From Sacré-Cœur to the Moulin Rouge
2 Sacré-Cœur Basilica and View
4 Church of St-Pierre de Montmartre
6 Place du Tertre: Bohemian Montmartre
10 Montmartre Museum and Satie’s House
15 Le Bateau-Lavoir (Picasso’s Studio)
18 Moulin Rouge
19 Pig Alley
Stroll along the hilltop of Butte Montmartre amid traces of the many people who’ve lived here over the years—monks stomping grapes (1200s), farmers grinding grain in windmills (1600s), dust-coated gypsum miners (1700s), Parisian liberals (1800s), Modernist painters (1900s), and all the struggling artists, poets, dreamers, and drunkards who came here for cheap rent, untaxed booze, rustic landscapes, and cabaret nightlife. In the jazzy 1920s, the neighborhood became the haunt of American GIs and expat African Americans (who experienced less discrimination here than in the US at that time). Today it’s a youthful neighborhood in transition—slightly seedy, très trendy, and ever-more touristy.
Many tourists make the almost obligatory trek to the top of Paris’ Butte Montmartre, eat an overpriced crêpe, marvel at the view—and miss out on the neighborhood’s quirky charm and history. Both are uncovered in this stroll. We’ll ascend to the gleaming Sacré-Cœur Basilica, wander through the hilltop village, browse affordable art, ogle the Moulin Rouge nightclub, and catch echoes of those who once partied to a bohemian rhapsody during the belle époque.
Length of This Walk: Allow at least two hours for this two-mile uphill/downhill walk.
When to Go: To minimize crowds at Sacré-Cœur, come on a weekday or by 9:30 on a weekend. Sunny weekends are the busiest—especially Sunday, when Montmartre becomes a pedestrian-only zone and most shops stay open. If crowds don’t get you down, come for the sunset and stay for dinner. This walk is best under clear skies, when views are sensational.
Getting There: This walk begins at Place des Abbesses (Mo: Abbesses). Nearby stops include Anvers and Pigalle. (Expect some seediness around Anvers and Pigalle, and avoid the sketchy Métro station Barbès-Rochechouart completely.)
From Place des Abbesses, we’ll walk a few level blocks and then take the funicular (1-minute ride, Métro passes valid) to the base of Sacré-Cœur. A taxi from the Seine or the Bastille to Sacré-Cœur costs about €20 (€25 at night).
Scam Alert: At Sacré-Cœur and in the areas around the Pigalle and Anvers Métro stations, beware of pickpockets, mobile phone snatchings, the shell game, and the “found ring” and “friendship bracelet” scams (for more on scams, see here).
Sacré-Cœur: Church—free, daily 6:30-22:30; dome—€7, not covered by Museum Pass, daily 10:00-18:00, June-Sept until 19:00, Jan-Feb until 17:00; modest dress required.
Church of St-Pierre de Montmartre: Free, Tue-Fri 9:00-12:00 & 15:00-18:00, Sat 9:00-19:00, Sun until 18:00, closed Mon.
Dalí Museum (Dalí Paris): €14, not covered by Museum Pass, daily 10:00-18:00, audioguide-€3, 11 Rue Poulbot, +33 1 42 64 40 10, www.daliparis.com.
Montmartre Museum: €15, not covered by Museum Pass, daily 10:00-19:00, Dec-March until 18:00, last entry 45 minutes before closing, 12 Rue Cortot.
Services: Pay WCs are outside Sacré-Cœur, down the stairs to the left as you leave the church (daily 10:00-18:00). Others are in the Square Suzanne Buisson park (north of #14 on this tour); in the Montmartre Museum (best); at the souvenir shop at the top of the funicular; and in any cafés you patronize.
Eating: The starting point, Place des Abbesses, has some great spots for morning coffee and croissants. You’ll find peaceful, picnic-ready benches all along this walk as well as a patch of grass in the park on the back side of the basilica. Good sandwiches are available from the award-winning bakeries along Rue des Abbesses, which also features several picnic-friendly cheese, wine, and fruit stalls and a fine selection of cafés. See here for more restaurant and café recommendations.
Neighborhood Shopping Street: Appealing Rue des Martyrs runs for six blocks below Place Pigalle and feels a world apart from Montmartre. Featuring eye-popping bakeries, trendy cafés, and delicious food shops, it ends at a handy Métro station (see the Rue des Martyrs boutique stroll in the Shopping in Paris chapter).
