Last night turned out to be another exciting night in Paris. Merle, Megan, Heather, Dillan and I hit the town. July 14th is French Independence Day the city of Paris has a lot of festivities planned for the occasion. Just a short walk from our hotel is the Bastille monument. This area is home to a lot of bars and cafes and is touted as one of the hippest, youngest parts of Paris. The Bastille monument itself is at the center of a traffic roundabout. All day yesterday this intersection was closed to host a free international music festival. Bands from all over the world (including Ireland and Brazil) poured music into the square from two stages with acts playing simultaneously. As you can imagine, this made for an interesting blend of music.
We made our way into the crowd of revelers. Everyone was dancing and singing along to the bands. We watched a Brazilian band for a while then moved to the other stage which was hosting a French Rap-Rock band. That was crazy! The crowd screamed along to the lyrics and danced like crazy so we joined right in. I couldn’t believe that we were hearing Rap-Rock in French!
The band finished playing around 11:30 signaling the end of the festival. We made our way through the crowd and found some vendors selling street food. I opted for some sort of grilled meat (still not sure what it was – maybe pork?), sausage, and onion sandwich on baguette. It was one of the best things I’ve tasted since arriving in France. Then we shared a crepe with nutella as we headed back to the hotel. Another great night.
This morning we made our way to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. I was really looking forward to this excursion and I wasn’t disappointed. The cemetery consists of large family tombs of all different shapes and sizes. We got a chance to see some of the famous gravesites like Oscar Wilde, Proust, Victor Noir, Raspail and countless other unknowns. We also found Jim Morrison’s famous grave and were confused to find that it didn’t look as we expected. The monument used to include a bust of Morrison and a different headstone. Apparently, the bust was stolen in the late 80’s and they haven’t been able to obtain a license to place a new monument on the grave as of yet.
Some of the monuments and statuary in the cemetery were really interesting. Oscar Wilde’s monument was covered in waxy lipstick kisses.
From there we headed to the Moulin Rouge and then to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur. We took the funicular to the top of the hill. How beautiful. The view from the top was crowed but spectacular. Stopped to buy some souvenirs then hopped on the Metro to head home. I have gotten really used to the ease and reliability of public transportation. I’m definitely going to miss it when I get home.
Tonight we plan to see the Bastille Day fireworks then tomorrow we will visit Notre Dame.
