A Final Stop: Montmartre

The Abbesses stop, designed by Hector Guimard

Yesterday was my last full day in Paris. It was cool and sunny (for the most part), and I decided to finally see a part of Paris that I had heard about but never visited: Montmartre. Montmartre is famous for its nightclubs - like the Moulin Rouge and Le Chat Noir - and as a neighborhood where numerous late 19th and 20th century artists lived and worked. Reading their names is like a role-call of the important painters of the last hundred-some years: Salvador Dali, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas... and the list goes on.

I got to Montmartre from Montparnasse by taking Metro line 13 to Montparnasse-Bienvenue and then switching to the 12 and taking it all the way to the famous Abbesses stop with its original art nouveau sign (only three of these are left in Paris). I climbed the long spiral staircase - the stop is 36 meters underground - and stepped out into the beautiful arrondissement of Montmartre.

Artists' kiosks outside a cafe in Montmartre

The streets of Montmartre are charming, overflowing with cafes, creperies, corner markets, and enticing boutiques. It was a pleasure just to wander, but the real fun began when I climbed up the stairs toward the basilica of Sacre Coeur and found myself in a square filled with artists. Charles Aznavour may lament that Montmartre may not be the artists' colony it once was, but the place is still full of aspiring artists practicing their crafts among the crowds of tourists. Some of them are quite aggressive as well - I stopped to watch as one artist cut a little girl's silhouette out of paper in a matter of seconds and before I knew it he was cutting mine as well. It was such an unusual souvenir that I ended up buying it from him - at the somewhat expensive price of 15 euros. I don't know how many customers these artists get during the day, but it's clear that "starving" is no longer an appropriate epithet for the Montmartre artists.

Rue Chappe

After seeing the impressive basilica of Sacre Coeur, I wandered the picturesqu streets looking for the one souvenir my dad wanted from Paris - a photograph of the Montmartre steps that appear in the famous photograph by Brassai. I knew only the photograph and had no idea what the name of the street was or where to find it. I had thought that such a long flight of steps would be somewhat obvious, but what I hadn't realized was that all of Montmartre is a big hill and long flights of steps are everywhere. I finally found a postcard of the same spot and bought it. It had the name of the street on the back - Rue Chappe - and I stopped in a boulangerie and then a mini market showing the postcard around and asking where I could find these particular steps. The second attempt led to success and I spent ten minutes taking shots of the stairs from all angles.

My last stop was Cafe Chappe at the bottom of the stairs. After walking up and down a hill for several hours, I was in need of some refreshment, so I ordered a glass of wine and indulged in that most Parisian pastime - watching the world go by through the window of a cafe.

Copyright 2010 Sara Harding