Starring: Cityscape views, Sacré-Cœur, postcard scenes brought to life, a charming market street, and boring buildings where interesting people once lived.
• From the Abbesses Métro stop, take the elevator up and surface through one of the original Art Nouveau “Métropolitain” entrances.
Our tour starts in the heart of today’s Montmartre. While the neighborhood center has shifted from the top of the hill to here, the bohemian vibe lives on. Place des Abbesses and its surrounding streets are lively with cafés, bars, and rustic charm. Young Parisian hipsters (called bobos, or bourgeois bohemians) flock to Montmartre—as their forebears did—for cheaper rent, less urban noise, a lively arts community, and plenty of nightlife.
Named for an abbey that it once abutted, this perfectly Parisian square revolves around its carousel with just enough benches to meet demand. It’s bordered by a small park, strollable lanes, and an unusual brick church (St-Jean de Montmartre, completed in 1904). This was the first building in Paris to use reinforced concrete and steel in this manner, which allowed for much faster and cheaper construction (worth a quick look inside). Romantics should wander into the small park to find the Mur des je t’aime (the “I Love You Wall”), a tiled area along the park’s wall with “I love you” written artfully in about a hundred different languages.
The main drag, Rue des Abbesses, is lined with shops, bakeries, pâtisseries, and restaurants (great for breakfast and lunch). You could explore the street now, but our walk will also return to this street later.
• Leave Place des Abbesses, heading east on Rue Yvonne le Tac (passing right by La Poste). You’ll pass a few cafés. At the end of the block, Le Progrès has great café ambience. Veer slightly left onto Rue Tardieu and walk a block to the park below Sacré-Cœur. To get up the hill, you can either climb the 200 steps or take the funicular (expect to wait in line). At the top, find a good viewing spot on the steps of the church.
From Paris’ highest natural point (430 feet), the City of Light fans out at your feet. Pan from left to right. The long triangular roof on your left is the Gare du Nord train station. The blue-and-red Pompidou Center is straight ahead, and the skyscrapers in the distance define the southern limit of Paris. Next is the domed Panthéon, atop Paris’ other (and far smaller) butte. Then, standing solo to the right, comes the modern Montparnasse Tower, and finally (if you’re in position to see this far to the right) the golden dome of Les Invalides. The grassy park below was once dotted with openings to gypsum mines, the source of the white “plaster of Paris” that plastered Paris’ buildings for centuries.
Now turn and face the church. The Sacré-Cœur (Sacred Heart) Basilica’s exterior, with its onion domes and bleached-bone pallor, looks ancient, but it was finished only a century ago by Parisians humiliated by German invaders. Roman Catholics built it as a kind of penance for how the surrounding neighborhood sowed rebelliousness and division. Many French people were disgusted that in 1871 their government actually shot its own citizens, the Communards, who held out here on Montmartre after the French leadership surrendered to the Prussians (the Communards’ monument is in Père Lachaise Cemetery—read about their story on here).
The five-domed, Roman-Byzantine-looking basilica took nearly 40 years to build (1875-1914). It stands on a foundation of 83 pillars sunk 130 feet deep, necessary because the ground beneath was honeycombed with gypsum mines. The exterior is made of travertine limestone, which exudes calcite when it rains, turning the building whiter.
• Join the security line to get inside.
Crowd flow permitting, pause (sit in a pew) near the entrance and take in the nave.
A View of the Nave: In the impressive mosaic high above the altar, a 60-foot-tall Christ exposes his sacred heart, burning with love and compassion for humanity. Joining him are a dove representing the Holy Spirit and God the Father high above. Christ is flanked by biblical figures on the left (including St. Peter, kneeling) and French figures on the right (a kneeling Joan of Arc in her trademark armor). If you get closer, you’ll see other French figures: clergymen (who offer a model of this church to the Lord), government leaders (in business suits), and French saints, including St. Bernard (above, with his famous dog) and Louis IX, the king known as Saint Louis (with the crown of thorns). Remember, the church was built by a French populace recently humbled by a devastating war. At the base of the mosaic is the National Vow of the French people begging God’s forgiveness: “Sacritissimo Cordi Jesu Gallia poenitens et devota...”—which means, “To the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we are penitent and devoted.” Right now, in this church, at least one person is praying for Christ to be understanding of the world’s sins—part of a tradition that’s been carried out here, day and night, 24/7, since Sacré-Cœur’s completion a century ago.
