Montmartre Walking Tour, Paris Bus and Boat Tours

NOTE: I think I have come up with a work-around to the photo issue that will hopefully allow me to upload photos throughout the remainder of the trip. Plus there are some in the gallery from earlier in the trip.

When Cindy and I travel to new places we have found it helpful to avail ourselves of whatever city tours there might be in order to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the city and its landmarks and/or tourist attractions. I can read maps without difficulty, but there is a difference in what is shown on a 2 dimensional map and what is in the real world. These kinds of tours fill in the extra dimensions and make getting around later much easier.

Sunday morning dawned with a slightly overcast sky and temperatures in the 50's. After breakfast, we bundled up and headed out to our scheduled 10:30am walking tour of Montmartre. The meeting place was about a block from our apartment at a square in our part of the city where the Metropolitain (Metro) Subway station was located. We were the first ones to arrive (like kids, we couldn't wait to go) but eventually our group numbered about 20 with the majority being Americans and a couple of Canadians, a couple of Germans and one Russian. Our walk was to take us through the historical highlights of Montmartre, culminating at Sacré-Coeur Basilica, located at the summit of the hill that is the highest point in the city. My father-in-law, who was in Paris 17 years ago and visited the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, warned me about the many steps I would have to climb to get to the church. Still, I was surprised, when we finally did arrive, but I'll get to that later.

Our guide, Mary Ellen, walked us through streets and neighborhoods, showing us where van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Renoir and other lesser-known artists lived during the time they spent in this village, regaling us with stories of their lives here. Before we knew it, the almost 2 hour tour was over and we had reached the Sacré-Coeur Basilica. Except Mary Ellen had walked us upward to the hill in a zig-zagging fashion through the city until we arrived at the side entrance to the church. We never had to walk UP the many steep steps, but we did walk DOWN them to return to our apartment.

A little later we went back down to the Metro Station and after some initial confusion got our tickets to ride into Paris. We planned to walk the Jardin des Tuilleries, then catch a 90 minute bus tour around the city followed by a 60 minute boat tour up and down the Seine (pronounced "Sin" by the French). By the way, the bus tour picked up in front of the Louvre and gave us our first little taste of that marvelous museum, at least from the outside.

Both of these tours gave us an excellent idea of the layout of the city and landmarks we wished to visit, as well as providing us with interesting historical information and well...just being very beautiful to look at. Paris is a gorgeous city. It seems like everywhere you go you're surrounded by architecture that was designed with the aesthetic enjoyment of man's senses in mind.

I should mention that Sunday was election day here in France. In returning to the Metro Station (Concorde) that we needed to get to in order to return to our apartment, we found that the police (gendarme) had cordoned off Concorde Square because of threats of riots in the square and we had to walk across the river to the station at Assemblee Nationale. While doing that we saw 2 young men running down the street holding the French flag between them and shouting something, but the police quickly stopped them. I was amazed at how many police there were as they were literally filling up the sides of streets leading into the center of Paris. We later read that thousands had been brought in from surrounding areas to quell any signs of violence after the election results were announced.

By the time we returned to our home away from home in Montmartre, we were three very tired tourists.