On my first full day in Paris I managed to find the Sacre-Coeur, after a lot of wandering around in circles not wanting to pull my map out around lots of people and be a mugging target. Got there in the end and saw the scams I’d been told about going on, they try to tie a piece of string around your wrist then give you a big spiel about it then demand 20euro and don’t leave you alone until you give up and pay them, someone tried it on me I just pulled my arm back and kept walking and they moved on to an easier target. I had heard there were a lot of steps to get up to it but it wasn’t that bad at all. I didn’t realise that you could actually go inside the Sacre-Coeur and given my short attention span and the fact that you could not take photo’s I didn’t last very long inside. It is a very pretty building both inside and out, hard to believe it is prob older than NZ!
I then got on a metro (train) and headed to St Michael, which I didn’t end up finding (although not entirely sure what I was looking for!) but I did find the Notre Dame Cathedral which was celebrating its 850th year (!!) and wandered around this area for a while and randomly stumbled upon the Centre Georges Pompidou which is a random building I remember vaguely from French class at high school, the escalators on this building are mostly on the outside it is quiet modern. I think the library is in here as well, I went in for a bit to get warm and find a toilet then got out of there.
I went back to the hostel early, partly to get warm and sit down and have something to eat and partly to do some washing which turned into a debacle and some clothes that were previously light grey, a light mint and white are now a light purple – I’m still not sure what the culprit of this was as I have never done it before, I am just glad my good light green dress doesn’t appear to have been affected at first glance. I will be pissed off if looking at it later it is ruined as I only brought it the week before christmas, I guess this is why I don’t buy expensive clothing.
Next, day two in Paris including La Tour Eiffel, L’Arc De Triomphe and Champs Elysee.