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Report 2025: Airplanes, Roses, Poppies, Caves, Bridges and Paradise

By Anastasia from Canada, Summer 2012

Page 8 of 24: Could not Approach Sacre Coeur

Sacre Coeur from afar

After that we took the bus to the metro to go to Montmartre. We saw a Lebara store on our way but were now too hungry to stop and wait for another bus.

We arrived to Abbesses metro station and took the stairs. You could tell who was the tourist. All people who took stares like us. Others just waited for an elevator. The stairs were quite impressive.

When we exited the metro we were assaulted by people with “petitions” to sign, one of the scams I've read about on travel forums. But no luck for them. It started raining and we ran to the closest cafe, le Saint Jean. Luckily we took the last spot at the covered terrace outside, great for people watching at a very typical Montmartre street, rue des Abbesses. The poor waiter was overwhelmed as many people arrived at once because of the rain. He apologized several times during our meal as he couldn't take care of everyone at once, and for the resulting delay. But we weren't in a hurry and just soaked in the Montmartre atmosphere, delightful.

The menu on ardoise was good with typical dishes and I hesitated between a duck confit, bavette a l'echalotte, but finally decided on a croque madame, idem for my husband and our son chose a croque monsieur. With a half of red wine. The croques came beautifully presented with a salad and fries and were delicious. All for about €40 and we spent a very relaxing couple of hours.

The rain finally stopped, we walked in Montmartre and took the Open tour to get to our hotel. We could only see Sacre Coeur from a distance this time. The weather was cold and windy. We saw another Lebara store close to Gare du Nord but didn’t want to get off the bus.

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