• Start shuffling clockwise around the church. Near the entrance, find the white...
B Statue of St. Thérèse: Follow Thérèse’s gaze to a pillar with a plaque (“L’an 1944...”). The plaque’s map shows where, on April 21, 1944, 13 bombs fell on Montmartre in an Allied air raid during World War II—all in a line, all near the church—killing no one. This fueled local devotion to the Sacred Heart and to this church.
• Continue up the side aisle to the apse and find a...
C Scale Model of the Church: This early-version model shows the church from the long side (you’d enter at the left), and though it doesn’t accurately reflect the finished product, it’s close. You see its central dome surrounded by smaller domes and the tower. The “Byzantine” style is clear in the onion domes and in the heavy horseshoe arches atop slender columns. The church is built of large rectangular blocks (just look around you), with no attempt to plaster over the cracks/lines in between.
• Continue along, looking to the right at...
D Colorful Mosaics of the 14 Stations of the Cross (about 10 feet high with Roman numerals): At #7, pause to rub St. Peter’s bronze foot and look up to the heavens. After #14, you’ll meet a solid silver statue of Christ with his sacred heart.
• Continue your circuit around the church.
E Stained-Glass Windows: Because the church’s original stained-glass windows were broken by the concussive force of WWII bombs, all the glass you see is post-1945.
• As you approach the entrance, you’ll walk straight toward three stained-glass windows dedicated in 1947 to...
F Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc, 1412-1431): See the teenage girl as she hears the voice of the Archangel Michael (right panel, at bottom) and later takes up the Archangel’s sword (above on the same panel). Next, she kneels to take communion (central panel, bottom), then kneels before the bishop to tell him she’s been sent by God to rally France’s soldiers and save Orléans from English invaders (central panel, top). However, Burgundian forces allied with England arrest her, and she’s burned at the stake as a heretic (left panel), dying with her eyes fixed on a crucifix and chanting, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...”
• Exit the church. A public WC is to your left (when open), down 50 steps. To your right is the entrance to the church’s...
G Dome: For an unobstructed panoramic view of Paris, climb 260 feet (292 steps) up the tight, claustrophobic, spiral stairs to the top of the dome.
• Leaving the church, turn right and walk west along the ridge, following tree-lined Rue Azaïs. Turn right at the first street (Rue St. Eleuthère) and walk uphill a block to the Church of St-Pierre de Montmartre (at top on right). The small square in front of the church has a bus stop for little electric bus #40 that winds through the neighborhood to and from Place des Abbesses.
You’re in the heart of Montmartre, by Place du Tertre. A sign for the Cabaret de la Bohème reminds visitors that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this was the world capital of bohemian life. But before we plunge into that tourist mosh pit, let’s see where this whole Montmartre thing first got its start—in a church.
This church was the center of Montmartre’s initial claim to fame, a sprawling abbey of Benedictine monks and nuns. The church is one of Paris’ oldest (1147). Look down the nave at the Gothic arches and its modern (post-WWII) stained glass. The church was founded by King Louis VI and his wife, Adelaide. Montmartre’s growing population in the late 1800s overwhelmed this small church, leading to the construction of the church of St-Jean de Montmartre (where this walk started).
Flanking the entrance (behind you) are two dark Corinthian columns that date to ancient times. These may have stood in a temple of Mercury or Mars in Roman times. The name “Montmartre” comes from the Roman “Mount of Mars,” though later generations—thinking of their beheaded patron St. Denis—preferred a less pagan version, “Mount of Martyrs.”
Speaking of martyrs, walk up the right-side aisle to find a white statue of Montmartre’s most famous martyr: St. Denis, holding his head in his hands. This early Christian bishop was sentenced to death by the Romans for spreading Christianity. As they marched him up to the top of Montmartre to be executed, the Roman soldiers got tired and just beheaded him near here. But Denis popped right up, picked up his head, and carried on another three miles north before he finally died.
