Montmartre et balade sur la Seine
Despite walking more in the last few days than I have in years of working remote, it feels like it’s been pretty uneventful. Lots of wandering, as I tend to do when I travel alone. Friday afternoon, I explored my neighborhood for the next five days—Montmartre, ever my favorite—and stopped by some noteworthy spots completely by accident (Au Lapin Agile, La Maison Rouge, things of that nature). After a nice lunch, I headed to Montmartre Cemetery—I’ve passed by it several times on previous trips but never actually went in, and I’m glad I did this time because it’s extremely cool even without as many celebrity graves as Père Lachaise (no offense to Truffaut). Eventually I had to come back to my apartment because I just couldn’t walk anymore. It took hours just to talk myself into descending the 5 flights of stairs again for a pizza, but it was the right choice.
I finally got a good night’s sleep and got up early-ish yesterday morning to figure out how to use the world’s smallest bathroom to get ready. Saturday was meant to be about checking out neighborhoods I’d never spent much time in before, starting with the Marais in which I had a mediocre brunch before wandering towards the Latin Quarter. Of course I got sidetracked in Île Saint-Louis and Île de la Cité, those little islands in the middle of the Seine that I’ve spent plenty of time exploring already, and before I knew it I had been traversing the banks of the Seine for hours and found myself desperate for a break. That break came in the form of a tarte tatine and a glass of wine that made the journey back to Montmartre much more bearable.
Today has been full of delightful surprises so far, but that’s for another update. Right now, I’m heading out for a very chilly picnic at Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Hoping that the sun stays out long enough to give me a bit of much-needed warmth.
