Final days in Paris

As Oscar Wilde said its either him or the wall paper one of them has to go. Unfortunately Oscar died, and M and I will simply be leaving but it will be a pity as there is so much to see and unless you manage to stay for months there is little chance of seeing everything. However we have made a decent attempt to see what we could in the time we had.

Yesterday i went to Versaille having gotten lost for hours underground in the metro and then got drenched like i had gone swimming in my clothes, before arriving at the palace to see the line for tickets was 5 rows deep and long as the train itself. Upon discovering that a lot was under wraps for restorative reasons i decided not to get pneumonia in the rain queing to get a ticket, and just scooted around the palace grounds before going home again. A bit disappointing but i think that i made the right decision. Self taken drowned rat photos will be available for viewing shortly!

Today we went to the catacombs which were spooky and interesting. they contained the bones of several graveyards that were transported there in the mid 19th century to prevent a continuation of disease that was originating from there. The ossuries are located in a series of converted former limestone quarries beneath the streets of Paris, only one is open to the public for viewing.

After that we went back to the Pompidou Centre to see some exhibitions that we had had not been able to get into with our museum card earlier in the week. Yves Klein was very french and slightly wanky. Rauschenberg was interesting but also a bit wanky to be fair.

When I went to Versailles yesterday M went to see the cathederal at Chartres with its medeival stained glass and mismatched towers.  One gothic, one romanesque. He reports that it was very interesting and he didn’t manage to come home looking like a drowned rat.

The day before we had been out to Monmartre and after nearly expiring climbing the hill had a wander through the big white Bascilica of Sacre Coeur   follwed by an amble through part of the Monmartre cemetery. We didn’t manage to find any graves of famous residents such as Adolph Sax, Oscar Wilde or Jim Morrison (not that we looked to hard for that last one), but did see some rather ostentatious sepulchres and a collection of cats who looked very much at home.  On the way back we passed Moulin Rouge but after finding out that the cheapest tickets were 87 euro we decided not to bother going in.

Now we just pack up and go back to Mannheim. and the good news we got from the travel agency/booking people is that they are going to do an investigation into our complaint re the first hotel. Hopefully we are one step closer to getting our money back!