To the right of Denis, the statue of “Notre-Dame de Montmartre” marks a modern miracle—how the Virgin spared the neighborhood from the WWII bombs of April 21, 1944.
Before leaving, rub St. Peter’s toe, look up, and ask for déliverance from the tourist mobs outside.
• Now step back outside. Before entering the crowded Place du Tertre, get a quick taste of the area by making a short detour to the right down Rue du Mont-Cenis. These days it’s lined with cafés and shops. But back in the day, #13 Rue du Mont-Cenis was the...
This building (20 yards down a long entryway, now a pleasant art gallery—with serious art rather than touristy posters—run by friendly Julien and Sophie Roussard) is where singer Edith Piaf (1915-1963) once trilled “La Vie en Rose” to an intimate crowd of 80 diners. (Notice the historic photos just before the door.) Piaf—a destitute teenager who sang for pocket change in the streets of pre-WWII Paris—was discovered by a nightclub owner and became a star. Her singing inspired the people of Nazi-occupied Paris. In the heady days after the war, she sang about the joyous, rosy life in the city. For more on this warbling-voiced singer, see here.
• Head back uphill to the always-lively square, and stand on its cusp for the best perspective of...
Lined with cafés, shaded by acacia trees, and filled with artists, hucksters, and tourists, the scene mixes charm and kitsch in ever-changing proportions. Place du Tertre has been the town square of the small village of Montmartre since medieval times. (Tertre means “stepped lanes” in French.)
In 1800, a wall separated Paris from this hilltop village. To enter Paris, you had to pass tollbooths that taxed anything for sale. Montmartre was a mining community where the wine flowed cheap (tax-free) and easy. Life here was a working-class festival of cafés, bistros, and dance halls. Painters came here for the ruddy charm, the light, and the low rent. In 1860, Montmartre was annexed into the growing city of Paris. The “bohemian” ambience survived, and it attracted sophisticated Parisians ready to get down and dirty in the belle époque of cancan. The La Mère Catherine restaurant is often called the first bistro—this is where Russian soldiers first coined the word by saying, “I’m thirsty, bring my drink bistro!” (meaning “right away”).
The square’s artists, who, at times, outnumber the tourists, are the great-great-grandkids of the Renoirs, Van Goghs, and Picassos who once roamed here—poor, carefree, seeking inspiration, and occasionally cursing a world too selfish to bankroll their dreams.
• Plunge headlong into the square—filled with tourists paying €50 for a 20-minute portrait (more for color)—meet an artist, sip an espresso, then continue west along the main drag, called...
Montmartre’s oldest and main street is still the primary commercial artery, serving the current trade—tourism.
• If you’re a devotee of Dalí, a detour left on Rue Poulbot will lead you to the...
This beautifully lit black gallery offers a walk through more than 300 statues, etchings, and drawings by the master of Surrealism. The Spaniard found fame in Paris in the 1920s and ’30s. He lived in Montmartre for a while, hung with the Surrealist crowd in Montparnasse, and shocked the world with his dreamscape paintings and experimental films.
• Return to Rue Norvins and continue west a dozen steps to the picturesque intersection with Rue des Saules. You’ve arrived at...
We’re leaving most tourists behind and entering the residential part of Montmartre. Pause to survey the colorful jumble of classic storefronts, cafés, and charm. Walk to the golden souvenir shop on the left (#12)—formerly a venerable old boulangerie that dated from 1900. This spot was a favorite place for the artist Maurice Utrillo to paint (see sidebar, later). From here, look back up Rue Norvins to the dome of Sacré-Cœur rising above the rooftops—a classic scene Utrillo famously captured. Cross to the front of La Bonne Franquette restaurant and look right up Rue Saint-Rustique for another Utrillo scene.
• Let’s lose the tourists completely. Follow Rue des Saules downhill (north) onto the back side of Montmartre. Enjoy the “Van Gogh in Paris” info panels along the way. A block downhill, turn right on Rue Cortot to reach the...
In what is now the Montmartre Museum (at #12), Pierre-Auguste Renoir once lived while painting his best-known work, Bal du Moulin de la Galette. Every day he’d lug the four-foot-by-six-foot canvas from here to the other side of the butte to paint in the open air the famous windmill ballroom, which we’ll see later.
