Two Go Mad in Paris, les troisiemme et parte final

And so to our last full day in Paris, and off to Montmartre to visit Le Basilique du Sacré-Cœur and the artists' quarter. We were really struck by Sacré-Cœur, not just because it is beautiful, but that it is very much a living church - built by the people of Paris as an act of penance after the Franco Prussian War and the insurrection by the Communards, and tied very much in with the history of the French involvement and suffering wars that ravaged Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a place of prayer (constantly since before it was dedicated), and it felt a biut wrong to wander around it as a tourist attraction rather than appreciating it as a living place of prayer and worship, in this most secular or European nations.
It's a fair old walk up to the top, but we braced it and didn't wimp out by going up the funicular railway. It did mean that we missed grabbing a lunch before getting on the boats for a rather wet and uninspiring tour up the Seine in the driving rain. I think we both would rather have spent a bit more time in Montmartre. Mais, c'est la guerre.

We spent the afternoon souvenir shopping for the family at the Gallery Lafayette near the Opera House, which gave us yet another excuse to take dinner at Chartiers and explore some of the smaller galleries and shopping areas. We then got a final tour of Paris at night by coach the highlight of which was Le Tour Eiffel lit up at night!