Patty Currier had told me that a perfect visit to Paris must include seeing the sun rise from the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Montmartre, and the sun set from the Eiffel Tower.  Well, I wasn't interested in riding up the Eiffel Tower elevator again, as I'd done that on my first visit to the city some years ago.  And I wasn't interested in getting up before dawn if I didn't have to.  So I decided to watch the sun set from Sacré-Coeur.  As soon as returned from our tour of the Champagne region, I dropped off my souvenirs at the hotel, hopped on the Paris Metro, and headed for the Abbesses Metro stop at the foot of Montmartre.  The key word in that sentence is "foot," for I was soon to discover I was in for quite a climb.

I learned later that there was a funicular railway that would have taken me all the way to the top of Montmartre for a small fee.  But I was in a hurry, the sun was going down, and I spied these steps.  There were a lot of steps.  Lots and lots of steps.  Look down there beyond those cars, through the trees.  Do you see the other set of steps I climbed?  More even than the steps in the foreground.  It was a long way to the top.

And when I got there I was huffing and puffing.  But the view was worth it, don't you think?

There's Paris.

And there it is again.  One of the rewards of climbing all those steps was the view.

Ah, the view.

That little station on the left is the funicular station.  I could've ridden to the top, but no ....

Hey, look, the Eiffel Tower in the background!

Some in-line skaters were performing tricks for the crowd.

Artsy.

Now I'm walking down the hill beneath the Sacré-Coeur basilica.  It's all one big park, and so beautiful this time of day.  Such a shame that guards suddenly began blowing whistles and running people out of the park.  This place had a closing time!  I couldn't believe it.

So now everybody's headed down toward the gates.  See that single ugly skyscraper in the background?  It was just a few blocks from my hotel in the Montparnasse section of the city.

Well, nearly everybody. Get up folks -- time to go.

The crowd is growing restless.  Who in their right minds would want to leave a place this beautiful on such a perfect summer's evening?

Grumble, grumble.  Headed for the exit.

One last look back.

I saw this carousel in a movie recently.  Monsieur Ibrahim, I think.  So I took a picture of it.

On the Paris Metro ride back to my hotel I was really pooped.  I'd spent most of the day touring the Champagne district, and then I'd charged up a gazillion steps just to see the sunset from Montmartre.  And now here I am drooping on the subway, when what happens?  Some street performer walks right up in front of me and whips out a big black cloth which he attaches to two of the hand-hold poles of the subway car.  Then he turns on his boom-box and some stupid music starts, and suddenly these hand-puppets start singing to me in French.  Oh good grief.  So I took a picture to preserve this surreal moment for posterity.

Several of the Paris Metro trains run on rubber tires instead of steel rails.  They rattle just as much, though.

But some of them are open and very airy.  Look at how there are no partitions between cars on this train.  And the front of the train was open, so when it moved a large volume of cool air blew through the car.  Very nice.