Days 7&8 - Paris

I know.. this has taken a while.. what can I say... I still blame it on the heat of July :P

So by day 7 we were back in Paris, as you can see...

View from the girls hotel room if you peeked just a little around the building.

I didn't lug my camera on Monday as we went to the business district of La Defence and more specifically the HUGE mall called Les Quatre Temps.
It was our shopping day.
Over 200 shops on four floors.
We stopped once for coffee, once to eat, went through (not even all) the shops once and revisited a handful.
We came at 11.00 and left at 20.00..
I kid you not.

Some of Saara's loot.
The girls had received spending money from their grandparents :)


Niina got a bunch of cute clothes but she was happiest about her new shoes...

I got myself a pair of w.i.c.k.e.d. high heels.

The next day we woke up and packed.
Our plane would leave about seven in the evening, so we had plenty of time for one more stop.
Down to the metro..

We took it to Montmartre.
There were two places I really wanted to visit.

Lea Frisoni's amazing dollhouse shop was the first.

From there we walked to the funicular railway, where I noticed someone had left their shoes behind? I wonder why?

This was the second stop.

Basilisque du Sacré-Coeur.
High up on the Montmarte Hill.

The details of this church are mindboggling.

We went inside where they have had a continuos prayer cycle day and night since 1919.

Photography was strictly forbidden.
umm.. yeah.. for me that means camera on hip and look the other way..

So just how high up were we?

The basilisk stand atop a 130 meter hill.
This is the view from the door.

We opted to climb the almost 300 steps more to the dome...

I suppose those are all saints faces up there..

The water spouts were by far my favorite feature.

Up top.

Coming down that narrow curving staircase I had to stop a couple times as I got quite dizzy..

How can you tell it was a hot day?

When the trash is filled entirely with water bottles :)

Still more steps to get down..

This is the funiculaire we took up.

It is a really steep hill.

By the time we got down my calf muscles were cramping.

We went in search of a nice café and found some interesting things. Next time I'm in Paris I'm coming back to Monmartre and spending the entire day there just perusing the streets..

(in hindsight, I should have stepped in the middle of the street to put myself more obviously in the middle) ;)

We found a little café and snacked on waffles.

And café créme.. mmm...

Finally back to the hotel to pick up our bags and to bid fairwell to our Paris street...