Plan B

For some reason we woke up at the ridiculous hour of 4:00 am.  The girls made it to 6:30am- I guess jet lag kicked in?!  We figured we were up early so thought we would hit the Louvre early- luckily when I checked the website for opening hours I noted that it is closed on Tuesdays!  Hmmm- that put a spoke on the works. What to do instead?  A quick checklist of things we want to do and we headed off to the Paris catacombs - we arrived at 9:45 as we thought we would get there before the 10am opening- we were not the only people who thought that might be a good idea- the line up was already long!  We settled in for the long wait- chocolate croissant in one hand and coffee in the other. On a side note finding coffee as we know it is not an easy task- we keep getting served double espressos when they hear us ask for a coffee.  Then we try and correct it and they ask if we want an Americano, which is 2 shots with cream!!  Oh well it is good none the less!
The line up took over 2 hours and we were in.
We had to climb down about 200 stairs into the depths of the earth- the catacombs are under the metro and under the sewer system- deep down.  A lot cooler down there as the entire system is built out of limestone. The girls thought they might be a little scared but they really found it interesting and "cool".  Apparently there are over 6 million skeletons stacked down there.

After surfacing we found our way to the metro station and headed north of the city.  We planned to catch the tube to Pigale and exit at Le Moulin Rouge, but the metro station that we were to connect at was under construction!  So we found ourselves on the street in search of Le Sacre-Coeur.  We found it- in all its majesty up on the hill.  We stopped for a sandwich and ate on the steps in front of this beautiful church.  Then we caught the funicular up to the church.  At the top the views were never ending. We sat down and enjoyed the beauty for a while.
Exiting the church we thought we might want to climb the bell tower- but didn't feel like spending 32 euros for the pleasure of climbing another 300 stairs!

Lunch on the stairs!

We instead took a stroll through Monmartre- what an eclectic neighbourhood- lots of art and funky stores.
Of course we had to have an afternoon gelato.  We made our way downhill wandering the alleyways of Monmartre and ended up at Le Moulin Rouge- instead of our beginning it was a fitting end.

Hopping on the metro we figured we were 3 different trains away from home- but I quickly found that we were actually only 15 stops down the line we were on.
Tonight as our exhaustion set in, we decided to cook a pasta dinner in the apartment as we are just beyond tired.
Tomorrow- the Louvre!!