Montmartre and Movie Hunting

There is a wonderful neighborhood of Paris called Montmartre.  It is in the northern part of the city and is probably one of the most famous parts of Paris, home to many recognizable places and movie settings (though I guess you could say that about most parts of Paris now that I think about it).  

The first time we went up there the first thing we tried to find was this cafe at the base of some of the Montmartre stairs.  It's in the movie Sabrina, when she's writing a letter home from Paris. It has a beautiful view, as it's situated on the corner looking over at the stairs and a beautiful park across the street. 

 It's a great place to sit and enjoy a lovely Paris day and some coffee!

The Montmartre stairs are a famous sight in Paris and they are there because Montmartre is the highest part in Paris, and stairways connect the upper streets to the lower streets all around the hill.  It's called Le Butte de Montmartre and on the top sits the Sacre Cour Church as well as a sweeping view of the city.

People hang out all over the main stairway in front of Sacre Cour, and it's a great place to catch street performers strutting their stuff, from the guy who stands up on the pillar and kicks/balances/does magic with a soccer ball to hip hop dancers or musicians putting on a show.

The Eiffel Towen is a little too west to be seen from the main stairs where you can see most of Paris, but if you walk down the street a little bit you can get a glimpse of it over the roof tops.

At the bottom of the main stairs there's a large area with a carousel and lots of happy children, and when you reach this point you find yourself among lots of little shops, some where you can get true Parisian treasures, and others where you can get cheesy souvenirs.






Walking a couple streets over and down the road a couple blocks you then reach the "red light district" of Paris.  This street is filled with sex shops and strip clubs, but the funny thing is the middle of the street has a tree filled walkway that's just beautiful!  It's an interesting contrast to the seedy shops lining the street on the sides.  Probably the most famous club on the street is the Moulin Rouge (thanks to Nicole Kidman and Christina Aguilera), and it stands out with it's big red windmill (moulin rouge means red windmill in french!) and the huge crowd of people posing in front of it on the island in the middle of the street.



This thing is totally random but I liked it so I put the picture on here :)  It's a piece of public art on the street and is basically a giant silver apple that has the continents subtly shown on it's surface.  Just another cool thing Paris has to offer ;)



As we walked back toward the river we passed a section where all the streets were named after cities. We got a kick as we passed cities we'd recently been to, like Florence and Rome!  Too bad we didn't find a Rue de Zagreb.  We did however see Dublin which was on our plan for later on in our trip!



And Now For Some More Movie Fun!!!

One of the reasons Erin wanted to visit Montmartre was to go see some of the locations from one of her favorite movies, Amelie. (It's a really good movie, you should watch it, don't be afraid that it's in French!)  So when we came back another day we went on an Amelie walking tour.

  We started at the Abbesses metro station featured in the movie which is the stop closest to Montmartre.  Note to anyone wanting to visit Montmartre, these spiral stairs that lead out of the metro station go on and on forever (remember how I told you Montmartre is up on "Le Butte"), they might be longer than the ones that take you up from the catacombs, so if you have an aversion to climbing in circles I'd suggest taking the huge elevator that we conveniently found once we'd reached the top.  :)

Next we headed for the cafe Amelie works at called Les Deux Moulins or the Two Windmills.  Its an actual movie location, and it looks almost exactly as it does in the movie, it was awesome!

Of course we had to stop inside for awhile and have a coffee, as well as some creme brulee, which is a favorite of Amelie's in the movie.  They even have menu items themed for the movie including Amelie's creme brulee, it was pretty cute. I liked the fact that it wasn't overdone though.  It wasn't an Amelie gift shop, just a real cafe with some touches of the movie still there!

   

Afterwards we walked up the stairs to the Butte and came across these brightly painted posts. I really like the colors and the bright happy feeling it adds to this street :)

At the top we went over to the lookout where the two main characters meet and Amelie sets up an elaborate scavenger hunt for the guy who's notebook she has found in order to give it back to him while keeping her identity a secret and only letting him see her through the telescope seen in the picture on the left.  Betcha want to go watch that movie now! WATCH IT!

 Later we walked around and found the area Amelie's apartment would've been in.  We also looked for the grocer near her house, which was a real location, but it either isn't there anymore or we never found it. We think this might've been where it was.






 Next we went on a really scary walk to find Canal Saint-Martin through a part of Paris that you really don't want to walk through being just two girls.  Most of Paris is amazing and we felt completely safe on our own, but this stretch of town is well, shady.  So if you ever find yourself in Paris, don't walk east of Montmartre on your own unless you like having creepy guys grab your arm and try to sell you fake watches :/ But we made it eventually to see the canal where Amelie comes to skip rocks, this area is actually really 

pretty with a lot of pedestrian bridges crossing over the canal through the trees and in a much cuter part of town.




























Finally, we headed to the metro/train station Gare de l'Est which is also featured in the movie, and couldn't pass up the opportunity to take our picture in the photobooths there. (That would also take too long to explain, just watch the movie :) )













Anyways, I definitely recommend a visit to Montmartre is you ever find yourself in Paris, from the street artists, to the cute little shops, to the amazing views of Paris, it's worth the climb.

ps - another reason you should watch Amelie - see the gnome that is the inspiration for the excellent adventure of Jacapo the Owl - an ongoing project that we're working on and you'll get to see at the end of out travelling experience!!!