Day Fifty One: Montmartre

November 10, 2017

Now, one day after our 50th perhaps we can safely say we are done with such an old relationship. But no, we can confidently say "There Ain't No Cure For Love".

Today is our day for touring Montmartre. We passed by one edge of it as we cycled from Gare du Nord to our hotel, past the Pigalle area and Moulin Rouge. But the heart of Montmartre is the Sacre Coeur and Place du Tertre, further north and east.

To prepare for our excursion, we first walked to "our" Levis St. market. We were after bread, cheese, charcuterie, fruit, vegetables, and maybe, chocolate. These of course are the necessary staples for an outing.

At our favourite bakery we did not spot the sesame or poppy baguettes we had seen yesterday. They said they were still working on them. So we settled for a multigrain. Looks good!

At the cheese store the hope was to repair the hole in our trip that happened when we failed to get into the Brie region (just near Paris) so as to eat Brie in Brie. Naturally the store had lots of Brie from Brie. In fact, many kinds. We got two. One came with a good story about its origins while the other came with a coating of coarse pepper on top. The pepper one turned out to be our favourite of the two.

At the butcher, we got the man to slice some roast pork. And at the fruit store we operated the machine that automatically slices and presses oranges, for tangy fresh juice.

On the chocolate front, we were into the shop "A la Mère de Famille" where we chose two truffles, at 3 euros each!

Our market street. We are getting to know not only the shops but also the people.

Making fresh orange juice. It's five euros per litre and of course so good.

Brie from Meaux, which is in the "Brie" region. In the region, the word "Brie" figures in many town names.

Meaux is east of Paris. You can see Coulommiers here, and also Melun - where we were on Day 47. To really enter the Brie region we needed to pedal just a little east (though Melun is

In the cheese store. The man was willing to slice any size we needed of most things, including Brie.

Here is some Coulommiers. It is half way in strength of flavour between most Brie and most Camembert.

Dodie at the fruit store - one of perhaps five. There is also fruit for sale in the Metro and all over. These are healthy choices!

At the chocolate shop. To be honest, we have experienced better quality.

All over Europe sandwiches like this are offered from many shops. They are almost always good quality. It's easy to forget how hard it can be to get something like this when you are wandering away from home in North America.

We made one more purchase. In the street the firemen were selling Paris Fireman calendars to raise money. This turned out to be not at all the lurid "fireman" calendar that you sometimes see in North America. Rather it had smallish black and white photos of firemen (and women) working around their equipment. The actual calendar part was low key too, showing the days of the month as a list, rather than a flamboyant grid. The list could be useful for cyclists, though, because the most prominent part of the display shows the holidays, which in France is 4 to 6 per month!

This pompier said he has been following a couple of cyclists who are currently in South America. This might be the same two that Michel told us about. We will check. Meanwhile, Dodie gave the pompier the link to our blog. If he checks it out, he will of course find his photo here.

Montmartre is a hill in the middle of Paris, of about 130 m high. The hill separates it from the rest of the city, and has allowed the existence of a sort of village atmosphere. The village has several main features or attractions. In the 19th and 20th centuries the mystique of Montmartre was created by painters who gathered there, it is often said for the village charm, light, and low rent. Delacroix, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin, Lautrec, Van Gogh, Picasso, Utrillo and others are associated with the place. Typically they would hang out in cafés or cabarets, some of which are still there.

The cabarets came into existence around the end of the 19th century - the Chat Noir, Divan Japonais, and Moulin Rouge, not to mention the Lapin Agile. The cabarets are still there, most notably the Moulin Rouge at the bottom of the hill.

At the very top of the hill there is the Sacre Coeur basilica. This has five or more dramatic domes and is built of white stone, making it an impressive centrepiece.

Finally, it seems the enigmatic but gripping film "Amelie" was set in Montmartre.

To save the knees, we took the little white tourist train from in front of Moulin Rouge, up to the basilica. There is also a funicular, which would have been a lot cheaper, but the train offered something of a tour so we went that way. The train dropped us beside the basilica and we began a stroll in the immediate vicinity. There is a square there called Place du Tertre, where artists have set up their stalls and easels. Mainly they are selling those quick sketches or caricatures done on the spot, but they also have a certain number of actual paintings on display. Sidewalk artists aside, I do not know if there are still any serious artists with studios in the area.

The main thing you see in walking around Montmartre is souvenir shops and creperies, plus hundreds of tourists. We are not disparaging that, because we like souvenirs, and crepes, and of course we are tourists. To illustrate that in frightening detail, we bought ten, yes ten, Eiffel tower keychains.

Some bits of old Montmartre are still there to see, though. For example the cafes La Bonne Franquette and Le Consulat, which were celebrated artists' hangouts.

The Sacre Coeur basilica as seen from much lower on the Montmartre hill.

Images from Montmartre - this guy was really good, but strangely when we gave him a donation he remained motionless

We spotted this cameraman, plus catering vans and at least one person in costume.

Dodie went up to some of the movie people and learned that they were Americans, making an 8 part Amazon streaming video series.

Sacre Coeur is not only exciting to look at outside, but it has a very zippy interior too. The centrepiece is a full ceiling mosaic showing Jesus and friends with outstretched arms on a blue background, and with his golden (sacre) heart emitting presumably cosmic rays.

While were there a mass was begun, so we enjoyed listening to the organ. They also had a singing nun - bringing back inspired memories of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostella.

Outside, from the vantage point of the hill there are tremendous views of Paris. We have seen a few great cities now, but oh, Paris!

In the little train going down they were playing music, like things from Editf Piaf. It suddenly struck me, they are not trying to sound "like" Paris - this is Paris! (and by some magic we are here).

Back in our own neighbourhood we again bought praline almonds from a man with a little flame and wok like pan. They are super good, probably as good as Mazet - which we will know when and if we have the courage to open their fancy package. Meanwhile for 3 euros we gobbled up a big bag of them, still warm.

In the Levis market street we jumped the gun a little on tomorrow's plan. Tomorrow is the day to go to the big department stores and look for kids' clothes. But we stumbled on a shop with the sort of strange name of "Du pareil au meme", or DPAM. It's a large chain of kids clothes stores that apparently has been around for 40 years and exists all over France. That's news to us. But we thought their stuff was beautiful. Of course we are not showing what, if anything, we got, but there are a few illustrative photos here. And tomorrow we are still going out shopping, so there!

Back in our own neighbourhood, we again found the praline man.

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