Montmartre

Today I took the métro across town to Montmartre. It's an interesting neighborhood. It is basically situating up a hill, or mountain (hence "mont"). There are adorable cobblestone streets that lead everywhere, and on the steep streets there are steps (à la steep San Francisco streets!). There are tons of cafés and shops everywhere, all along every street.


We found ourselves right next to a very old cemetery, where Alexandre Dumas is buried. It was an an interesting mixture of creepy and beautiful. Creepy, because there were all these huge sepulchres surrounding us. But beautiful because a lot of them were artful and decorated.

We kept walking around and came to the Moulin Rouge (location of the hit film, "Moulin Rouge!"). It was really touristy; tons of people were taking pictures and standing outside of it. It used to be a famous dance hall where they had can-can dances and big shows.

We then walked straight up the hill to the Sacre Coeur. This is a huge Catholic church (it means Sacred Heart in French). The church is located right a the top of the mountain, and there are a bunch of steps that lead up to it. The view from the top was amazing though - we could see so much of Paris. I realized that Paris isn't much of a skyscraper city. The skyline is pretty ambiguous, except for the Eiffle Tower, of course. There was a mass going on in the church, but we walked around inside of it and saw some of it. Kind of big and dark. Supposedly, they built it to mourn for all the dead and to prevent any future wars (I think.. this might be totally wrong!).

Then we walked some more and came to Place du Tertre, a square atop the hill where painters and artisans do work out in the open. It was a beautiful little spot, and we saw more cafés and shops. I could not get over how cute the buildings and streets looked! I kept wanting to say, "This looks like a little back alleyway of some European city!" and lo and behold, it was.

You can see the rest of my pictures here:

Montmartre