Today we visited Montmartre, the artistic area of Paris where the famous artists gathered together for inspiration. Built on a hill (seems to be the only hill in Paris!) the town is dominated by the Sacre Coure basilica, the place where serious religious Catholics go to pray in Paris as it is much quieter than the famous Notre Dame.
This statue is of the King Loui
And this is Joan of Arc.
The bell inside this tower weighs 19 tonnes!
The moulin de Galette is another haunt of the artists. The
owners of the mill ground the flour and invented the Galette, a brown flour (probably buckwheat) bread or savoury pancake still enjoyed by the French today. Renoir's famous painting, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, depicted a typical Sunday afternoon at the mill.
Peter is walking past a statue of the Bishop of Paris who is actually holding his own head. He was executed, and the legend says that he picked up his head and
walked 10km preaching the gospel as he walked. He was made a martyr and the name of the town, Montmartre, is derived from this together with the French word for hill.
A pretty street in Montmartre. Up the hill on
the left is a pink house, another building connected with the artists of the time.
A modern day artist in Montmartre. We are
now the proud owners of one of her beautiful oil paintings.
The basilica of Sacre Coeur.
This tiny vineyard produces enough grapes to make a few bottle of wine each year. The bottles are auctioned off and sell for ridiculous prices. They are not for drinking (our guide suggested that the quality wasn't the best) but for cellaring and the money raised is given to charity.
Once again we chose to skip the return journey to the hotel and take off on our own. We walked past the Moulin Rouge on our way back and found a delightful street where the pedestrian and bike tracks were in the centre of the road between tall trees. The day ended with a visit to the nearby royal gardens and a meal at a street cafe.
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