A few years later, Utrillo lived and painted here with his mom, Suzanne Valadon. In 1893, Valadon carried on a torrid six-month relationship with the lonely, eccentric man who lived two doors up at #6—composer Erik Satie, who wrote Trois Gymnopédies and was eking out a living playing piano in Montmartre nightclubs.
The Montmartre Museum offers the best look at the artistic golden age of this neighborhood (1870-1910)—and has the best public WCs on the hill. The museum’s collection of paintings, posters, old photos, music, and memorabilia is split between two creaky 17th-century manor houses separated by a sweet little garden. An eight-minute film narrated by an actress playing Utrillo’s mother, Suzanne Valadon, provides the perfect introduction to the world of the bohemian artists—Renoir, Picasso, Edith Piaf, Toulouse-Lautrec, and more—who lived on Montmartre before and after the construction of Sacré-Cœur.
Next, pass through the garden to find the first house’s entry (before entering, continue to the end of the short stone path for great views over Montmartre’s vineyard).
Inside, you’ll learn about the butte’s 2,000-year history and see photos of the gypsum quarries and flour-grinding windmills of the Industrial Age. Montmartre’s cabaret years come to life here—there’s the original Lapin Agile sign, the famous Chat Noir poster, and Toulouse-Lautrec’s dashing portrait of red-scarved Aristide Bruant, the earthy singer, comedian, and club owner. You’ll see more Toulouse-Lautrec posters and displays about the biggest and most famous cabaret of all: the cancan-kickers of the Moulin Rouge.
The second house holds temporary exhibits relevant to Montmartre (usually well worth a look), as well as the museum’s highlight (hiding on the top floor): the tiny apartment and painting studio of Maurice Utrillo.
Before leaving, take a moment to reflect on this remarkable era by enjoying a coffee or lunch at the sun-dappled garden café. Rarely has so much artistic talent and creative energy been concentrated in one place at the same time.
• Return to Rue des Saules and walk downhill to...
The restaurant, made famous by an Utrillo painting, was once frequented by Utrillo, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein. Today it serves decent cuisine to nostalgic tourists.
• Just downhill from the restaurant is Paris’ last remaining vineyard.
What originally drew artists to Montmartre was country charm like this. Ever since the 12th century, the monks and nuns of the large abbey have produced wine from here. With vineyards, wheat fields, windmills, animals, and a village tempo of life, it was the perfect escape from grimy Paris. In 1576, puritanical laws taxed wine in Paris, bringing budget-minded drinkers outside the Paris city gates to Montmartre. Today’s vineyard is off-limits to tourists except during the annual grape-harvest fest (first Sat in Oct, www.fetedesvendangesdemontmartre.com), when a thousand costumed locals bring back the boisterous old days. The vineyard’s annual production of 300 liters is auctioned off at the fest to support local charities. Bottles sell for more than €50 and are considered mediocre at best.
• Continue downhill to the intersection with Rue St. Vincent, or save your energy by skipping the descent and reading about the next stop from where you are.
The poster above the door gives the place its name. A rabbit (lapin) makes an agile leap out of the pot while balancing the bottle of wine that he can now drink—rather than be cooked in. This was the village’s hot spot. Artists and writers including Picasso, Renoir, Utrillo, Paul Verlaine, Aristide Bruant, and Amedeo Modigliani would gather for “performances” of serious poetry, dirty limericks, sing-alongs, parodies of the famous, or readings of anarchist manifestos. Once, to play a practical joke on the avant-garde art community, patrons tied a paintbrush to the tail of the owner’s donkey and entered the resulting “abstract painting” in a show at the Salon. Called Sunset over the Adriatic, it won critical acclaim and sold for a nice price.
The old Parisian personality of this cabaret survives, where several nights a week, performers take a small, French-speaking audience on a wistful musical journey back to the good old days (for details, see here).
• Backtrack to La Maison Rose and head downhill on Rue de l’Abreuvoir for a break from the crowds and a short exploration of residential Montmartre. Find the statue of Dalida, a Madonna-like pop star who ended her life in Paris in 1987. Behind her, take narrow Allée des Brouillards and enter Square Suzanne Buisson. Take a seat by the pétanque court, where Bishop Denis is waiting for the next players; be sure to close the low gate to prevent dogs from making it their play area. Exit the park on the left side of the playground and head up and right on Rue Girardon. You’ll come to a fine view of a windmill, the...
