Paris, Montmartre and St. Denis

Another wonderful day in Paris -- sky clear with hints of overcasts on the fringes of the city but this would prove transitory.

We had yet another leisurely morning, sipping coffee and relaxing; Susie had leftover pastry treats from the previous day's safaris in search of the not-so-elusive "really good pastry." The truth of the matter is that they are not hard to find at all. But, and this is a bit but, but one does need help to weed out the mediocre, of which there is, in fact, a great deal.

About noon we got our act together and, locking the apartment we walked downstairs, out the door and turned left heading for the no. 2 metro at Menilmontant. After crossing much of the northern half of the city we got off at the Blanche Metro stop in Montmartre, and walked the long block to rue Rachel and into Montmartre cemetery.

We stopped at the conservation office to inquire about a particular burial. Just before we left for Paris, I had received an inquiry from a woman in the US asking if I knew the whereabouts of a certain Catherine Fuchs or Visser, who had died in Paris in 1831, possibly as a result of cholera. (This happens occasionally, a consequence of my Paris cemeteries website being fairly visible I suppose.)

Sadly, the answer was not forthcoming since the information we had was limited to just the year of death and apparently due to the record keeping they need the month at least as well. A method to the madness there somewhere I'm sure.

So we left Montmartre and strolled over and down rue des Abbesses breathing in the life force of this very dynamic part of Paris. ("Life force," pretty good, eh?) we doubled back taking rue Durantin all the way back to near the cemetery, and eventually finding our way down several quiet side streets to the Metro no. 13 at Guy Moquet. We took the no. 13 outside the city, getting off at the second to the last stop, the basilica of St. Denis, last resting place for the kings and queens of France. (photo below: place in front of the basilica.)

Well it used to be at any rate. During the revolution the radicals stormed into the church, raided the crypt, where French royalty had remained undisturbed for more than a thousand years, turned all of the sarcophagi over and spilled the remains out into gigantic piles. (In case you're wondering, the bones collected and are presently sealed up in two mass graves in the crypt.)


You can, however, see the heart of Louis XVII as well as the graves of Marie Antoinette (everyone is pretty sure it's her) and her husband, Louis XVI (photo below). Their remains were dug up from the mass graves, not far from the Madeleine church, where the bodies had been dumped after they were executed on what is now the Place de la Concorde.

Anyway, we met up with our friend Marie outside the church -- she was kind enough to give us a tour of some of the more interesting aspects of the "necropolis."

Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, in happier times:

While the entry to the church itself is of course free, there is an admission fee of 6.50 euros to visit the necropolis, which makes up roughly half of the church. This also includes a visit to the crypt as well. Here you can see where they are attempting to excavate portions of the original church, and of course get a general sense of where all the tombs were originally laid out in niches on trestles. As a result of the revolutionaries' fervor to create a new world, there is little today to suggest what must have been a very quiet, cold, eerie and dark place for royalty to spend eternity with their own, presumably talking about royal stuff.

Today the church is very well lit, even in the crypt, although you might want to tinker with your manual settings on your camera if you opt to try and take photos (which is what Marie is doing in an earlier photo below). The marble effigies on display today were, of course, not always there. Many of the early kings and queens were laid out in simple stone sarcophagi, and the effigies only added at a much later date.

After a leisurely stroll -- note the frequent use of that word "leisurely," pretty much our motto for this trip -- after a leisurely stroll through St. Denis, the three of us collected ourselves, stepped outside of the cool champagne light of the church into the stunningly harsh glare of the sun, found a nearby cafe table outside and sat down. We ordered caffe and chatted for the better part of an hour or more, discussing life, death, France, royalty, stupidity, and various other things that struck our fancy at the moment.

We eventually said au revoir to Marie -- she headed off for the Metro and Susie and looked for the tramway that runs around the northern edge of the suburbs. We soon found it, and after a few minutes wait, boarded the tram -- similar to the ones in Strasbourg and identical to the one that runs along the southern edge of the suburbs.

After seeing a bit of "outside" Paris, we got off a few stops later at La Courneuve where we switched to the no. 7 Metro.

A few stops later and we got off at Jaures to change to the no. 2 -- big mistake since we had to walk up several hundred flights of stairs (maybe an exaggeration) to connect. we then got off at Pigalle in Montmartre, where we connected to the no. 12, getting off at Madeleine.

After browsing the desserts at Fauchon -- slick, very slick, great packaging -- we strolled down Blvd. de la Madeleine which of course became Blvd. des Capucines and naturally that became Blvd. des Italiens (Italiens!) where we stopped, said enough is enough, its time for an aperitif.

We popped into a cafe, bistro really, or maybe a restaurant, anyway we had a wonderful glass of Alsatian pinot gris and warmed ourselves. Late in the day with the cloud cover occasionally dropping rain in tiny does and keeping the sun at bay, we found ourselves getting a bit chilled. This stop made perfect sense to us.

It was a short stroll down rue Gramant, just across the street from our cafe, to rue Saint augustin and to our dinner for the night: Kintaro noodle bar.

After consuming the better part of a 50-lb bowl of noodles each, along delicious gyoza, fried dumplings, we strolled to the nearby no. 3 Metro at Quatre Septembre, and got off just a few minutes later at Parmentier, just a few short blocks from our apartment.

Another grand day in one of the world's grandest cities.