Yesterday we took a
mostly rest day, as we were both pooped from our excursion the day before and
Rachel was battling migraines all day. We made it out for groceries in the
evening though, specifically looking for packed lunch ingredients for today.
After yesterday we knew we can't always count on food being available, and it's
much more cost effective. We got spoiled with all the free tapas and cheap
portions in Spain! For dinner yesterday we cooked up some mystery steaks we
found in the freezer here, as Florence had said to eat anything we could find
in the space. They were really delicious, and we had them with fried zucchini.
Today our plan was
to see the basilica du Sacré Coeur, and rent our masked ball de Versailles
costumes afterwards.
We made our
sandwiches in the morning, packed them in our daypack, and started the trek to
the metro station. It's about a twenty minute walk, so we might try to take the
bus next time. It gets a bit much after a long day out. We caught the metro and
got off at the right stop, but I ended up getting us a bit lost with the paper
tourist map I was navigating by. I used Rachel's phone with a downloaded
offline map- turns out the tourist paper map wasn't actually detailed enough.
I'm just glad we have at least one phone on this trip!
Because of the
slight detour to the basilica, we ended up walking through a very cool
neighbourhood very busy in food traffic and fruit and veggie and meat markets.
I saw a couple of brains and hooves for sale, along with some more appetizing
chickens and steaks. Everything available right on the street!
After walking
through a lovely and steep park full of trees and plants, we found the
basilica! We had to wait in line to get in as they were pretty tight on
security with bag checks and whatnot. The cathedral was neat, very gothic, very
stately. The best part though was climbing up the 300 steps and along parts of
the roof to get to the main dome lookout! The seven euro entry fee was well
worth it, as the really skinny stone spiral staircases, amazing views of the
city, stone gargoyles, and graffiti from 1970 made it an amazing experience. We
sat up there for a good while just taking it all in.
Me after climbing 300 stairs
We had our packed
lunch in the park nearby, on a steep grassy hill in the dappled shade. We
watched as in the same small green area we were sitting, a man was doing
aerobics, a straight couple was making out, a gay couple was enjoying wine and
a picnic, a family had their own picnic, some people our age were exchanging
and smoking weed, a dude was carving a jagged hole in the middle of an LP (to
impress a girl?), and another couple was taking tons of selfies. A pretty
active scene for a seemingly quiet park! But it was a really nice lunch and we
both felt refreshed afterwards.
On the way to
Aufourire, the costume place, Rachel found the mother of all macarons at a
patisserie. It was double decker, and filled with raspberries and a sort of
butter crème icing. It was absolutely delicious.
The costume place
had lots of options, and we managed to find matching his and hers masquerade
costumes! They were really nice and also very reasonably priced rentals. The
costume stock we got to visit was also really cool- probably the most
jam-packed and skinny-aisled costume stock I'd ever seen. Tons and tons of
costumes of every kind, just layered on top of each other. We bought some
masquerade masks too, but they were out of crinolines for Rachel's dress so
we're gonna check out another place in town later for that.
Costumes in hand, we
stopped at a rotisserie place on the way back where I had seen some beautiful
roast chicken and potatoes for sale. I scooped up a good number of potatoes and
a chicken for our dinner, which we had later at home while watching Penn and
Teller on Netflix.
Quite a lovely day
indeed!
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