MONTMARTRE

montmartre...oh montmartre! lovers, dreamers, artists. i love montmartre! it started out as a quest to find the infamous burlesque club le moulin rouge (oh how i love the moulin rouge!), and in my study abroad we have this class called paris walks where we... take walks... anyway, it's a really great way to explore the city and to see things that we never knew we needed to explore. we found that there is a walk in montmarte that ends by the moulin rouge, so we decided to make a day of it.

the first stop on our walk was the sacre coeur. few times in my life have i loved something as much as i love the sacre coeur. montmartre is at the top of a hill, so you either take all those stairs, or you take the little metro car (we are lazy so metro car)

when you get to the top of the hill, sacre coeur is even higher up, so you get the most beautiful view of the city. there are also street performers on the steps of sacre coeur. we saw a drummer and a mime. also, we had to do a gossip girl moment on the steps of the sacre coeur because of course, and the sacre coeur is way better than the met. 

sacre coeur is incredible. it's huge and no pictures are allowed inside, but my most favorite part of the church is when you are around the back, and you look up and between the arches, it looks like you can see heaven. they have mosaics that are so beautiful on the ceilings. you gotta go sometime. 

after sacre coeur we went to the saint-pierre church, which was less stunning than the sacre coeur basilica, but still beautiful. 

montmartre is a kind of neighborhood/separate part from the city. it's known for it's artists who would come and paint along the road in the place du tertre. it's kind of like a town square, and it's still teaming with artists. we ate lunch in the square and watched the artists paint. there's a very cool vibe in the town. you can feel the spirit of creativity of the history there. 

 

we walked through the town and it's stunning. we saw the oldest house in montmartre, which is also where renoir lived and painted (!!!).

la maison rose was a popular place for pablo picasso and gertrude stein.

the next area we went to is called the bateau-lavoir, or the laundry boat. nine or ten artists at a time would live here in this little sanctuary and paint. it is so peaceful and beautiful.

this next place we went to is called the moulin de la galette, which used to be an outdoor dance hall, and also what renoir painted in this painting. 

^^^that blue door is where van gogh lived

and last but not least, le moulin rouge!!! i willlll looooove youuuuuu foreverrrrr and everrrr!