Friday, 14 April 2006

It's Good Friday and, of course, you would expect everything to be closed. Much to our surprise that isn't the way here in France. Apparently it is not a holiday although for many it may be a Holy Day. We learned the French for "Holy Week," which is "La Semaine Ste".

This morning we took the Monmartrebus up to the "Butte" or top of the hill of Montmartre. This bus was a real find. It departs from outside the town hall of Montmartre and weaves its way up steep and gloriously picturesque streets to Sacre Coeur itself. The Place du Tetre is overly touristy, with dozens of "artists" competing to draw your picture, paint your portrait or cut out your silhoutte. Nonetheless, the views from any and every angle are magnificent right across the city of Paris and even the Eiffel tower seems dwarfed from this height.

There is so much to see and take in, including the one remaining vineyard in Paris and the famous Bistro, Au Lapin Agile, that we strolled back to the flat quite slowly looking at everything that seemed to be of even the vaguest interest.

By the way, for those of you reading this in Hobart, go to The Salad Bowl, buy one of their 500 gm packets of smoked salmon on special for about $A8.50, go home and scoff the lot. You would never be able to do that in Paris where smoked salmon costs between $A150 and $A200 per kg. Yes, you are reading this correctly - for a 500 gm packet such as you get at the Salad Bowl, you would be very fortunate to pay less than $A75.00.