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Back to the streets of Paris
Weds 15th April
After the sugar high of Disneyland we were back into the traditional Paris sights. First stop today was our second try at the Catacombs. They were most certainly open, and it was easy to tell the second we stepped out of the metro station. The queue of people went around the block. We jumped in the very slow moving queue and waited patiently. We finally made it to the entrance to the little green shack on the side of the road, paid our cash and descended into the grotty Paris underground. Basically the catacombs were created when the Parisian cemeteries got too full to house all the bodies, so they exhumed all the skeletons and put them into old abandoned mines underground. The bones were arranged in a decorative manner, so they were pleasing to look at. The many steps took us straight down into the muddy, slimy passageways. We walked through the tunnels for some time before we entered the tombs. The bones were all nice and neatly stacked about 6 foot high and many feet deep. Very eerie. Dan did not enjoy this one at all. Really, once you got over the initial shock when you walked in, the rest of the 1km walk was much the same. Millions upon millions of human bones, all pilled up for tourists to look at. When we reached the end we had to climb up the 100 or so stairs and come out in suburbia. Luckily I had examined the signs before going down, and had a vague idea of where we would come out at the end.
From the catacombs it was back onto the metro to go find something Dan wanted to see. Sainte Sulpice. Featured in the Da Vinci Code, it was just another pretty looking church. It was also where the first date line was, before it shifted to Greenwich. The old date line is just a bit of bronze that ran along the floor of the church, and they used to use shadows or a similar technique to tell the time. More big organs, and paintings inside the church. You can probably tell from the briefness of this paragraph; I don't know that much about Sainte Sulpice.
From the nice fountain outside Sainte Sulpice, we walked up to the Luxemburg gardens. They are absolutely massive. We wandered through a little bit of the gardens, but then decided that we were hungry and headed out to find something for lunch. We ended up eating right near the Pantheon, so after lunch we walked up to check out this rather large building. I enjoyed a seat under one of the massive pillars, but we didn't bother to go inside. We didn't really know what the purpose of the building is, so we decided to head back to enjoy the pretty gardens.
We found the big pond/lake in the gardens and sat and watched all the people enjoying the sun. Kids hired little boats that they played with in the large pond. It was all very cute. The tulips were very pretty too. There was so many different colours, all lined up perfectly and neat. There was some pretty cool statues and sculptures in the park. Dan's favourite was the massive head. We walked past all the people playing basketball and tennis, and made our way out of the big gardens.
Back onto the metro and it was finally time to go see the big one. It was Eiffel Tower day. It was mid afternoon, so we thought that we might avoid the early morning and dusk queues to go up the Tower. We were wrong. More fricken queues. The queue to climb the stairs was actually longer for the queue to take the elevator. There was no way you'd get me climbing the stairs anyway. After about an hour of waiting and watching the police chase away the black men trying to sell souvenirs we finally made it into the elevator which took us up to the second flood. We didn't spend anytime here, we just headed to the other elevator, which took us straight to the top. The ride up was incredibly scary, but the views were amazing. We stepped out and the first thing I noticed was how much the tower sway in the wind. It was so very scary. I wouldn't let go and go out to the edge. I think I got out there once for Dan to take a photo of me. I was such a scaredy cat, but it really felt like it was about to blow over. I don't think I actually appreciated the view all that much - the fear just took over. We spent some time walking around the top level, but I was much too eager to get down. We went back down to the much safer second level. We took some photos and looked out of Paris. It was very beautiful. The wind was still intense and the tower was still rocking. We decided to make our descent back to the safety of the ground. From here we got ourselves some ice cream, and walked along the Seine (In the wrong direction) to the closest metro station. Of course I struggle to read maps and we ended up going to longest possible way, but we got there in the end. It was home to read some more and sleep well.
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