paris day 3

today (monday) we took the bus up north and climbed up a bazillion stairs to montmartre, and visited both the basilique de sacré cœur (cathedral from the late 1800s) and saint pierre de montmartre (stands on the site of a temple to mars, with 4 roman-era columns inside). the latter felt like a really sacred space to both of us, although we couldn't surmise whether it was the old old old spiritual roots of the place, the austerity of the decorations, or just the fact that we basically had the place to ourselves. we checked out the artists in the square at the place du tertre, then headed down the hill, passing picasso's first workshop and stopping for a great vegetarian lunch at au grain de folie.

in the afternoon we metroed it down to luxembourg gardens (and peeked in the windows of luxembourg palace), admired the architecture and designer duds at le bon marché department store (designed by gustave eiffel), went to l'église saint-sulpice and l'église de saint germain des pres (the oldest church in paris dating from 885 or so), strolled around the medieval area, missed getting into the cluny museum by about 5 minutes (but got a good look at the courtyard), meandered through the left bank and latin quarter, and stopped in at shakespeare and company bookstore. then we crossed the seine over to the île de la cité and, to give our feet a rest, watched part of a mass at the cathédrale notre-dame de paris. the cantor (is that the word?) had a gorgeous voice that echoed throughout the massive building. because our feet were getting pretty tired, we decided to take rick steves's advice and take the bus 69 tour. this took us to the eiffel tower (where we got some pretty goofy pics), and then home, passing by a ton of sites, including invalides, the louvre, the grand and petit palais, and the musée d'orsay to name a few. dinner at chez janou was thwarted due to a line out the door plus sudden hard, cold rain storm, so we had real italian (ok, french-italian) pizza with an egg baked on it, tiramisu and an amaretto digestivo (a shot after the meal) at pizzeria santa lucia in our neighborhood.