The weather was pretty miserable for May - overcast and with occasional spits of rain. I had planned to go to the flea market in St-Ouen, but this was vetoes by my friend A, who considered it too criminal-infested for me. So we went to Montmartre for our touristy fix.
Despite the weather the mountain was simply heaving with visitor, absolutely amazing! We actually climbed up all the stairs, and arrived with shaky legs, but most others seemed to have taken the little train or the cable car - like fools we took it on the way down, taking it up would have been wiser. You can use a Stif ticket on the cable car!
Montmartre is exactly like it is in the pictures and movies, just with more people. Many more people! One gets very rude and pushy in Paris, I think that is the reason why so many visitors think Parisians are rude - they are just trying to go about their daily business, having to push aside the tourists who are in their way.
Along the way I stopped to take pictures of the main tourist attraction - a young man with a football. He played the ball continuously, first on a plinth, then climbing onto a lamppost. When he eventually lost the ball the crowd sighed loudly, and clapped. It was a jolly good performance!
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| View from cable car |
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| Ditto |
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| Ditto |
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| Tiny house between giants near La Cigale ..... |
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| ...... with a small stature |
When I helplessly looked at the crowd of tourists sitting on the stairs which I was trying to decent, A just told me to go wherever I wanted to and push aside anyone who was in my way. With that kind of attitude Paris should be the capitalists capital of the world!
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| Unusual wall-art! A mangled bicycle sticking out of the wall of an ordinary house, behind the Gare du Nord |
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| The Gare du Nord, from behind |
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| Sticking the lens through the wire |
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| Tent village of homeless people under a bridge behind the Gare du Nord |
On my way home I had a very interesting experience - apparently I am not as dumb as I thought .... Remember last month I went to Paris two weekends in a row because I had booked the wrong dates? Well it looks like I hadn't - Eurostar switched computer systems and a lot of other people also 'booked the wrong dates'. A glitch in the system caused whatever date one booked to be switched to a week later, or some such thing. I had some interesting discussions with some of my fellow passengers, and one of the sales people in Paris was most helpful - because guess what, I had another wrong ticket!
