Paris, France: Day One - Montmartre (by Amy)

We got into Paris at 6 a.m. this morning. Ryan and I were running on a few hours of sleep (me, one and Ryan, three) because we had to leave the house in perfect condition. It's going on the market while we are gone and our fingers and toes are crossed that we will get an offer. After pulling what was almost an all-nighter, amazingly, we weren't too tired when we arrived this morning. Excitement, perhaps?

After a one hour "stop and go" taxi ride into the city we arrived at our "gite" (apartment) that we are staying in for the week. It's in Montmartre next to the beautiful Catholic church Sacre Coeur (in photo) and is at the highest point in the city. The quaint village-like area of Montmartre is only one minute away. It's very active in this area, even at night, but fortunately we are on a street that is nice and quiet.

The buildings are beautiful here. We love the architecture. I can't help but wonder who lived in these buildings 100, 200, and 300 years ago. While the people and the city of France are modern, the old buildings make you feel like you are living in another time. I look forward to the days ahead when we will see more buildings of the past including Versailles, the most glorious Chateau in France.

Here's a little recap of what our day was like. We were greeted by a Parisian woman named Solome who brought us fresh bread and let us into the apartment. There was a bottle of wine and a bottle of water waiting for us there, along with a bouquet of flowers. Nice touch.

We are staying in a studio apartment and it's plenty of room for us. In fact Ryan and I were saying that we think we could live in a space like this and be satisfied (that is, until you add the dog to the equation). There is a sleigh bed that we tried out when we took a three hour nap this afternoon, two sitting chairs that face the window with a small table in between, an additional small table with two dining room chairs for meals, a VERY small kitchen in which the over and dishwaser are combined (wow) and a full bath complete with tub. It's perfect.

Before that much needed nap I mentioned, we dropped our stuff at the apartment and headed out into Montmartre to find a marche (market). After wandering around for while (and enjoying ourselves while doing it) we found a busy street that had many shops including a natural market (excellent!) where we purchased food for the week and a boulangerie (bakery) with bread and baked goods that made our mouths water profusely. We picked up our first french baguette and a chocolate croissant (yum) and made our way home.

One thing about Montemartre is it's very hilly. We are thinking this is a good thing considering how much food we will eat while here. We will need the exercise if we don't want to become fat Americans. We seem to pick vacation spots where we have to climb hills to get from dinner to our temporary home.

After shopping (did I mention how fun it was to buy french groceries?) we came back ate bread and jam and drank coffee then curled up and took a three hour (or more) nap --WITH the ceiling to floor windows wide open revealing a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds floating by. We are on the 4th floor of our building and are higher than the building across the street so we can see sections of Paris from our room.

After a nap and a refreshing shower (and a little guitar playing on my part -- I brought a small guitar to pratice on while here), we headed out to find the nearest metro and to finish exploring our area.

We did venture over to Pigalle (the red light district). It was early in the evening, so it wasn't too crazy. But all the sex shops and etc. are not our cup of tea and after we got a glimpse of the Moulin Rouge building we headed back to our area.

The idea had been to eat at "home" tonight. We are doing that as much as possible -- at least that is the plan. But we stayed out too long, were hungry and ran into a little restaurant that we had read about called Le Progrese and decided that we would have dinner out our first night in Paris.

We sat outside and ordered a carafe of wine. I have to admit that I've got to adjust to the lack of personal space here. People have no problem sitting very close to you and/or putting there stuff practically in your lap. And then there is the smoking. I think people here still think it's cool to smoke, because I saw a lot of "cool" people doing it. What's not fun is when the wind is blowing their smoke right in your face. But I got used to it and had a great time at dinner. I'm sure the wine helped. : )

After dinner, we decided that we needed a good cup of cafe au lait (love the coffee here!) and we went into the little village area of Montmartre where we found a corner cafe and had our coffee and a crepe with vanilla ice cream (that's me in the black sweater). Why is it that everything tastes better over here. Is it really better or just my imagination?

The Montmartre village area was buzzing tonight. People speaking many different languages walking together in clumps, German teenagers chasing each other and calling our "halt", American college students drinking wine from coffee mugs as they stroll the streets and street artists bent on sketching you (some of them are quite good actually) all made up the scene.

After a quick walk over to Sacre Coeur to see Paris at night, Ryan and I headed back to the room to call it a day. I'll confess that our eating still hasn't stopped. Right now I'm drinking a cup of coffee that Ryan made as he works on perfecting his French coffee making abilities. I'm also eating a small chocolate baked good I picked up from the bakery today. Thank goodness for those stairs. I'm going to need them!

Au revoir for now. Tomorrow we will have more tales to tell. I'm sure when Ryan jumps on and takes his turn he will do more than just give an account of the day. No pressure of course!

P.S. Click on any of the photos in this post to see larger versions.

P.P.S. Here's a great blog post on Montmartre if you want to see more photos http://parisconnected.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/paris-montmartre-for-newcomers/