Today after my morning writing session, I set off in the direction of Montmartre.  I had already gone to that neighborhood, on the first full day I was in Paris, but only cursorily, and after hearing a couple other people talk about how much they love it I thought I should visit again.  I went by a less direct route than last time, bypassing most of the tourist mess associated with Sacre Coeur, and although the walk was just as long as I remembered, today was much less hot than the last time I made it, so it was far more pleasant.  I walked through the residential neighborhood, which seemed perfectly pleasant, although not very remarkable, and made another visit to the basilica, which I got to examine in a slightly different light after having seen so many other churches in the last few weeks.

My plan was then to walk east to the 11th arrondisement, another area I'd explored once, not gotten the hang of, but had been told repeatedly was too cool to miss.  I thought it would be interesting to see what was between the two well-known neighborhoods of Montmartre and the Oberkampf; there are some parks and churches on the map, but they are further out than I made it. (Think of Paris like a clock face, although somewhat squashed in the vertical direction; Montmarte is at 12:00 and the Oberkampf is at 2:00.  To see the parks and churches, I would have had to go around the circumference of the clock.  Instead, I cut across a bit closer to the center, in large part because there seemed to be a lot of unpleasantness between where I was and the edge.)  I did see, however, some ethnic neighborhoods, some traditional-seeming and others more rough; I had the lovely experience of being followed(?) for ten minutes by a gentleman who (a) was singing quite loudly, in some non-French language, and (b) adjusted his pace to mine.  I also saw several train stations (Paris seems to have many of them) and many squares, cafes, and fabric shops (a big industry in that part of Paris).  Finally I reached the canals on the east side of Paris, which is supposedly a wonderful neighborhood, although on later reflection I think the people who love it so much are the type of people who think that Williamsburg has been ruined by excessive gentrification.  The canal is pretty and there are some attractive storefronts right on the canal, but in general the area seems more gritty, and less attractive, than a lot of other areas.

My reward for all this walking (over three hours, at this point) was lunch at the West Country Girl creperie.  I'd seen something about it online and then it was recommended fervently by one of the people i met yesterday, an older man who had the look of permanent travel about him.  I like crepes and have had a couple of street crepes and one crepe at a creperie which was perfectly nice, so I expected to enjoy this meal.  I was not expecting it to be as absolutely incredible as it was.  For nine euros (that's around $12) I got a glass of apple cider (which I think was mildly alcoholic), a "crepe complete" with andouille sausage (sort of stringy, mild smoked ham), cheese, and egg, and a crepe caramel.  It was all so delicious.  The difference between the crepes themselves and any other crepes I've had is like night and day; these were thin, light, crispy, and buttery, while the others (which were perfectly nice before I had these to compare them to) were much doughier and not as flavorful.  And the caramel... I have not thought of myself as a person who particularly loved caramel, but I had no idea that it could taste like this.  It was amazing.  This was without question the best meal I have had on this trip.

After lunch, I had a long walk home; I was in no particular rush and misdirected myself several times (due to not paying much attention to where I was going relative to where I should be going), walked through some artsiness, and only really got a move on nearly two hours later when it started to rain.

That was pretty much it for me today.  I went out for a bit this evening and walked around Paris Plage, the pseudo-boardwalk they've set up.  Of course, my legs are ridiculously sore and basically any motion at all is tiring.  I'm hoping I will (magically) be fully recovered by tomorrow so I can go for a decent run, which I haven't done since Wednesday... it is a bit frustrating that my body, specifically my legs, does not comply with all my schemes, but I suppose I should be thankful that I haven't had any injuries or illnesses or anything while I've been here.