Sacré-Cœur Basilica, Paris
/We started this Sunday in Saint-Germain-des-Prés having breakfast with a South African friend who had also travelled to Paris, and decided we needed to go to the basilica. Yes, on a Sunday. Wanting the full experience, we took the M 12 train to Abbesses and started climbing. It took 285 steps to exit the underground and reach the stairs to take us to Sacré-Cœur. From there, 237 steps up. Once at the basilica, it seemed like a good idea to go to the dome: another 300 (270? . . . what’s the difference at this point?) stair steps to the top. It was a lot of steps. I’m fairly certain this was the precise day that Mike hurt his achilles. Stairs built centuries ago were not designed for the big feet of modern-day travellers.
Only one miracle of Basilique du Sacré-Cœur is that I somehow took these pictures without also including all of the thousands of other people there that day. Churches are meant for everyone, after all.