Just finishing 2 days in Paris. Did something different on the Monday and visited Pere Lachaise- very old cemetery with many famous people buried there and is a lovely leafy cemetery with lots of trees. It has around 1 million people buried there and is about 44 hectares. You can get a map that shows where the graves of the better known people are. Still a bit confusing. Did find Jim Morrison and took a photo of SA in front of it being the closest we had to a flower child. Also saw Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde. Wildes was strange. Was almost Art Deco looking I guess and had a Perspex barrier around it to stop it being defaced. The Perspex has all these kisses on it from where people have kissed the Perspex. Lots of little mausoleums the size of telephone boxes and some quite beautiful with weeping statues on them. Less austere than the graveyards we have seen in Edinburgh. Also memorials to various victims of wars. After the cemetery we walked to the Canal Saint Martin area. All the guide books say it is a lovely quirky area with a canal running through it. A typical Audrey Tatou whimsical movie- Amelie was shot there. Mmm we didn't get it. We endeavoured to find the whimsical part but just couldn't find it. We ended up in a cross between a fairly seedy African/ Chinese part of town. My aunt who is in Paris said she went on the canal a few years back and she thought there was nothing to see. One of her daughters came along with us thinking she must be missing something because she had never found anything interesting there. I don't know where the guide book writers went but we gave up after a while and jumped on the metro. Had very nice dinner in traditional restaurant in Bastille area called Bofinger ( sounds like a James Bond movie).
Day 2 we coincidentally found ourselves in Paris with a friend - Pamela so caught up or coffee. Was good to catch up and see a friend from home. After that we decided to explore the 8th arrondisement. Wandered in and out of shops and after attempting to locate Gallerie Lafayette, found Printemps instead. Decided that would have to do. Summer sales about to start so shop assistants madly rushing around putting different coloured dots on things to signify the discount. There really is no excuse to be badly dressed if you lived in Paris I think but I'm going out on a limb and don't think they are as elegant as they used to be. Some of the young people, which we also noticed in Spain are also disturbingly overweight. A number of the older people still have that French style but I don't think as many of the young people are as stylish. Probably part of the global nature of the world these days.
Dinner with family again tonight and then we farewell them and head back to Scotland for a few days before our next adventure.
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