Paris, Again

Back in April when I was stuck in Barcelona I decided to travel home via train. It was better than waiting around for the flights to open up and I got to see another city, even if only for one night.

We spent 4 days in Paris the first time, but there are just *tons* of things to see. Here are a few extras I was able to see during my trip for the day.

Montmartre:

The name Montmartre is actually the name of the hill ("Mount of Mars") - the highest hill in Paris. The Basilique du Sacré-Cœur is what you see the in picture. The hill is pretty high, and not knowing beforehand the trek I was about to undertake, I was a little surprised. The church was really mostly like any other church in the area, and I don't think we were allowed to take pictures inside, or at least I didn't take any, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

The architecture of the church was awesome, though.

You could go down into the crypt for 3 or 4 euros but I was cheap and running out of time.

One cool thing I did see was this dude. He was painted in white chalky stuff that made him look like a statue. There were definitely people that walked by him and didn't realize he was alive. He was super-still and *really* good at what he did. Of course he moved when you filled the little gold box at his feet with money :)

This guy was probably my favorite part of the day. He was solid as stone. When he settled into his position, I couldn't see him breathing, twitching, or moving one bit. He moved about as much as the rock wall behind him. There were no expressions on his face as people talked about him, and no responses to anything except money dropping in that little gold box. I gave him a euro and he gave me a nice bow before I left.

The Pantheon:

This is a historic building in Paris where distinguished dead people are buried. It was originally designed to be a church but for some reason it was converted to a place to honor the dead. The word pantheon means "every god".

The inside was pretty neat and full of pictures and murals on the walls.

If you look very closely in the center of the picture above you'll see a golden ball. It hangs from a metal string on the ceiling and forms a clock. The ball swings back and forth and tells the time in a way similar to a sundial.

Here's the crypt:

Lots of important people were buried here. Here were some of the most interesting ones I saw:

Marie Curie was buried here for her contributions to science. I hope she's not still radioactive...

After this day in Paris I finally hopped the train and made it to London, and two hours later by bus I was home.