June 22nd: Le Sacre Coeur

We were going to go to Versailles today. But the weather had a different idea. Since it was raining, and most of our time at Versailles would be in the gardens, we switched the schedule around a little bit.

Instead, we spent the morning working on patterns. One of our assignments on this trip is to design patterns inspired by each country we've been to. Then we all displayed our pattens and had a critique.
I'm pretty new to making patterns. We'll just leave it at that.

Next we went to Sacre Coeur, which means "Sacred Heart". It's a Roman Catholic basilica built on top of a hill. Sacre Coeur is relatively new- it was completed in 1914- but you wouldn't guess that by looking at its Roman- Byzantine architecture.

After walking through the church we looked around at the shops nearby. There were a bunch of artists selling their paintings and drawing people's portraits. I was amazed at how quickly they could whip out a portrait! I would say it probably took 20 to 30 minutes tops.

We bought dinner while we were still in Montramarte. And it was delicious, of course. Stacy and I bought crepes with ham, cheese, and egg, and then we got ice cream cones for dessert.

My highlight of the day was when we went to the Eiffel Tower tonight. We went to the very top! We took the stairs to the second level, then we had to take the elevator the rest of the way. There are 668 steps to the second level! And when we got to the very top, the view took my breath away. By then it was dark and the city lights were winking far below us. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever known. It's too bad that photographs are never quite the same as the real thing.

The elevator: this is how the wimps do it.

The stairs: this is how the ladies do it. ;)