Spending a week in Montmartre is different than spending a week in Marais. Instead of a historic downtown area, you have a historic smaller neighborhood. The main tourist attractions in the area seem to be Sacre Cœur and the various cabarets. There’s some great food, and lots of art history here too, if you know where to look.

We’re choosing to keep our activities as covid safe as possible. We’re trying to to limit our time spent in crowds, inside, or with our masks off, which means that, sadly, we can’t just eat delicious food at neighborhood restaurants all day long. The up side of this, is that there are plenty of neighborhoods around to explore. Today, we wanted to see Batignolles.

On our way to Batignolles, we walked through Rue des Abbesses, a nearby road named for the benedictine nuns who had a chapel in Montmartre. Things look different in the daylight, as many shops shutter their doors at different times in the day.

Continuing on, we walked down to Villa Leandre, a picturesque dead end road. The three story houses have a different feel than the rest of Paris’s uniform Haussmann architecture.

From there, we walked through a busy neighborhood center of the 18th arrondissement, Rue de Poteau, then across Rue Championnet.

Jessie stumbled upon a pedestrian only street: Cité des Fleurs. For those of us who could see over the fences, the backyards were clearly well taken care of, and the houses clearly out of our price range. We’ve since learned that it was the birthplace of Catherine Deneuve, as well as home to resistance members during World War II before being found by the Gestapo.

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After our slight deviation, we made it to Parc Clichy-Batignolles – Martin Luther King, a large multi-purpose public space, full of gardens, waterfowl habitat, a skate park, and space for other sports. Surrounding it was an eclectic collection of apartments.

Like many other things we’ve seen today, these buildings were in direct contrast to the standard Parisian Haussmann style buildings. I’m sure some locals are offended to look at them, but they appeared to be well thought out, and something new to look at.

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After sitting still long enough for the chill to set in, we continued to our final stop, the nearby Square des Batignolles. This park was much smaller… cozy even. It was full of small paths winding around a pond. There were several small areas reserved for kids, and a space for dogs too.

We exited the park, grabbing a quick drink and snacks at a nearby restaurant. I had the Kir Royal, (upgraded from the standard Kir, by swapping white wine for Champagne), and Jessie grabbed a drink called a Red Sombrero (Pineapple juice, Orange juice, Lemon juice, Grenadine, and ginger beer). We snacked on some egg rolls and french fries. From there we headed home and ended our day.

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Breakfast this morning was brought to us by a morning market run by Raymond featuring one of the yummiest baguette we’ve had so far (baguette cereales or a grain-filled baguette) with cheese and cucumber – yum! But we had to eat quick in order to make it to our scheduled entry time at the Dali Museum …

… or so we thought. We’d accidentally purchased tickets for tomorrow (darn those calendars that start on Mondays instead of Sundays!). Fortunately, the ticket taker let us in anyway. The museum was very interesting, especially since it featured primarily sculptures by Salvador Dali as opposed to the paintings I’m more used to seeing. In addition, the museum did a nice job of laying out some of the meanings behind some of the symbols and motifs you find in his work. They also had QR codes that animated some of the objects which were sometimes neat, sometimes silly.

(Right Image:) Appropriate for the new year, the didactic for this sculpture says “The elephant, Dali’s iconoclastic symbol of the future and one of his favourite images, is often depicted atop mosquito-like legs, emphasizing the contrast between robustness and fragility, much like the contrast between the past and modernity. The animal’s jeweled saddle symbolizes wealth, and the dawn of a new era is announced by a flying angel trumpeting success and prosperity. Dali’s elephant exemplifies every individual’s hope for abundance and good fortune in the future.”

Following the Dali museum, we made our way to Le Musée de Montmartre à Paris (the Montmartre Museum). The first part of this museum was what I’ve heard in guidebooks referred to as a “house museum” – the space where the artist actually lived and worked with their work on display. This space belonged to Suzanne Valadon, her son Maurice Utrillo, and her husband Andre Utter.

The second part of the museum took place across the garden (known as The Renoir Gardens because he lived in this complex between 1875 and 1877, painting some familiar pieces including the Bal du moulin de la Galette which takes place in one of the windmill/restaurants we saw on our tour). This building is the oldest surviving house in the neighborhood and housed a visual history of the area.

Following these museums and a stroll around the neighborhood on a chilly afternoon (including a quick peek at the square where I had my portrait painted in high school), we decided to head back to the apartment for a bit to warm up, fill our tummies and rest before going out for dinner.

