Montmartre walk

We had thought about trekking out to the Bois de Vincennes in eastern Paris today, but Aaron has been feeling a bit under the weather these past few days, so we took it easy at home this morning and then headed out for a destination not quite so far away. The weather was decent, once again (although not quite as warm and sunny as it has been most of this past week), so we decided to try the Montmartre self-guided walking tour from our Paris Walks book.

Unfortunately, roughly 100,000 others seem to have had the same brilliant idea to spend the afternoon up on the hill in Montmartre; I have never seen such density of people in Paris as we saw today on the hill and steps leading up to Sacre Coeur today!







The most striking part of the walking tour for me was the supposed site of the martyrdom in the year AD250 of St. Denis, who, according to Paris Walks, was "brought here by Roman soldiers to be executed at the hilltop Temple of Mercury. Too exhausted to complete the climb, the soldiers decapitated him halfway up the hill, whereupon Denis picked up his severed head and staggered on for another 4 miles (6 kilometers), stopping only to wash it under a nearby fountain. He finally collapsed on the spot where the Basilica of St. Denis now stands."

Later on in the tour, we came to a park featuring a statue of St. Denis holding his own severed head in his hands. You'll see the statue in the video...right between the two groups of happy little children playing. Quite the playground decoration!





Other pics from our walk: 1) Tim Hotels, a chain of hotels we've seen in several locations around Paris (uncle Tim and cousin Tim, this one's for you!); 2) Enormous meringues displayed temptingly in a bakery window; 3) Aaron descending a flight of stairs between picturesque tall buildings; 4) Graffiti asserting "We are all the same; let's accept our differences."