Only two windmills (moulins) remain on a hill that was once dotted with 30 of them. Originally, they pressed monks’ grapes and farmers’ grain and crushed gypsum rocks into powdery plaster of Paris. When the gypsum mines closed (c. 1850) and the vineyards sprouted apartments, the grounds around these windmills were turned into the ceremonial centerpiece of a popular outdoor dance hall. Renoir’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette (in the Orsay—see here) shows it in its heyday—a sunny Sunday afternoon in the acacia-shaded gardens with working-class people dancing, laughing, drinking, and eating the house crêpes, called galettes. Some call Renoir’s version the quintessential Impressionist work and the painting that best captures—on a large canvas in bright colors—the joy of the Montmartre lifestyle. The namesake restaurant inside is well respected and worth considering.
• Facing Le Moulin, turn left, heading downhill on narrow Rue d’Orchampt. Stop where it curves left and look right to see a memorial plaque to Dalida (whose statue you saw earlier). Notice how her friends refer to themselves as “Montmartrois,” not Parisians. Continue along Rue d’Orchampt and turn right on Rue Ravignan. Next to the Timhotel, at 13 Place Emile Goudeau, is another studio that Picasso lived in.
A humble facade marks the place where modern art was born. In this lowly abode (destroyed by fire in 1970 and rebuilt a few years later), as many as 10 artists lived and worked. Formerly a piano factory, it was converted into cheap housing and earned the nickname “the Laundry Boat” for its swaying, creaking, and crude facilities (sharing one water tap). It was “a weird, squalid place,” wrote one resident, “filled with every kind of noise: arguing, singing, bedpans clattering, slamming doors, and suggestive moans coming from studio doors.”
In 1904, a poor, unknown Spanish émigré named Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) moved in. He met dark-haired Fernande Olivier, his first real girlfriend, in Place Emile Goudeau, the romantic square outside. She soon moved in, lifting him out of his melancholy Blue Period into his rosy Rose Period. La belle Fernande posed nude for him, inspiring a freer treatment of the female form.
In 1907, Picasso started on a major canvas. For nine months he produced hundreds of preparatory sketches, working long into the night. When he unveiled the work, even his friends were shocked. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon showed five nude women in a brothel (Fernande claimed they were all her), with primitive masklike faces and fragmented bodies. Picasso had invented Cubism.
For the next two years, he and his neighbors Georges Braque and Juan Gris revolutionized the art world. Sharing paints, ideas, and girlfriends, they made Montmartre “The Cubist Acropolis,” attracting freethinking “Moderns” from all over the world to visit their studios—the artists Amedeo Modigliani, Marie Laurencin, and Henri Rousseau; the poet Guillaume Apollinaire; and the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein. By the time Picasso moved to better quarters (and dumped Fernande), he was famous. Still, Picasso would later say, “I know one day we’ll return to Bateau-Lavoir. It was there that we were really happy—where they thought of us as painters, not strange animals.”
• Go a few steps downhill to the railing of Place Emile Goudeau and marvel at Paris. While the rest of this tour is a lot of walking and thin on sights, it’s a great chance to simply enjoy a vibrant Parisian neighborhood.
Now descend 10 steps and continue straight down Rue Ravignan. You’ll pass an inviting café with fine terrace seating and views, and the Pâtisserie Gilles Marchal, selling top-end treats. Continue down Rue Ravignan to the T-intersection with Rue des Abbesses. (At this point, you could turn left to return to Place des Abbesses, where we started our walk—with several good lunch options.) To continue this walk, turn right on Rue des Abbesses. Continue a few blocks on this thriving neighborhood street, past bakeries, cheese shops, and tempting cafés. When you come to Rue Lepic, consider a short detour uphill on that street to #54, where you’ll find...
Vincent van Gogh lived here with his brother Theo from 1886 to 1888, enjoying a grand city view from his third-floor window. In those two short years, Van Gogh transformed from a gloomy Dutch painter of brown and gray peasant scenes into an inspired visionary with wild ideas and Impressionist colors.
• Retrace your steps down Rue Lepic to Rue des Abbesses and make a hard right at #36 (still Rue Lepic). Proceed downhill on Rue Lepic, now a lively market street. Take in the small shops and bustling ambience. Two blocks down, on the corner to your right (at #15), you’ll find the pink...
