Day 9-Montmarte/Sacre Couer & the Louvre

This morning we took a train to the outskirts of Paris to a place called Montmarte. Montmarte is built on the sides of a hill and was the coolest little French town. It is kind of an artsy place, home to artists and musicians, etc. There are cobblestone streets and little shops and restaurants and street artists drawing people's portraits and things like that. The highest point in Paris is at the top of the hill (420 feet up) and at the summit is a beautiful old church called Sacre Couer. It has a huge dome and a crypt in the basement. You have to take hundreds of steps to get up the hill but it was really worth it. On the way up we saw a guy doing Chinese yoyo tricks on the steps and gave him some coins because he was really good.



When we finally got up the hill to the church we discovered they have had a perpetual prayer going there 24/7 since 1919 when the place was built!


During World War II there were thirteen bombs dropped in a line near the church and not one person was killed so ever since people believe the church protected them and there has been a lot of reverence for Sacre Couer. Inside we lit a candle for my Grandma and Grandpa Huber who died when I was little and for my dad's cousin who died of cancer last fall.
After exploring Montmarte for a while and a pizza lunch we headed back to central Paris for a tour of the Louvre. It is the biggest art museum in the entire world and used to be a Royal Palace. It is HUGE! Our tour guide showed us what are considered to be the most magnifcent works in the Louvre. We saw a 4000 year old Egyption sphinx, two very old Greek goddess marble statues called Venus d'Milo and Winged Victory, several huge oil paintings and of course we saw the Mona Lisa by Leonardo De Vinci.




I liked the Mona Lisa best and the tour guide told us all about it, but I was kind of surprised how small it is compared to a lot of the paintings we saw. It is only about 18" X 24" or so! It was amazing to see it in person though! After our tour we looked around a litte bit more and saw the inverted glass pyramid added to the Louvre several years ago.

We also did some shopping in the Louvre boutiques and then headed took a long walk back along the Seine River, to the Latin Quarter where our apartment is. By the way, the Latin Quarter is where Paris' Sorbonne University is so there are a lot of college students and it is a very busy part of town. I like that about it because it is very lively and there are people on the streets and shops open no matter what time of day or night we are out.

We are heading home tomorrow. Will probably post this and a brief post about our trip home all at once tomorrow. We've had a great time in Europe and I am kind of sad to leave, but it will be nice to go home and sleep in my own bed too.
Au Revoir~
Christian