Over the Hill...Twice.

This past Thursday, we did Walk 16 which went to Sacré-Coeur and Montmartre. 

After the taxing day Wednesday, we decided to do a "easy" walk, one that supposedly was only supposed to take 2-3 hours, and one that wasn't supposed to involve a ton of walking. 

HA!

For those of you who don't know, Sacré-Coeur/Montmartre is a giant hill, with the cathedral resting basically on top of the hill. There is an elevator train thing but my group decided to walk up the 12 flights of stairs, since I didn't know that the train thing was free... so did I:) So that was fun, I got lots of pictures as I took breathers in between flights.

Sacré-Coeur was at the top of the hill and it is a cathedral that focuses on devotion to Christ and his love. The literal translation of Sacré-Coeur being Sacred Heart. It's slogan is praying day and night for mankind. It was a breathtaking building. Inside and out.

There was a mass going on when we got into the building, and the singing was gorgeous! They were using microphones but they almost didn't need to. It had these fantastic, impossibly high vaulted ceilings with beautiful stone statues and gorgeous wall mosaics. The stained glass windows were very vivid with the light streaming through them. Because of the mass, we weren't supposed to take pictures inside, so all of these pictures I have except one were illegal and taken on my phone, so enjoy:)

After visiting the inside of the building, we went around to the side and paid to climb 300 steps up to the top of the dome. It was pretty cool.

The Stairwell

 I think I like the stones color more than Notre-Dame, Sacré-Coeur just kind of seems to shine.

Anywho we went up to the top through more small winding staircases, I was a little clastrophobic especially because it appeared that the staircase continued to get smaller, and I wasn't...so I was a bit worried about that, but it worked out in the end.

The tower across from the dome

View of the Eiffel Tower from the Dome

Close up of the Eiffel Tower

Gargoyles on

After visiting the Basilica (Cathedral) we walked to l'église Saint-Pierre de Montmartre. It was a wonderful little chapel with wonderful statues, super old with some cool stained glass windows.

 Here we saw a statue of Saint Denis who is famous for walking from Montmartre to the place where Basilique de Saint-Denis now stands after having his head cut off by the Gauls who anciently inhabited Paris. He picked up his head and walked there, pretty cool, do not try this at home.

Then we walked around Montmartre and saw the oldest house and the place where Vincent VanGogh lived with his brother Theo. We also saw gardens, and houses where impressionists lived and painted and the house of Toulouse Lautrec.

Cool houses we were supposed to look at

Another Statue of Saint Denis

VanGogh's House

Montmartre is like the classic example of France that everyone thinks of, with the winding streets and the little shops, it was very picturesque.

After walking all over Montmartre we finished the walk right next to Moulin Rouge,

and then some of us went to a park and read. All in all a tiring but pretty day:)
À Demain!