For some time after it was featured in the quirky 2001 film Amélie, this café was a pilgrimage site for movie buffs worldwide (see the photo over the bar). Today it’s just another funky place with unassuming ambience and reasonably priced food and drinks, frequented by the next generation of real-life Amélies who ignore the movie poster on the back wall.
• Continue downhill on Rue Lepic to Place Blanche. On busy Place Blanche is the...
Oh là là. The new Eiffel Tower at the 1889 World’s Fair was nothing compared to the sight of pretty cancan girls kicking their legs at the newly opened “Red Windmill.” The nightclub seemed to sum up the belle époque—the age of elegance, opulence, sophistication, and worldliness. The big draw was amateur night, when working-class girls in risqué dresses danced “Le Quadrille” (dubbed “cancan” by a Brit). Wealthy Parisians slummed it by coming here.
On most nights you’d see a small man in a sleek black coat, checked pants, a green scarf, and a bowler hat peering through his pince-nez glasses at the dancers and making sketches of them—Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Perhaps he’d order an absinthe, the dense green liqueur (evil ancestor of today’s pastis) that was the toxic muse for so many great (and so many forgotten) artists. Toulouse-Lautrec’s sketches of dancers Jane Avril and Louise Weber, known as La Goulue, hang in the Orsay (see reproductions in the entryway).
After its initial splash, the Moulin Rouge survived as a venue for all kinds of entertainment. In 1906, the novelist Colette kissed her female lover onstage, and the homophobic authorities closed the “Dream of Egypt” down. Yves Montand opened for Edith Piaf (1944), and the two fell in love offstage. It has hosted such diverse acts as Ginger Rogers, Dalida, and the Village People—together on one bill (1979). Mikhail Baryshnikov leaped across its stage (1986). And the club celebrated its centennial (1989) with Ray Charles, Tony Curtis, Ella Fitzgerald, and a French favorite...Jerry Lewis.
Tonight they’re showing...well, find out for yourself: Walk into the open-air entryway or step into the lobby to mull over the photos, show options, and prices. Tickets start at about €150. Their souvenir shop is back up Rue Lepic a few steps at #9.
• Our tour is over. The Blanche Métro stop is here in Place Blanche. (Plaster of Paris from the gypsum found on this mount was loaded sloppily at Place Blanche...the white square.)
If you want more, you can stroll eastward down racy Boulevard de Clichy (known as “Pig Alley”), where you’ll find another Métro stop (Pigalle) and the start of my Rue des Martyrs boutique stroll (see the Shopping in Paris chapter).
The stretch of the Boulevard de Clichy from Place Blanche to Place Pigalle is the den mother of all iniquities. Remember, this was once the border between Montmartre and Paris, where bistros had tax-free status, wine was cheap, and prostitutes roamed freely. Today, sex shops, peep shows, the Museum of Erotic Art, live sex shows, chatty pitchmen, and hot-dog stands line the busy boulevard. Dildos abound.
In the Roaring Twenties, this neighborhood at the base of the hill became a new center of cabaret nightlife. It was settled by African American jazz musicians and WWI veterans who didn’t want to return to a segregated America. Black-owned nightclubs sprang up. There was Zelli’s (located at 16 bis Rue Fontaine, a block southeast of the Moulin Rouge), where clarinetist-saxophonist Sidney Bechet played. A block away was the tiny Le Grand Duc (at Rue Fontaine and Rue Pigalle), where poet Langston Hughes bused tables. Next door was the most famous of all, Bricktop’s (at #73 and then at 66 Rue Pigalle), owned by the vivacious redhead who hosted Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Picasso, the Prince of Wales, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker, and many more. The area was “Harlem East,” where rich and poor, black and white, came for a good time.
By World War II, the good times were becoming increasingly raunchy, and GIs nicknamed the Pigalle neighborhood “Pig Alley.” Although today’s government is cracking down on sex work, and the ladies of the night are being driven deeper into their red-velvet bars as the area gentrifies, very few think of the great French sculptor Pigalle when they hear the district’s name. Bars lining the streets downhill from Place Pigalle (especially Rue Pigalle) are lively with prostitutes eager to share a drink with anyone passing by.