Day 6

Since we've bought 2-day passes for l'Open Tour Bus, we figured this day was the day to explore routes other than the "Greatest hit" route and it exposed a major downside of l'Open Tour, which I will bring up later.

Our first stop of the day was La Madeleine. There's no way we're not bringing Madeline to visit her namesake, right? It's tough having to "compete" with the likes of Notre Dame and Sacré Coeur but La Madeleine had its own charm as a church, which also "double" as a concert hall.

La Madeleine 

There were lots of shops nearby, including Fauchon, a favorite among tourists who buy food as souvenir for friends back home.

Next we had some horrible experience with l'Open Tour: its literature gave us an impression that we could easily and quickly hit all spots covered by their 4 routes as they mentioned buses come every 20-30 mins. Their green line (i.e. greatest hits) buses certainly arrive very frequently but that's not the case for their other lines. We have waited for over an hour for their yellow line bus to visit Montmartre, a hill side area in Paris! For fear of waiting for another hour, we opted not to get off at the Moulin Rouge stop and went straight to the next stop. The landmark there was the white Basilique du Sacré Coeur. Interesting fact: the top of this church is the highest point in Paris (other than Eiffel Tower) Its unique architecture sets it apart from other churches in the world.

Sacré Coeur 

Montmartre was also renowned for its art scene. At the Artist Square, you'll see lots of working artists, some offers to draw portraits for tourists. Near the Artist Square we found Espace Montmartre, a museum that specialize in my favorite painter, Dali. Of course you won't find his most famous work there (they probably reside in more established museums like MOMA in New York) His generation of artists were unlike their predecessors: they became famous before they die so they lived longer life and produced lots of work, some with less quality than others just for money. I'm not saying good artists must die young but works from those who die young were certainly more precious than others.

Again, the transfer from green line to blue line was painful: we had a 40 min wait. The "bright spot" of the blue line was Place de la Bastille. It's where the famous Bastille prison once stood. That's the prison that triggers the French revolution. The prison was burned and not exist anymore but now at the centre of the plaza there is a July Column (Colonne de juillet) which commemorates the revolution. We also passed by the huge and unique looking Mitterand National library.

We had dinner at Cafe Beaubourg, nearby Pompidou (and our apartment) for authentic French food (also authentic French cafe experience) and we got both. The server was slow to bring us the check but I couldn't blame him too much. After all, among all cafe goers, who besides us, would be in a rush to leave?