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Published: September 1st 2013
Today was another day of following a Rick Steves' walking tour; this time to Montmartre. This area compares with London's Camden Market in that it has historically been, and still is, a Bohemian area full of artists and night clubs. We took the Metro from nearby Passy station to Anvers stop, stepping out into crowds of people all around us at souvenir kiosks and in front of the Elysees Montmartre theatre, the oldest cancan dance hall in Paris. A wall once separated Montmartre from Paris at this point and the quality of buildings and type of businesses is totally different from one side of the street to the other. The Montmartre side starts with low-rent urban bazaars with cheap clothing, inexpensive post cards, scarves, jeans, you name it.
We took the funicular up the hillside to the top of the butte and to the steps of Sacre-Coer Basilica and probably the best view of Paris from its highest point. It was at this point that in 1871 the French government shot its own citizens, the Communards, who held out here on Montmartre after the French leadership surrendered to the Prussians.
From here we began a walk through the narrow,
winding cobble-stoned streets full of cafes, souvenir shops and art on display everywhere, spilling out onto the roadway making it nearly impossible for the passing motorists to get by the people and merchandise. As we enter Place du Tertre we have reached the real Bohemian Montmartre. This has been the town square since medieval times and is full of artists at work, all displaying their finished works and allowing us to watch them paint new ones. Montmartre was originally a mining community where the wine was cheap (tax-free) and the working-class life there was full of festivals, cafes, bistros and dance halls. The bohemian ambience survived even after the area was annexed into Paris in 1860.
There is a Dali museum here (he lived in Montmartre in the 1920's and '30s). Renoir also lived here, at 12 Rue Cortot, and painted his best-known work here, "Bal du Moulin de la Galette". La Maison Rose Restaurant was frequented by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein and just downhill from there is Paris' last remaining vineyard, only one square block in size, and now surrounded by a high fence to keep tourists out. Near here stands "Au Lapin Agile
Cabaret" which was the village's hot spot. Picasso and other artists such as Renoir and Modigliani would gather here for performances of poetry and sing-alongs.
We walked a few blocks from here to see Renoir's house and a little further, Picasso's Studio. You can also find the Moulin de la Galette restaurant near here which boasts one of only two windmills that remain on the hill that once had 30. Originally they were used to crush gypsum rocks and to press grapes and grain. This particular windmill is shown in Renoir's "Bal du Moulin de la Galette, his quintessential Impressionist work and many say the painting that best captures the joy of the Montmartre lifestyle. Further along you walk past the home that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lived in and also a home where Vincent van Gogh lived with his brother from 1886 to 1888.
As we walked further down the hill we came across the Café des Deux Moulins which was featured in the 2001 film Amelie. And we reached the bottom of the hill at Place Blanche where we found the Moulin Rouge, one of the earliest, and perhaps the most famous, home of "cancan". It was
Au Lapin Agile Cabaret
This was Montmartre's hot spot. Picasso and other artists and writers (Renoir, Utrillo, Modigliani, etc.) gathered for poetry and sing-alongs.here that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created his many sketches of the dancers night after night.
At this point we are in "Pig Alley" (the stretch of the Boulevard de Clichy from Place Blanche to Place Pigalle), an area full of sex shops and even a sex art gallery. This was the border area between Montmartre and Paris where bistros had tax-free status, wine was cheap and prostitutes roamed the streets. I don't think much has changed today except for the prices!
We stopped on a bench to have a snack here then caught the metro at the nearby Place Blanche Metro stop, to go back towards home and we were entertained along the way by a man playing traditional Parisien songs on his accordion in our subway car. We got off a few blocks before our apartment near Place l'Alma to view Princes Diana's unofficial memorial area again as today, August 31, is the 16th anniversary of the crash that took her life. There were a few new memorial notes and flowers at the spot but not any more tourists than there were a few days ago.
We caught the train home from here, going back out
Moulin Rouge
This nightclub, opened around 1889 made cancan (La Quadrille) famous. for a few groceries in the markets, then home for another great meal (leftover Lapin!) and a relaxing evening, staring at the Eiffel Tower again. 😊
Sunday, September 1, I woke up to see an amazingly colourful sunrise behind the Eiffel Tower so I HAD to take some more photos!
