A weekend trip to Paris #4 - Montmartre

After the Louvre, we walked along the Seine River to the Musee D'Orsey, but it was closed due to the strike action.

Looking at our maps, we decided to catch the Metro to a suburb of Paris renowned for its link to artistic culture, Montmatre.

Montmartre sits on a hill, but the underground Metro does not match the surface terrain, so we had 181 stairs to climb from the platform to the street (that fact is courtesy of Alexander and Cameron!).

We then had another big hill to climb to reach the Sacre Ceur Church, with about another 150 steps. From here you could get another really good view over Paris, back to the Eiffel tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

The rains had cleared off and it was overcase but fine. Being a trendy, arty part of Paris it attracted 3 specific types - the arty Parisians, the tourists looking for arty Parisians, and all the 'hangers on' selling stuff or trying to be 'arty'.
There was an excellent guitarist playing on the stairs of the church, and street performers working in the courtyard below. There were a few of those 'human statues' and lots of tourists soaking up the atmosphere. We ventured around to Place du Tetre, the local square where artists sell their wares in a small market.

We walked around admiring some of the excellent paintings, as well as the prices they were charging. We had many offers by vendors to do portraits of the boys. One guy went from 70 EUR per boy down to 40 EUR for the two of them! We wandered down the local streets, bought a few souvenirs and post cards, and stopped for delicious Cafe au laits and crepes.
It is a really interesting corner of Paris, particularly on a Saturday afternoon. We then caught the Metro (after all of those steps) back down to Central Paris, found a restaurant in the Latin Quarter again for dinner, and then walked back to the apartment, past the Eiffel Tower again. Another fantastic day touring in Paris.