Montmartre!

Salut!
Last Saturday Alex and I journeyed to Montmartre, the hilly section of Paris near the northern edge of the city, in the 18th arrondissement, which is not too far from my home here in the 10th, nor is it far from the ugly but convenient Centre Clignancourt, where I have many (most?) of my classes.  (In fact, I walked to Montmartre (again) from Clignancourt later in the week, just for kicks, accompanying a new acquaintance on her way to work after class.)  Montmartre is known for its abundance of artists (starving and otherwise--the ones I saw looked quite well-fed).   Some famous past inhabitants include Picasso, van Gogh, Matisse, Dalí... the list goes on.  For anyone who has seen Amélie or Moulin Rouge (oops!  I still haven't seen M.R., but it's on my to-do list), you are familiar with Montmartre.
It is also famous for its beautiful cathedral, Sacré-Coeur, which means Sacred Heart.  (So they're not creative with cathedral names here--but the buildings are so beautiful!)  Of course since it was a Saturday, it was a zoo (or as the French say, il y avait tout le monde, literally: the whole world was there), so we didn't go inside the basilica, so after giving it due admiration (the LONG walk up to it gave us ample time to ooh and aah between gasping for breath), we wandered around the rest of Montmartre.  There was a very extensive street market/flea sale type of event going on through many of the streets--people were out with tables or blankets laden with stuff they wanted to sell--used clothes, books, toys, DVDs, and assorted other junk as well, which was all fun to look at briefly, though not photo-worthy, I thought.    

me, only part-way up the stairs to Sacré-Coeur

a closer view of this lovely basilica

the cathedral seen as the sun was setting

Eventually, we ended up at le Cimitière de Montmartre, which is still in use today and which contains many beautiful graves.

overview of part of the cemetery

It's a little hard to make out, but this grave said nothing else except what you see above: FIAT! (Yes, with the exclamation point.)  We didn't know quite what to make of this...

This stained glass is actually part of someone's personal tomb!

example of the very ornate architecture common here

a grave done in tiles--very different, very beautiful

We wandered through there for a while, admiring the architecture, before heading back towards the more commercial (touristy) part of Montmartre for a lovely dinner at an outdoor café.   (I had a salad and another crèpe au fromage, the French equivalent of grilled cheese, and Alex had fried mussels.) Then we headed back to Sacré-Coeur again for Nuit Blanche, an annual Parisian event that puts together many modern-art installments and has them open to the public for free, all night long.  I only visited a couple of the installments, partly because modern art isn't really my style, but also because I have early classes three days per week this semester, so I'm in the habit of going to bed relatively early.  (And I was tired from all the walking that afternoon!)  But I enjoyed the installations I saw.

restaurant in Montmartre where we had dinner

Nuit Blanche: art installation with candles showing the sky in 100 years

Nuit Blanche: art installation called "Black Cloud"

detail of "Black Cloud" (lots of paper butterflies)

All in all, it was a lot of fun to wander around Montmartre, which in addition to its artsy-ness is also one of the few Parisian neighborhoods not modernized in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann, so it has lots of old buildings and narrow, cobbled streets, which are fun to look at.  I'm sure I will be returning there many times over the course of my stay here!