I didn't estimate very well how long it would take to walk and catch a train across the river to the Catacombes. So I got there half an hour after it opened to join the back of a major queue. Because only 200 people are allowed down underground at a time, the line barely moves. It ended up taking 45 minutes to get to the front. As I was just starting to go down the spiral staircase to the bottom some woman had already bailed out and was coming back up to quit. I can't believe someone would wait that long for something they must have known they weren't going to like. My ears were again feeling crappy when I reached the bottom of the staircase, so I'd except that excuse perhaps.
As I was making my way down the entrance hall to all the bones, some guy was coming back in the opposite direction which seemed weird at the time. I heard the people behind me giving him a tip he was walking in the wrong direction, but since you follow one path the whole way through I have no idea how he managed to do that. Getting to see all the bones and skulls arranged so neatly was quite interesting. A whole lot more bones than I expected too, although once you seen one hallway of bones it can get a little repetitive.
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| The entrance hall to the Catacombes. |
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| Pile of skull and bones. |
Also on the south side of the river was the Pantheon, Paris edition. It looks kind of the same I suppose, and I'm not sure why they have two of them with the same name in different cities. Before jumping on the train to La Defense I got a better chance to see the Notre Dame Cathedral as well. La Defense is the business district of Paris which is a little bit away from the tourist attractions, to the west side of the city. Seems like a great idea. From underneath the Grande Arche you can see all the way down to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees which is pretty cool, better than watching trams pass by.
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| The less frequented French Pantheon. |
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| Notre Dame Cathedral again. |
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| La Defense business district, Arc de Triomphe on the horizon. |
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| The Grande Arche, the practical business version of the Arc de Triomphe. |
I stopped off at Galeries La Fayette on the way to Montmartre, only to be tricked again. This was the Paris version of Harrod's! So I didn't bother to hang around and kept on going. Montmartre is where the famous Moulin Rouge is, as well as similar forms of entertainment. Likewise I would assume it's the setting for the film Amelie aka Amelie Of Montmartre. There's actually quite a long main street in the area, and it took a while to track down the Moulin Rouge. After that I had to go up a crazy hill to get to the Sacre Couer Basilica. Supposedly there was a funicular to take you up, but I didn't manage to find it and ended up having to walk up all the steps. The Basilica sadly had the no talking, no photography rules in place when you went inside.
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| The Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. |
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| Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris. |
Right near my hotel in the Bastille district I found out there was not one but three anime stores, one of them was huge and had some pretty cool stuff too. Unfortunately I was out of luggage space and couldn't consider any of the big items. They had some neat slippers, one was Donkey Kong style and another had big One-Up Mushrooms at the end, but they were all in small sizes :(
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