Mounting the Mont

Headed over to Montmartre today and made the mistake of getting off at Abbesses, also known as the metro station with the most steps to the exit. I should have known it was going to be bad when I actually saw elevators next to the stairs.

Quite a hike later and I was at the foot of the Basilica Sacre Cour. Since it's Greek (or Roman, or something slightly exotic like that), there was a Friday morning service going on, which gave me the perfect opportunity to rest my feet at the end of a pew. I walked in right when the priest guy was about to eat a wafer of bread, symbolizing Christ's transconsurmation* or something like that, but to someone who skipped breakfast this ritual invoked less spiritual rumination and more hungriness.

So I left the confines of Christ's abode in search of duck confit, which I found at a little café that served the canard accompanied by golden-fried potatoes drenched in garlic butter. Suddenly wasn't so jealous of the priest's snack.

Saw some weird stuff in Montmartre, including a fashion photo shoot involving a dapperly dressed monsieur wearing a frighteningly realistic horse mask. Also, this:

No, this is not a statue of a priest, but a man dressed up like a statue of a priest and then offering to pose for pictures in exchange for a few euro coins. Somewhere up above God is probably getting a kick out of this.

And I carefully traced my walking route the night before I headed out so I could be sure to avoid all the sleaze and the sex shops cloistered around the Boulevard du Clichy, but still somehow managed to walk past the Moulin Rouge (yes, that Moulin Rouge). Oops.

* This is a made-up word, made up just now by me.

Note: this post probably would have been longer and more informative if I hadn't just spent most of my time "reading" up on the hottest French soccer players. You know, for cross-cultural research.