My Trip to France

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The Sacre Coeur

That afternoon we decided to take our lunch fixings and find some grass near the Sacre Coeur to eat on. We walked up the long stairs (although you can pay one subway ticket to ride the moving car). We passed through the artist market and walked past all of the portrait painters and the artists selling their landscapes - ah to be wealthy and free to buy art! I could have filled two houses with all of the lovely paintings I saw. We walked around the church and down the front steps and took a side path to a lovely shaded bench. Soon after it started to rain a little and so we headed for a little café and had a bottle of wine and sat out the cooling rain. Everything was so green and lush, the gardens around Sacre Coeur more examples of the artless planting. As the rain subsided to a drizzle we enjoyed walking back to the hotel and passing through the Rue d'Abbesses once more past the shops. This time we went inside the lovely Catholic church there and lit candles for Frank's parents at the altar of St. Rita. We finished our meal at the hotel and soon it was time to dress for the Moulin Rouge, our show was at 11.

The Moulin Rouge

We arrived early and thus were at the front of the line and we very well dressed and we placed in the front! The seating is all at tables and your ticket includes a bottle of champagne. The show was like the old Follies Bergere - the inspiration for the Ziegfield Follies shows in New York and today's Las Vegas shows. The women were tall and statuesque and about half were topless. The costumes - and there were many - were outrageous and made of mostly rhinestones and feathers. Enormous head dresses and wings accompanied almost every outfit. There were side acts including astonishing acrobats who did death defying acts involving balancing each other on their heads; a solo juggler who did an act that defies description - all you could say is that it involved Ping-Pong balls and he juggled with his mouth - and a mime who was hilarious and who involved four audience members in a "silent movie" that he directed. There was one tap number for Chevalier and one Madonna style act at the end. The stage had wings and a stage that moved up and down and a ceiling that moved up and down and dancers who would fly in from the sides. There was one long Arabian Nights style dance sequence that involved slave girls and gangsters! Another dance was a tuxedo and white gown number with waltzing. They were quite Busby Berkely in style. My favorite number was the Can-Can which was done completely authentically with shouting and black stockings and tumbling! The men and women whirled and flipped and spun and fell to the floor in splits, marvelous!!!

Afterwards we met the couple next to us from Warsaw and went to an Irish Pub for Guinness! Fun! We danced a little and then were hungry and went to have late night pizzas. Yum! The French make the BEST pizza! A great night!

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