Today was the day we had to say goodbye to our lovely apartment in the Marais district and make our way to our new digs in Montmartre.

We have yet to fully shake our jet lag (I blame the fact that we have been watching movies fairly late at night!), so we woke a bit late yet again. After a leisurely morning, we started packing and made our plan for the best way to get to Montmartre – turns out walking was only 10 minutes slower than taking the bus (not to mention more COVID safe and it’s a beautiful, sunny day!).

Along the way, we ran into a long line of emergency vehicles followed by protesters (though we’re not sure what exactly they were protesting – vaccines, maybe?), flanked by police officers and followed by another long line of emergency vehicles. Our guide the other day said something about Paris being known for it’s protests – et voila!

It should’ve been no surprise that it took a bit of climbing some steep hills to get to MONTmartre, but we eventually did it (some of us huffing and puffing more than others!). Our new place is on a very busy main drag and is significantly more compact than our last place (and one story higher!)

Our only scheduled plan for the day was to do a tour of the neighborhood at 5pm, so after settling in, we headed out to grab a bite to eat at a Lebanese takeout place along the way to our tour (it wasn’t great, but it filled us up!).

Our tour started at the famous Moulin Rouge and then took us around other parts of the neighborhood including the only original Moulins (windmills) left, artist haunts, contemporary street art, and of course Sacre Coeur – the iconic basilica on the top of the highest point in the city (controversially built on the site of the Commune‘s first insurrection (yesterday we saw the site of the Commune’s last stand at the Pere Lachaise cemetery)).

Despite being a warm sunny day, we caught quite a chill on our night tour, so after catching the 7pm sparkling of the Eiffel tower, we headed home to rest up for another day tomorrow!