Paris: Day 5 - Paris Flea Market and Sacre Coeur

On day five of our trip to Paris, we started our day by heading out to the Les Puces de Saint-Ouen Flea Market.  I had seen lots of raving reviews about this place online and how it was the largest flea market in the world. 

While there were plenty of beautiful treasures to be seen, everything was very expensive.  I will admit it was one of very few disappointments for me in Paris.  I so badly wanted to come home with something from "the Paris flea market" but sadly the only things I could rationally consider spending money on was junk.  It was actually a reminder of why I do not go to flea markets very often anymore because of this very reason. 

While we were visiting the flea market we did enjoy a French meal at Le Paul Bert. 

The funny waiter (who spoke English and dropped f-bombs), flea market ambiance, and people watching all made up for my lack of flea market treasures.

The one thing I did love (though was too nervous to photograph) was how the vendors all ate meals at their booth family style.  They set up full tables with food from home in large cast iron skillets.  They were eating pretty well for just another day at the market.  It was really inspiring to see how much effort and time was put in to preparing a meal for the day.

After the flea market we headed to Sacre-Coeur.  Both places were our furthest destinations from our hotel so we planned one day of lengthier travel.  I had read all about the large amount of steps to get to Sacre-Coeur but on day five of walking all over Paris, it really did not seem that bad in my opinion.  We entered from a side street giving us a quaint view of the residential area.

Inside, there were no pictures allowed but it had a similar feel to what we saw at Notre Dame.  Before heading to the top of Sacre Coeur, we paid the extra money to go inside the crypt.  There was barely anyone else there which made the whole experience kind of creepy in my opinion! 

As we climbed the stairs to the top to get a view there were a bunch of openings to see out to the street as we headed up.  I loved seeing the people come and go hidden under their umbrellas.

When we arrived to the top, we found the most beautiful view of the city.  It ended up being one of my favorite places that we visited and I loved seeing the Eiffel Tower from so far away.

Here is proof that I did end up wearing my flip flops after my feet were so torn up from all the walking.  I got a few strange looks but they were a life saver!

Here we are at what we thought was the exit that ended up being locked.  We had to walk all the way back around only to find no way out!  We had to take the one way stairs to the top back down which meant squeezing by people in an extremely narrow staircase.  It was a little crazy but a funny memory to look back on!

After wandering around a bit, we headed back to our hotel by foot, snacking on street nuts and stopping at this sweet little bakery, Sebastien Gaudard.

We enjoyed the views as we walked back, grabbing photos of beautiful landmarks.

As it got later in the evening, the city lights lit up as we got closer to the Eiffel Tower.

The sky started doing some spectacular things so we had to stop and capture it.

This was the one day we didn't bring our large standing tripod with us (we had a small one), to my regret, so we settled for selfies and pictures taken by strangers who kept saying "cheeseburger" behind the camera (crazy Americans!).

We stopped at the Eiffel Tower before heading back to our room (because why not?!).  And we picked up a crepe filled with egg, ham, cheese, fries and a hot dog for dinner!  It was amazing!

The sky was so spectacular we sat and enjoyed the view for awhile while enjoying our bakery desserts.

We ended the night walking back to our room hand in hand, because that is what you do in Paris (and I promise I actually wrote that we did that in my travel journal!).

Catch up on all Paris posts here.