Montmartre

Montmartre is the artists district, located on a hill. The buildings are mainly old and small, except for the big landmark, the basilica of Sacre-Coeur. The famous Moulin Rouge and our hotel, was also in Montmartre.

 
This view of Sacré-Coeur on the hill was visible close the hotel.




Place Pigalle with the famous Moulin Rouge.

Place Blanche with Moulin Rouge and the red neon lights at night.


Some incident had just happened in this area.










Street scenes from the artist neighbourhoods of Montmartre. From some streets you can see views where Tour Eiffel and Tour Montparnasse are popping up between the old houses.

Sacré-Coeur is the church on top of Montmartre, that looks like a wedding cake. The name means "the holy heart". It was built between the 1870s and 1914. The architecture is roman-bysantian. It can be seen from all tall towers and many hills of Paris. When we went inside the church, it felt very silent and relaxed compared to the bustling outside.






Views over Paris from Square Villette, just beneath the steps of Sacré-Coeur.


The funiculare that takes you down the hill from Sacre Coeur.

Attention! I must warn you for the metro sales shop right next to the funiculare! We wanted to buy some metro tickets valid for 5 days there from a young guy that said he couldn't speak a word English. He felt very stupid and unpolite as it was almost impossible to explain for him what kind of ticket we wanted. And he refused to receive any bills, just even money. So we had to change our bills in a nearby store. A kind woman who could speak English helped us explain to the guy what kind of tickets we wanted. Finally, we could buy our tickets for about 27 euros each (if I remember it correctly). Later at the hotel, we got aware from the man in the reception desk that we should pay only 13 euros for tickets and he said that people try to foul you if you don't speak French. But the strange thing is that there was a list on the window on the metro stop with the false price, so this idiot had even put lists with false prices on the window, that he probably change to when there are tourists.

One of the hilly streets in Montmartre. Picture from 2000.

Place du Tertre. This is the square where all the artists want to make paintings of the tourists. The basilica can be seen in the distance.
Picture from June 2000.

Hotel Vintimille. The place were we stayed. Our hotel was a "joker", that means that we didn't know what
hotel we should stay at until we reached Paris. It is a 2-star hotel in a residential area in Montmartre in the
6th arrondissement. It is situated just some blocks to the traffic hub Place Clichy and just a few blocks to
Place Pigalle, where Moulin Rouge is.

The hotel room and its view. The view was nice, but every morning people where franticly slamming their doors at least 2 times per minute!

A view from the hotel room. Typical French parking. Sometimes they tow away cars that have parked like this.

The night view from our room Hôtel Vintimille. Vintimille is the French name for Ventimiglia, a small city in Italy that I have been to twice.