All the museums in Paris are free the first Sunday of each month so we decided to take advantage of this, hop on the Metro, and make our first trip to the Louvre. If you get off at the Palais Royal-Musee du Louvre stop, you can enter directly through the underground mall. We tried this but the mall was closed (too early on a Sunday I think) so had to climb the stairs to the outside and walk around to the main entrance. The Metro stop Louvre-Rivoli may be a better stop if you go early Sunday morning.
The Louvre is the largest museum in the Western world, with about 12 miles of exhibits housed within three wings of this huge, U-shaped palace. The museum holds art from the ancient world up to about 1850 but their specialties are Greek sculpture, Italian and French painting. Formerly a
royal palace, the Louvre was built in stages over eight centuries until it was completed in 1852. The glass pyramid was added in 1989.
The Louvre opens at 9:00AM and we arrived there about 9:30 to find about a hundred million people in line ahead of us. We followed the line across the massive courtyard, through an arched entrance and through yet another massive courtyard and a few hundred feet past the "approximately 2 hours from here" sign. However, the line moved smoothly and steadily and we were inside in less than 45 minutes. Possibly because it was free today so there were no delays in ticket presentation.
As you enter the Louvre, you pass your bags through a fast moving x-ray machine, similar to airport security. Photos are allowed but no flash, although I watched hundreds of people taking flash photos and they were completely ignored.
We had Rick Steves' Louvre Tour in print, on my Blackberry Playbook, and his free audio download on my ipod with two sets of earbuds so we could both hear. We picked up a museum map at the information desk as you enter, under the big glass pyramid and then
headed up the escalator and stairways into the Denon Wing. There are bathrooms under this escalator and very few anywhere else in the museum so we paid them a visit before starting out. Each wing of this palace is huge with multiple rooms, stairways and hallways making it a confusing maze. You could go to this museum every day for a year and not see everything, so we chose to stick to Rick's 2-hour tour to make sure we saw the highlights he listed (Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, Mona Lisa, four other Leonardo da Vinci paintings, Michelangelo sculptures, and many other fabulous and famous works of art.
Our first highlight was the Venus de Milo, a stature of Aphrodite from the late 2nd century B.C. which was discovered in 1820 on the Greek island of Melos. From here we walked through a gallery of Greek statues from around the 5th century B.C. then through the Roman antiquities room mostly filled with sculptures and sarcophagi and mosaics.
From here we walked up a huge staircase to the next floor to see the Winged Victory statue at the top. This woman with wings once stood on an island hilltop
to commemorate a naval victory.
After this the Apollo Gallery which is about as ostentatious a room as you can imagine, covered in ornate gold leaf designs, painted ceilings with sculptures seemingly glued to every surface. This huge room contains everything from royal dinnerware to the crown jewels and crowns worn by St. Louis, Louis XV, Louis XVI and Napoleon.
A quick walk through the Medieval World section and the Italian Renaissance, brought us to a grouping of four paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. After this, we entered the Mona Lisa room.
This room was not as orderly as I expected. In fact, it was a mob scene! Hundred of people were squashed together trying to glimpse the Mona Lisa. We entered the crowd and patiently, gradually, pushed our way through to the very front where we could take our time enjoying a close view of this famous painting. The whole aura of the event was very exciting but the painting itself did not exactly take my breath away. The rope keeps you about 20 feet back and the painting is behind thick glass. Still, it was my highlight of the day.
French Neoclassical and Romanticism
painting sections followed this and there were many works of art that were incredible. Then we finally came to the two statues "Slaves" 1513-1515, by Michelangelo. Chris found these particularly moving and I have to admit that it really was exciting to see them and to be so close to them.
We ended our tour here and after buying our 6-day museum passes (to start on Tuesday), we left the Louvre and wandered through the Jardin des Tuileries gardens between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde. The gardens are full of ponds, statues, open air restaurants, paths and benches and we stopped long enough for a quick snack then headed out to catch the train home from the RER station across the Seine at Invalides at the Air France building.
After a quick 10 minute train ride we stopped at an open air café near our apartment for a bite to eat before walking home for Chris to begin cooking Beef Bourguignon for dinner! Vive la French cooking! Chris is enjoying everything from shopping for all fresh produce at local markets to planning and preparing her many specialties. And I have to admit, we are all
really enjoying it too!
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Arlene McKenzie
non-member comment
Breathtaking Photograph
I am loving your blog and your photography Roger. Thank you so much Garth for sharing this with me. This Eiffel Tower at sunrise is beyond beautiful.