hills and agile rabbits

I thought the London Tube was crowded during rush hour! The Paris version is worse. It was a morning of the “how many people can you stuff into a train car?”game. I’m really starting to get claustrophobic in this city. No wonder it’s a prime place for pickpocketing. Paris doesn’t really have much in the way of violent crime, but theft is a huge issue. Best thing to do on a crowded metro car is to keep your purse or backpack in front of you with your arm across it.

I was finally able to squeeze out at Montmartre – the hill of martyrs. Or perhaps, a martyr. This is the spot where St Denis was beheaded:


The story goes that after he got the chop, he picked up his head, brushed it off, and walked about four kilometers (uphill, no less!) before collapsing and actually dying.

Montmartre is my kind of suburb – quiet, not nearly as crowded, and a little more elbow room all around. Combine the hills of San Francisco with an historic district of your choosing, add artistically minded people, and you have Montmartre. Technically, it’s considered part of Paris, but the people who live there will always say they’re “going down to Paris.” I can see why they’d do that. Montmartre has a different feel than the rest of the city. If I were to live in Paris, this is where I’d choose to be.

Van Gogh lived here for awhile (the floor with the shuttered windows):


And so did Renoir (the top left windows):


I shook the hand of this man for good luck:


It’s a sculpture inspired by a story called Le Passe-Muraille by Marcel Aymé.

This is the Lapin Agile Cabaret:


Andre Gill painted a sign for this place that shows a rabbit jumping out of a saucepan. Locals then began calling it "Le Lapin à Gill" ("Gill's rabbit"), which then morphed into Lapin Agile. At the beginning of the last century, the Lapin Agile was a favorite spot for people like Picasso, Modigliani, Apollinaire, and Utrillo. Pablo Picasso's painting "At the Lapin Agile" made the place world famous. Anyone remember the play Steve Martin wrote - Picasso at the Lapin Agile? It's about an imagined meeting between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein at the Lapin Agile.

Just across from the cabaret is a vineyard:


A singer named Davila also lived in Montmartre for awhile. I'd never heard of her, but she was apparently more popular than Madonna in her day. The locals quite liked her. Sadly, she commited suicide.

The Sacre Coeur Basilica is at the highest point of this area:


I walked around the inside perimeter while Mass was in progress (no indoor picture-taking allowed). The Lord’s Prayer recited in French is quite beautiful, especially with the echo and the faint smell of incense.

I saw a huge statue of St Therese of Lisieux (she is the patron saint of France, along with Joan of Arc). I bought a wooden mini version of the statue in the little shop. I consider her a sort of personal patron saint because when I was little, I used to stare at the statue of her in the church that my grandmother attended. There’s something about the tan and brown earth tones of her habit and the red roses she held in her arms that could easily occupy a little girl’s attention for a half-hour service.

The ceiling mosaic depiction of Christ is impressive. His heart is rendered in gold, as is the halo and rays of light behind him. The woman next to him also has a golden heart. I can’t tell if it’s the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene. Generally, the Virgin Mary is dressed in blue and white, and this woman is dressed in blue and red, which is often how Mary Magdalene is depicted, and since she was present at Christ’s resurrection, I’m leaning toward it being her. Anyone know for sure? I can’t find any information about it.

There are amazing views of the city from up here:


I’m told that the mayor of Montmartre is a more serious fellow than the mayor of Paris. One of the unique services he performs is a solemn “un-marriage” ceremony. Many couples with children here are not married, but they want their relationship recognized, hence the ceremony. And only a civil ceremony makes a marriage legal in Paris. Getting married in a church does not.

There’s a bohemian-tinged district just around the corner from Sacre Coeur. The portrait artists are pretty pushy, I must say. I wanted lunch more than I wanted my portrait drawn. Parisians take their time with lunch – a lot of places close for two hours in the middle of the day so everyone can eat. However, brasseries are generally open, so that’s a good place to hunt down a meal.

I decided on another museum visit in the afternoon and ended up at the Musee d’Orsay, which used to be a train station:

It’s only been open as a museum since the 1980s. Inside, you find lots of romantic, idealized figure sculptures and more Impressionist art than you can shake a baguette at. There’s a nice art nouveau furniture exhibit tucked in a back corner on the upper floor.

I took a bus back to the hotel and watched an episode of the Simpsons in French. The voice actors try to imitate the vocal styles of the American actors who voice the characters. And they don’t quite make it work. It comes across as sounding almost like a parody.

I walked down to Rue Cler again for dinner. I found a not-too-crowded café and had salmon and curried rice for dinner. Then I bought a pint of fresh strawberries for dessert from one of the produce markets and ate them while window shopping on Rue St Dominique.