Many would liken this to the holy grail, but we finally stumbled across this on the artist side of Montmartre in Rue Labat. A vacant parking space on the street. I had heard rumors there was such a thing but had never seen one, and always thanked my lucky stars I had not had the experience of looking for one in Paris. Many will only believe their eyes so please see the attached photo for proof, most Parisians will of course doubt this and continue to park wherever they like or however they like.

Yesterday we checked out of our hotel in Barcelona and took the train to Paris, the train is really the way to travel in Europe, especially in France as once we hit Narbone and moved onto the dedicated TGV lines the speed at which the train moved was amazing. We left Barcelona at 13:15 and arrived in Paris at 19:45, which when you compare it with flying with all the airport waiting and distance from city centers is very comparable, but far more comfortable.

After checking into the hotel it was down to the small brasserie a couple of buildings down the street for a quick dinner and bed. Our hotel is right in the middle of the left bank and surrounded by numerous restaurants, bars and cafes of almost all food types, but being in France decided the local French restaurant was the go.

Today we took a gentle stroll over to Notre Damme to see the Cathedral as we were both having withdrawal symptoms as we had only done one church/cathedral/basilica in the last 7 days, given we were in one almost every day for the previous 2 weeks we are sure you can understand this. Being Sunday morning Mass was being held, and it was very moving hearing the choir in this great building, we had been here 9yrs ago, but not heard the mass, or seen the sheer amount of people who were worshiping. There were numerous signs around the cathedral asking people to be quiet in many languages, but this did not stop many from both talking and wearing hats.

On our way back to the hotel we passed the St Michael fountain and a wonderful band were busking in front of the fountain. Given the clear blue skies we decided to quickly take a few photos from the roof top bar of the views, which as you can see are quite spectacular.

We popped to a side street for a crepe and glass of rose, before jumping on the Metro to go over to Montmartre, a short walk from the metro station and we were at the funicular to go up to the basilica of Sacre Couer. It would appear half of Paris had the same idea as us given the number of people who were up at the top. Once up there we saw the Petit train tour and decided to give it a go, as the one in Cannes had been so good, and whilst not as good a commentary as the one in Cannes it was good, taking us down a lot of small lanes in the back streets of Montmartre. By the time we got back to the hotel it was past 7pm and time for dinner.