Montmartre

I spent a lovely day walking around the Montmatre area of Paris.  Montmartre is the area made famous by the Moulin Rouge, Le Chat Noir and the Lapin Agile.  It is also home of the beautiful Sacre Coeur cathedral.  Artists frequently made their homes here in the 19^th century.    I had not visited this area before and decided it was time.  

The Eyewitness Travel Guide of Paris laid out a 90-minute walk.  (For those not familiar with these guides, you should check them out.  They have really good pictures of buildings, statutes or whatever you are looking at, which can help you to find things. They do a really good job of describing major art and culture items. However, they have a few limitations – they are heavy, do not tell you anything about shopping and little about popular culture type things.)  I grabbed the book, took my camera and headed for the metro. 

Since exiting the metro, I had gone this way and that to see the homes or studios of several famous artists, the original Chat Noir and a beautiful, new church (built at the end of the 1800s. In this way, I gradually climbed to the top of the butte while seeing many beautiful sights. 

Amazingly to me the prescribed walk did not include visitng Sacre Coeur.  Since I wanted to see the church, I took a slight detour, which took me directly to the bottom of the church.  I was a little surprised that I had climbed clear to the top of the butte. 

Getting to the dome was easy – well except for the 300 steps.  I had been mislead by the Internet to expect 100 steps.  Since the signs said that if you bought your ticket from a machine, you would not need to wait in line to climb to the top of the dome, I immediately put my credit card in the machine.   I don’t know why but French machines ask you to validate the purchase and then whether you want to go forward with the purchase.  I keep trying to use my French rather than selecting English and everytime it takes me a minute to figure out what I am doing.  But other than that, the machine worked beautifully.

When they said you didn’t have to wait in line to go up, they were serious.  I walked inside and it was empty.  I mean really empty – no tourists, no employees.   There was a electronic machine, but no personnel.  I assume it was the right place and put my ticket I and I was on my way.  I started up some stairs. I was so alone it was actually a little eerie.   After a lot of steps, I was suddenly outside.  I was not all the way at the top so I needed to find more steps.  After walking across a walkway and I found a few steps and then some more.  Again, I was inside and had to mount another circular stairwell. Eventually, I was at the top. 360 degree views of Paris.   You are able to walk all around the dome on the outside. There is a marble or some kind of stone railing but you have plenty of space between to look.  There are also marble benches to sit – however, I still did not see any employees.  In fact from the time I got at the cathedral until I had left the building after the tour I did not see an employee.  A few fellow tourists joined me at the top. 

I also visited the Montmartre Museum, which documents the history of the area.  It is located in a building that Renoir lived in while he painted his famous Boating Party picture.  They also have a swing to demonstrate what it looked like when he painted the woman in the white dress with the swing.  Its great view of the Montmartre vineyard was another highlight as was the original Lapin Agile picture and several original French poster/promotions for performances in the many nightclubs that were in the area. 

Afterwords, I headed to see the Lapin Agile, windmills and the Moulin Rouge.  The only trouble with the day was I didn’t plan for lunch well.   I had planned on stopping somewhere along the way for lunch, such as one of Picasso’s hangouts, but I kept thinking it was going to rain. Since I wanted to see everything, I figured I’d take a break when it rained.  It never rained.   When I tried to eat after completing all the items on the walk, I had missed the lunch window.  In France, many restaurants open for lunch and at 2:00pm stop serving food until evening.  The restaurant I stoped at did this and I got there at 3:15pm.  Since, I had been walking since about 10:20am and my feet hurt, I decided I would have a coca cola light where I was and worry about food later.    

After reading on the Internet that those trying to rip off tourists were incredibly aggressive in this area, it was smelly and there was nothing special aobut the church, I almost didn’t go to Montmartre.  I didn’t find any of these things true.  Perhaps because I followed the path laid out in the guidebook I wound through the neighbhorhood rather than heading straight up the main tourist paths and thus avoided those after tourists.  But even when I was in the square that was allegedly the worse, no one came near me.  I clearly looked like a tourist; I had a camera and was wearing tennis shoes, which no French woman wears except when participating in an athletic event.     Or perhaps because it was so late in the year, those normally trying to scam the tourists had in Rob Stewart’s words, “grabbed their books and headed back to school.”

The bottom line is Montmatre is still a charming area.  It is now preserved as a historic area so the small little streets with the charming houses will be there to admire for decades to come.  If you’re in Paris, definitely spend a few hours in this neighborhood.