Day 11 August 26, 2008
The 14th arrondissement was an area I was looking forward to seeing for several reasons, none of which I'll elaborate on. No, no, you don't get off that easy. I'm going to talk and talk about it.
First, for an outer arrondissement, it has a number of touristy attractions, such as the Catacombs (where the bones are), the Montparnasse Cemetery (where the dead writers are) and the Montparnasse Tower (ugly to look at, wonderful to look from). I only saw 2 out of 3 this day because Cylinda's slow as molasses. But that's ok. I've got plenty of time to return.
The Catacombs are an underground (duh) set of passages where bones upon bones are stacked after some plague or another in history killed lots of people and there were no more places to bury them in regular ways. It's a long walk to reach the bones and then it's a long walk to see them all. Here's a video of just a few bones.
Afterwards, we went to Parc Montsouris to renact a short from "Paris, Je t'aime". It's our favorite - the last one with the American tourist visiting and falling in love with Paris (and recounting it all in ear-bleeding French). It's understandable, especially after see this park and it's unusual grass areas where children frolic to and fro. And no, I did not join the children, although I wanted to.