While the Eiffel Tower has all the flash, my favorite tourist attraction in Paris is the Sacré Coeur. I’m not a big fan of the church itself because they have really anal guards that maintain an eagle eye on you so you can’t raise your camera from your hip; and if they see you doing so, will yell at you in a hushed voice. The location is great though, because you’re above and able to look down on all the six-storey high Parisian buildings (and the Tour Montparnasse — which I don’t understand why it was approved since it wrecks the view).

The neighborhood is also enjoyable. Montmarte was the former artisan area of Paris, home to Picasso among others. Most of the bohemian spirit has been lost however, and replaced with tourist stores offering crêpes at inflated prices, cafés and stores selling Chinese souvenirs and knockoff replicas. The best art I saw was graffiti on the wall depicting a stick man drawing on a canvas. Now that’s meta.

A visit to the Sacré Coeur feels like a journey. Since it’s elevated, there are three ways to get there: 1) Take the tram (lame!), or 2) walk the neighborhood roads in a cylindrical fashion, or 3) walk straight up the stairs. We walked straight up the stairs, but it was not as monumental a journey as my first visit where I also climbed up to the church dome. We took the roundabout way when we were leaving, although under the auspices of finding a restaurant, we wandered in the general direction of downhill and ended up where we started!

But my best memory, was sitting on the steps of the Sacré Coeur with Pauline, looking over Paris as the cloud-covered sun set, while a random Parisian covered some French and English songs on his guitar and school-trip kids danced around him. He wasn’t busking — there was no money involved. He was just playing for his and everyone else’s pleasure. It wasn’t a bohemian rhapsody, but it was the bohemian feeling that fit in perfectly with the neighborhood.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: diary, europe, france, france08, travelling