Started the day off at the Eiffel tower today! I went right the way up to the summit and had a look around and then came back down to the second level to have a pain au chocolate and a hot chocolate (that they put so much whipped cream on they gave me a spoon to eat it with). Life is hard. The place where I got my snack from was actually a chocolate counter (if you couldn’t tell) and there was an Eiffel tower made of chocolate!

Buzzing from all the sugar I did a lap of level 2 and then took the stairs down to level 1. Going down was not so bad but it did take a little while. I could see on the faces of the people I passed going up that it was in fact a lot of stairs. The first level of the tower has quite a lot going on including cafes, shops, and a restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating. I checked out all what was going on on that level before taking to the stairs yet again to get back to ground level (I was feeling it in my legs a bit by then, and that was just going down!).

Next on the agenda was Sacre Coeur but the metro I took to get there spit me out right in front of “le mur d’amour” or the wall of love so I stopped in to take a look (and also to catch my breath as the stairs out of the metro were 144 if you took the right set the first time which I did not so I did about 250 stairs just to get out from underground).

Up still more stairs I found myself at Sacre Coeur. It’s quite a nice view of the city and the inside of the church is quite beautiful as well (although u have to be very quiet so as not to disturb people.)

Feeling like I had enough energy in me to do more but not knowing quite what to do, I wandered down through Montmartre where there’s lots of little shops and patio restaurants/cafes. Then I made my way to the Picasso museum. It’s quite a nice museum and wasn’t too busy when I went so it was quite a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. It had quite a lot of Pablo Picasso’s sketches, paintings, and sculptures, as well as lots of information about his wives, children, and the war as his life is well represented in his art (so I learned).

Finally worn out from a busy day (and lots of stairs) I headed for the hostel and a quiet evening in. Quite a successful day today with more on the agenda for tomorrow!