We had deviated from the planned 22 steps by skipping the Catacombs earlier, and later going to the Eiffel Tower. Getting back on track with the plan put us at step 13 on our page from the day in the red book which was to take the M12 to Abbesses...except we weren't near the M12 because we had not walked from the Musee d'Orsay to the M6 Assemble National. Instead, and I don't remember the first part of the route, but eventually we took the M2 and got off at Anvers.
My original plan called for us to take the funicular up the slope of Montmartre to Sacre Coeur. It didn't happen that way. From our metro stop, we began walking up the street. The plastic bag that we had received when we had purchased the souvenir shirts (don't ask me what kind of shirts souvenirs wear) had a tendency to make one's arm sweat. We decided to buy a cloth bag in which to carry the shirts. We stopped at a busy shop that sold lots of stuff...lots of stuff that held no interest for us. But it also sold bags. Right outside, hanging on the corner of the building by the entrance, was a small to medium bag. It was tan with black lettering and symbols--the lettering being "Paris" and the symbols being landmarks in Paris. The marked price was 5 euros. It seemed like it would be perfect, just the right capacity--large enough to hold the shirts, and small enough to fit in our backpacks when we boarded the plan for home.
Problem: The bag wouldn't come off the rack. I discovered that it was actually tied, rather than hooked, to the rack. I didn't know if I was supposed to or not, but I untied the bag and took it into the store waving my 5
I didn't see the funicular. I did find stairs...they were hard to miss, what with there being a nearly infinite number of them. Which makes me wonder, how many is "nearly infinite"? At what point does one say, "Whoa, I better not count any more, just 14 more and we hit infinity."? In this case, it's apparently something over 300...that's what wikipedia says about the number of steps up to Sacre Coeur.
These steps were not only numerous, they also possessed the added quality of steepness. Not quite the steepness of the steps of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, which is a very awesome place, but they were steeper than the steps up to Trocadero.
Naturally, I thought it would be cool to get a picture of my wife at the bottom of the site before we began the ascent. I took out my cellphone and got a photo. As I snapped the picture, my phone rang. It was my son. As I spoke to him, I looked around and noticed one of several suspicious characters signal to the others and point to me. I call these guys suspicious because they didn't have a blanket of wares to sell, and just seemed to accost people on the stairs to sell them yarn key chains which they would weave on the spot by having the person hold one end while the guy braided the yarn. It seemed suspicious to me. It seemed like a great way to distract someone while a colleague picked their pocket.
I continued talking on the phone with my son. The suspicious characters ran up the stair ahead of us. Four of them positioned themselves in a line across the next landing. I wasn't sure if they were setting the ambush for me because I was talking on the phone and they thought that I would be distracted, or because they had heard me speak English; maybe it was both...or neither. At any rate, I don't think they were looking for my autograph. It was the least subtle ambush I've ever seen. The guy with the suitcase and the clear container of coins on the sidewalk from earlier in the day had done a much better job.
As I approached the top of the first set of stairs, phone still to my ear, the four men of the ambuscade (see Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 3) closed ranks in front of me. One held out some colored yarn and asked me in English to hold it. I realized that if I had one hand holding my phone, and another hand holding some yarn, I would be quite unable to do anything else; besides, I didn't want a yarn key chain...or my pocket picked, or whatever other end they sought with their lame and nefarious plan. I said, in a firm and convincing voice, "Get away from me!"
They parted like the the Red Sea.
"Mauvais!" declared one of them with disgust as he backed away.
My son wondered whether I was talking to him or to someone else. I told him what had happened, and he laughed.
We continued up the remainder of the stairs, 250 or so; so like only half of infinity at that point.
The stream into the basilica was steady. I was disappointed by the great number of people; it was crowded. I had hoped to do as I had done many years ago. I wanted to climb up to the top of the building and look over Paris from the central dome, to walk the narrow stairways at the building's edge, to consort with the pigeons in the little cupola's. I didn't see any signs that would allow us to leave the main floor and take the stairs up. I was disappointed. Although it did save us from climbing a bunch more stairs.
Here is video I found of some people who did get to go to some of those places:
We had to content ourselves with pictures of Paris from the top of the near infinity stairs.
Next time: A Day in Paris - Part Five
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