Sacre Coeur

On Monday we went to the Montmartre area of Paris and saw the Sacre Coeur Basilica.  It's a beautiful, 100 year old church up on a hill, the highest point in Paris.  It was a beautiful and sunny day, finally!

We made our way up the hill through the touristy streets to get to the church.

We stopped at the foot of the church to have a picnic on the lawn (I guess it's okay to sit on the grass here!).

The kids are in a deep discussions about some computer game.

Definitely a beautiful view, and we hadn't even gotten to the top of the church yet!

While we were sitting on the lawn (and before, when we were walking up), I was fascinated by all the "sellers" (I'm not sure what to call them).  There were guys set up selling little Eiffel towers, purses, and water (I couldn't help but thinking about the movie "Slumdog Millionaire," where the boys sell used, tap water filled, resealed water bottles to tourists!).  There were even guys who practically chase after you to put a friendship bracelet on you, which was kinda creepy.

This was something I'd never seen before!  This woman is playing the accordion in front of her flowery display.  I think  she also had some small cards for sale.

Finally we made our way in the church.  We walked around inside the church, which was beautiful (but no pictures allowed).  There were tons of candles around in front of different saints.  I guess you can pay to light a candle to pray for someone.  After we came out of that part of the church, we climbed the three hundred steps to the top of the dome.

I'm sure I have way too many pictures of the Eiffel Tower by now, but who can resist!!

Pigeons are everywhere!  Even on this spot where Anna can't chase them away!

Daniel, who doesn't love heights, climbed up anyways!

I have to share another experience we had while walking through the streets of Montmartre.  There were several guys that had a shell game set up.  You know, where they have three shells, and one has a marble under it.  Then they switch them around really fast, and you have to guess which one the marble is under.  So this game was basically the same, except instead of shells, it was round black coaster things, and instead of a marble, it's a white circle.  We stopped on the way up and joined the few others to watch for a few minutes, and the guy points at me and asks me to guess where the circle is.  I point, but he asks for money (twenties or fifties, can you believe it?!).  I hold my hands up, to show I'm not giving any money.  So he turns over the coaster I chose, and I was right!  He switched them around some more, and then he points at Kevin to guess.  Kevin, who is sure he knows where the circle is, hands over a twenty and chooses.  Guess what, he was wrong.  Surprise, surprise.  Of  course the guy wanted him to try again, but Kevin was outta there!   I was so surprised that Kevin actually participated in the game, but he was sure that he was right, and he forgot that those guys CHEAT!   We had a great discussion with the kids about the whole thing, including realizing that guys like that are basically doing magic (aka cheating).

On the way back down from the church, I decided I needed to have a picture to remember our experience.  As soon as the guy saw me with my camera (as I was taking the picture), he said "No photos!"  What?  Could it be that they know they're doing something wrong/illegal??  Kevin tried to snap one with his iphone, but another guy (the muscle?) got in his face and told him not to. Firmly.  So we moved on, thankfully, all in one piece!

"NO photos"

We ended our busy day by stopping by our neighborhood bakery to pick up a baguette!