Today was fantastic!! Breakfast in the hostel, then after stealing a couple of roles for lunch I set off up the hill for the Sacre Couer. One of my roommates had said he spent "practically the whole night up there", but I wasn't sure what to expect. When I got within sigt of it, I got what he meant. It was fantastic. Absolutely incredible. It's this huge, white church.But the details are incredible. It's so beautiful. I just couldn't stop taking photos. I'd come up at the back, and when I got round the front, the view was great. You can see right across Paris, and it's amazing. Turn around from the view, and behind the tourists are the doors, framed by several statues. Inside, there's a sudden contrast to the noise and sunshine: it's very peaceful and most of the light comes from candles. You walk all the way around, past stones describing the history of the church. When I got to the back, I suddenly looked up and noticed the painting on the ceiling. Amazing.

I stayed for the start of the service, listening to songs that echoed around, then went back into the sun, where I found a man making keyrings with pipecleaners. In a bag on the ground he had coils of pipe cleaner, and he would take two or 3 at once and wrap them around a frame to make a little dog. Moving on, I made my way down the hill & steps in front of the cathedral, carefully avoiding everyone trying to sell things to the tourists.

I wandered through the packed streets, just soaking up everything there was to see. If you visit, try to time it so that you're in this area for lunch - it's so much cheaper than in the middle of the city.

I ate my lunch on the garden outside the Louvre, then next up it was the Musée d'Orsay, which is free for 18 & unders (yay!). Again, this was great. It was so interesting to see the Monet paintings I'd looked at in book, in reality. There were also many I hadn't seen. And the sheer scale of some of the paintings was amazing. They were huge.

(just pretend that's the right way up, okay?)

Eventually, I had to call it a day and head back, but it really was an amazing day.