in the week, we had arranged for a “shuttle service” to pick us up. It would cost €17, but at least we knew it would get us there in good time, and exactly where we wanted it…… wouldn’t it?
