Paris Day 4: Sacré-Coeur, Amélie sites, La Sorbonne,
Notre Dame, La Comédie-Française, & Champs-Élysées

June 26, 2007

This was our last day in Paris, so we were determined to see lots of things. We saw so much, but it was surprisingly a very calm and laid-back day. We just hopped on the metro to see different things all day long. There is so much to see and do in Paris!


Our first stop: Sacré-Coeur

















Sacré-Coeur is built at the summit of Montmartre, the highest point in the city of Paris. You can see Paris behind me -- great views of the city from here.









































If you've seen my favorite movie, Amélie, you may recognize this metro stop near Sacré-Coeur.

Amélie was set in Montmartre, and there are many scenes in the movie filmed at this storefront.

Here I am inside the store. I only bought a postcard -- didn't really need any groceries!










It was very quiet and low-key... just the storekeeper, one other customer, and us.









We also found Café des 2 Moulins ("Café of 2 Windmills"), the café where Amélie works in the movie.

















The inside looked pretty much as it did in the movie, except for this giant movie poster hanging on the wall in the back!











There were "regulars" at the counter, then there were the obvious Amélie fans with cameras -- us and a young Asian couple!






If you haven't seen Amélie and are tempted to now... do it! (If you can stand reading subtitles!) Wikipedia has a synopsis of the movie in English. Amélie won Best Film at the European Film Festival and was nominated for 5 Academy Awards. The full name of the movie is Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, "The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain."

After leaving Montmartre, we took the metro to see the Sorbonne. The Collège de Sorbonne was founded in 1257.
















Next, we walked to Notre Dame. We took a picture from one of the many bridges in Paris on our way.





















I am in this picture -- if you can find me!










Notre Dame de Paris was one of the first Gothic cathedrals. Construction began in 1163 and was completed around 1345.



















Notre Dame apparently attracts some strange characters....

like this man with all the pigeons







and this man with the tiny birds!











Next, we headed to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the area famous as being the center of the existentialist movement. It's associated with writers Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir.


This plaque marks a spot designated "Place Sartre-Beauvoir."








This is Les Deux Magots, a famous café in the area. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Ernest Hemingway were regulars.









From the official site of Les Deux Magots:

In the tense pre-war atmosphere, Saint Germain des Pres became the intellectual centre of Paris : Gide, Guehenno, Malraux and Chamson regularly ended up in discussions on the café terrace. Paul Eluard introduced Dora Maar to Picasso at "Les Deux Magots". Françoise Giroud would have a coffee with Saint Exupery while Paul Morand would be deep in conversation with his friend Jean Giraudoux.

Every morning, Jean Paul Sartre with Simone de Beauvoir would take his seat at "Les Deux Magots" and write for hours, often without pause, but sometimes stopping to talk to Ernest Hemingway, another regular customer.

We stopped at Les Deux Magots and had a coffee.








After this afternoon coffee break, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.


This is our hotel in Paris.











This is the restaurant where we ate dinner each night, Café du Commerce, founded in 1921.







The server was nice enough to rush our dessert at dinner because I told him we had tickets to La Comédie-Française. La Comédie-Française is the only state theater in France. It has its own troupe of actors and was founded by King Louis XIV in 1680.

Here's Jacob just inside the lobby at Salle Richelieu of La Comédie-Française. We saw Molière's Le Malade imaginaire -- Jacob didn't understand a thing, but he was such a good sport -- he knew how much it meant to me to get to go!





Going up the steps to find our seats... they weren't great seats, but they were seats! (These are the seats the nice guy at the ticket window found for us on Saturday, when it was listed everywhere as "complet" -- "Sold Out.")

It's suprisingly inexpensive for tickets to the theater -- 11 euros or 22 euros. We got the 11 euro seats, which was about $14.83 each.






This is a drawing of Salle Richelieu from Wikipedia and is listed as "Interior view, late 18th Century."





I'm using the drawing since we weren't supposed to take pictures in here, so I didn't... although some French high school kids in front of us were taking pictures of each other and of the theater on their cell phones! It still looks like this -- lots of gold and red velvet.


The main character in Le Malade imaginaire is Argan, a hypochondriac. Molière himself played the role of Argan during the first four representations of the play, and he died a few hours after the fourth showing in 1673. This is what Wikipedia says about Molière's death:

One of the most famous moments in Molière's life is the last, which became legend: he didn't die on stage, while performing Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), he collapsed on stage with a fit of coughing and haemorrhaging. The King, Louis XIV, urged him to rest but Moliere insisted on completing his performance afterwhich he collapsed again with another, larger haemorrhage and died a few hours later at his house.

Argan is seated in a chair through most of the play. This chair is on display in a glass case at the end of one of the hallways in the theater -- it's the chair Molière used when playing the role of Argan.










outside La Comédie-Française after the play










After the play, we decided to take a walk to see Paris at night one last time before leaving.

We walked toward the Louvre:























Then down the Champs-Élysées:


The Champs-Élysées is the 2nd most expensive strip of real estate in the world -- second to 5th Avenue in New York.










La plus belle avenue du monde

"The most beautiful avenue in the world"








enjoying a crèpe on the Champs-Élysées
















Jacob took these great shots of the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs-Élysées:





















By this time, it was midnight, so we decided to head back to the hotel so we could get up for our flight the next morning.

Our time in Paris was so fantastic -- much like a second honeymoon -- and we both loved Paris even more than we thought we would. Can't wait to go back someday!

La fin
The End