World Quest

We chose to stay in Montmartre during the Paris portion of our visit to France, rather than the capital city, for a couple of reasons.

First, it is a lot cheaper, both to stay and to eat, than Paris. Everything in Paris is priced much higher, as is typical of any large city.

Second, and almost as important, is the history and atmosphere of Montmartre. The hill that Montmartre sits upon is 130 meters above the city of Paris, looking down on the City of Lights from the north. Formerly a Druidic holy place (because of its height) the hill later became the site of a church when, in typical and traditional fashion, pagan locations (and celebrations) were absorbed by the Catholic church to make their demands for worship more palatable to those living a simple life of love and respect for nature. Saint Denis, who was the Bishop of Paris as well as the Patron Saint of France, was decapitated on the hill in 250 AD, giving the butte its modern-day name which means "Mountain of the martyr".

When Napoleon set out to make Paris the most beautiful city in all of Europe during the 19th century, one of his first acts was to grant large portions of land near the center of the city to financial supporters, thus driving residents out of Paris proper to outlying villages. Montmartre was one such village. After that, two things combined to make Montmartre a popular area. First, since the village was outside the Paris city limits, it was also outside the area of taxation by the city. All food, materials, and services that came through the walls into Paris were taxed, making them more expensive. Those outside the city avoided the extra cost of these taxes being levied. Second, in the church on Montmartre, local nuns made wine to sell to support their house of worship. The wine was not that good ("Drink one glass, piss four" was a common refrain in the area) but it was cheap. Subsequently, the area developed into a center of free-wheeling and decadent entertainment at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, personified by the famous Moulin Rouge.

Because Montmartre was an inexpensive place to live with inexpensive wine, food, living quarters and supplies, and because of its Bohemian atmosphere, artists of the day began to gather here in the mid-1800's. Some of the more well known include Picasso, Degas, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir. The area became a haven for artists off all types, genres and disciplines. Painters, illustrators, and musicians made Montmartre one of the artistic centers of Paris. That atmosphere, though not as strong as it was, remains today.

So, we reserved an apartment in Montmartre for our stay. It is in an old building with original wood floors, modern plumbing grafted onto old pipes, and all lighting is by way of lamps (with electrical wiring added under newer sheetrock, because no light fixtures were installed in the original. There is no elevator and our apartment is on the third floor. The only way up is by circular stairs, and let me assure you that hauling three 50 pound suitcases up those stairs is NO fun whatsoever.

All of our windows (the old style that open inward from the middle) face out onto a tree covered courtyard with a statue that streams pure underground water. Until the mid-1950's when health concerns dictated their removal, the statue had hooks with metal chains attached to tin cups and anyone could grab themselves a cup of delicious cold water in the courtyard.

Right across the courtyard from our building, so close that I could toss a baseball (not throw) to it is the building formerly known as Le Bateau-Lavoir, a commune of impoverished painters that included Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani from 1904-1909. Even after leaving, Picasso maintained a room there and would return to spend time with new and or unknown artists of the day.

So, that is a little of the reasons why we chose to stay in Montmartre during the Paris portion of our visit to France.

After arriving at our apartment building, I left Cindy and her mom outside with our luggage while I walked up to the landlord's fourth floor home to get our key. If my legs were sore from being squashed up in the airplane for 7 hours, they were going to be in even more agony after walking those small, winding circular stairs with our luggage (see above).

After getting all the baggage upstairs (and feeling like I had gone 2 out of 3 falls with Hulk Hogan) I got into the shower (almost as small as my airline seat) and got cleaned up while Cindy and her mom went back out to pick up some food for the kitchen and some items from the bakery that is right across the street from us. After that we all decided to take a nap and recharge (especially me, since I didn't sleep on the airplane ride the night before), so around noon we laid down and napped until about 3:30 (local time, which is 6 hours later if you're on the East Coast of the US). Then we went out for a walk to familiarize ourselves with the area and see what was where. It doesn't get dark here until about 9:30pm, so we had lots of time to stroll. Although tempted to enjoy one of the multitude of cafes and restaurants near us, we ultimately decided we were so tired it would be best to return to the apartment and have some soup for dinner, accented by fresh croissants from our friendly neighborhood bakery. Then we finally went to bed around 10pm, to get enough sleep to be well-rested for our next day's events.

Next post: more of Montmartre and our first foray into Paris

Welcome!

Cindy and I are wrapping up the last few details we need to handle before leaving for France on Friday, May 4, 2007. I just wanted to get an entry up so I could send everyone the link for this blog and test everything out before we leave.

Here's a test photo:

And we'll try out a video upload on the next post.

Bonjour!