So, we started our day off at a market that I asked the concierge about to find a marker and a lock. Being that today was a “free day”, their Pentecost, she wasn’t sure what was open. Ernie and I walked down to the market to no avail. Then I found a souvenir shop that had a marker (which i could “borrow for 2 minutes”) and locks. I wanted the marker for two things – one, for the lock and two, for Jim Morrison’s grave. That’s right. Ernie agreed to go to Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise!
However, first things first. We borrowed the marker to write “Steph & Ernie” and “2015” on a lock engraved with “Paris” and a heart on it. Then we crossed the bridge that we were on yesterday and locked it on somewhere around the middle. (There were quite a few other Stephanies on there too.) I kept the keys as a memento to remind me of it. (Only after we got back home did I see that Paris was taking down all of the locks from the different bridges for safety reasons. We got it there just in time and I have pictures to prove it.)
From there, we traveled by metro to Père-Lachaise. I saw a flower shop and since Ernie didn’t want me to desecrate a grave – which I had no marker to do so anyway – I bought a beautiful silk rose to place on his grave site. We made a mistake though and walked up a hill in a park that we had no clue it had nothing (that I could tell) to do with the cemetery.
After getting out of there, we saw a sign pointing to the entry to Père-Lachaise. The place is huge, with worn-down and moss-covered monuments and markers. And each section was numbered in an odd way – at least to me, it was. I got the idea of the arrondissements of Paris being numbered in a spiral pattern, but I couldn’t figure this one out. After some well-intentioned but aimless walking, we finally came upon Jim Morrison’s grave. And it was blocked off. Dammit! And they must have cleaned it up too because at the few moments I looked at and took pictures of it, I hardly saw any graffiti like I did in pictures years ago. So I asked the man next to me (who happened to be American) “How the hell am I going to get this (the flower) over there?” He laughed and said he didn’t know. So I decided to launch it like a large dart. It landed on the grave and rolled off next to it. The guy said “Nice shot!”
Then I went about, taking pictures quickly to get out of everyone’s way. Only seemed fair. Then, Ernie and I set off to go sit down for a minute. As I sat there, I realized I didn’t get artistic mode shots, nor did I get rocks for Marci and me (bonus one for her). So, I went back to the business at hand. Did that, went back to Ernie and we were off. Except for a quick bathroom stop – no paper of any kind in there…boo. Off to manger!
We found a place – I believe it was called Restaurant Obododo – with seating outside. This seems to be a big thing in Paris, seating outside of nearly every place that we saw. A plus for me because I could smoke right there at the table (Thanks for putting up with that, Ern). The food was great. Unfortunately, we’re not well-versed in mLs when it comes to wine, so we each ordered what we thought were medium glasses of wine. Nope. We each had our own bottle! Needless to say, we were both a bit tipsy after that. Time to walk it off.
We headed over to Voltaire Circle (?), then Bastille, took pictures and kept going.
I found a store with some nice scarves in it and we went and checked it out. I ended up with a sparkly coral one for about €15. Brilliant. Then we found a little toy boutique and got the girls some interesting puzzles.
Ernie wanted to visit Notre-Dame Cathedral so we took the Metro to get us their quickly. (My feet weren’t getting any better.) Little did he or I know that our walk out after the ride would take us past L’Occitane en Provence. I, naturally, had to stop and get something.
Unfortunately, at some point, the handle on the children’s bag broke, so I found a souvenir shop with small but useful totes. Snatched one up, put everything from both stores in there and set off to Notre-Dame.
This place, from the outside, looks marvelous. We took quite a few pictures from different sides of the building and the statue of St. John Paul II (my favorite pope, even though I’m not religious). The queues were too long, like the Eiffel Tower, so we skipped the inside and went in search of bathrooms (damn you, large carafe of wine…).
After a quick respite on a bench, we took a walk back to our hotel to unload and regroup. The reason we walked so far? Ernie couldn’t find a nearby Metro. While he was looking for on on his phone, I saw a bike with a basket of Pomeranians in it. It was a must for me to have my picture taken with at least one of them. So I did. Cute little basket of lovely furriness.
Since he couldn’t find the Metro, we decided to walk by the Seine. We followed that the majority of the way and went back up, with hopes of finding a stall for drinks (again, damn you, wine). After what seemed like forever – Musée d’Orsay seemed like a mile long – we finally made it back to our room to figure out the next plan. I ended up napping while looking at the Christian Louboutin website. Got back up around 6:30 and hurried to get ready for some sightseeing and dinner. I know we were in the 6th arrondissement but can’t remember the name of the town we were in. Did a little walking and found a “tourist trap” restaurant and were seated right away. We stayed for quite a while, eating and drinking and people-watching. When we were done, I was ready to go back to the hotel. After what took forever (again), we found our Metro station and headed back.
Ernie headed up to the room for a minute and I sat downstairs by the bar until he came back. We did a shot of Jack and called it a night. These days, so far, have been daunting with all the walking we’re doing. At least for today, I really didn’t get homesick! Bonus!
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