PARIS - Day IV

Today was the first day without beating sunshine since I’ve arrived, and I welcomed the cooler air. Thick gray clouds hung in the air threatening to rain but never did. I forgot to pack an umbrella.


To go along with the gloomy skies, I decided to fill my day with death and sorrow (I know, it’s pitiful). I went to see the maze of catacombs hidden under Paris’s city streets, but – as always – they were closed. (Every single time I visit Paris I try to see these damn catacombs and never – not once – have they been open at the time/day/month I want to go. Some things just aren’t meant to be, I guess…) Instead I walked through the cemetery of Montparnasse, where such famous Parisians as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir are buried, and then the cemetery of Montmartre, where the greatest artistic luminaries lay.

(I found this tomb the most striking – it reads, “MY friend Jean-Jacques, a bird who flew away too soon”)


I’m beginning to lose my fervor. Saw the Sacré-Coeur. My favorite part was the statue of Joan d’Arc in the front. Montmarte is fun. I think I need a nap…