This is a tactic we haven’t tried yet (typically heading home means we’re in for the night) but I was a big fan! It’s much less busy in the neighborhood today than it was over the weekend and it was a lovely night for a stroll. Unfortunately, most of the places we’d bookmarked to check out for dinner were either too wet, too busy, or too full of cigar smoking patrons for our taste. Since it was such a lovely evening for a walk, we decided to head back to the area our tour guide the other day had recommended and stopped to eat outdoors at Un Zebre a Montmartre and, boy, were we glad we did! I will be dreaming about the sauce the duck came with for ages!

Oh! And the lights were off in the stairwell of our apartment which wasn’t great for seeing, but WAS great for noticing that we can see Sacre Coeur from the stairway window!

Montmartre is a beautiful neighborhood, and the weather has been more agreeable than most days. Couple that with it being a weekend, and it seems as though the whole of France was in our neighborhood. Checking google maps, it seemed as though most sites in the neighborhood were busier than usual.

Wanting to be able to keep our distance a bit better than we were able to last night, we called today a “park day”. A day we could spend outside, enjoying the fresh air and scenery.

The first park we stopped at was the park leading up to Sácre-Cœur: Square Louise Michel. This park is recognizable from the film “Amélie”, as is much of Montmartre. We passed some time enjoying the excellent people watching, including some scammers at work, as well as wannabe social media influencers and their long suffering partners.

Afterwards, we went inside of Sácre-Cœur. It’s a beautiful basilica, inside and out. But my favorite feature (other than the pig gargoyle) is the park behind it. I was there once in 2010 during the summer time, which obviously will look a little nicer than the middle of winter. It did not disappoint! It was very quiet, with only a handful of other groups there, and lots of seating. It’s so refreshing to be out in public spaces without having to be shoulder to shoulder with strangers in a pandemic.

After spending the rest of the afternoon reading and napping, we ventured off to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Service was slow to the point of non-existent after getting our mulled wine and hot cocoa. I think they weren’t expecting outside diners, but were very happy to take our order once I went inside and told them we were eating. The food was fine… not amazing. I got a steak and salad, Jessie got duck confit and french onion soup. But the price was right, and it was hardly crowded.

After dinner, we walked home, past the Sácre-Cœur, down the hill, and over to our apartment. Tomorrow being a monday, hopefully everybody’s back at work, and we won’t have to be so crowded!

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Today was the day we had to say goodbye to our lovely apartment in the Marais district and make our way to our new digs in Montmartre.

We have yet to fully shake our jet lag (I blame the fact that we have been watching movies fairly late at night!), so we woke a bit late yet again. After a leisurely morning, we started packing and made our plan for the best way to get to Montmartre – turns out walking was only 10 minutes slower than taking the bus (not to mention more COVID safe and it’s a beautiful, sunny day!).

Along the way, we ran into a long line of emergency vehicles followed by protesters (though we’re not sure what exactly they were protesting – vaccines, maybe?), flanked by police officers and followed by another long line of emergency vehicles. Our guide the other day said something about Paris being known for it’s protests – et voila!

It should’ve been no surprise that it took a bit of climbing some steep hills to get to MONTmartre, but we eventually did it (some of us huffing and puffing more than others!). Our new place is on a very busy main drag and is significantly more compact than our last place (and one story higher!)

Our only scheduled plan for the day was to do a tour of the neighborhood at 5pm, so after settling in, we headed out to grab a bite to eat at a Lebanese takeout place along the way to our tour (it wasn’t great, but it filled us up!).

Our tour started at the famous Moulin Rouge and then took us around other parts of the neighborhood including the only original Moulins (windmills) left, artist haunts, contemporary street art, and of course Sacre Coeur – the iconic basilica on the top of the highest point in the city (controversially built on the site of the Commune‘s first insurrection (yesterday we saw the site of the Commune’s last stand at the Pere Lachaise cemetery)).

Despite being a warm sunny day, we caught quite a chill on our night tour, so after catching the 7pm sparkling of the Eiffel tower, we headed home to rest up for another day tomorrow!

Today was our last full day in this neighborhood, and we’re happy with the job we’ve done of hitting most of the major sites. One glaring omission, is that we still haven’t made a trip to the Musée des Arts et Métiers… which I’ve read translates to The Museum of Arts and Trades.

Instead of doing that, we took a nice long walk to the Cimetière du Père Lachaise, or the “Father Lachaise Cemetery”. It was about an hour walk from our apartment. Today was the first, and one of the few days where we would see much sun, so we wanted to take advantage of that while we could.

Rick Steves offers an audio tour which walks us around the roads and paths of the cemetery. It took us past many big names, like Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Jim Morrison, and Moliére. Frédéric Chopin and Édith Piaf (songs of whose I often find stuck in my head) were entombed there as well. We saw the mausoleum of Haussmann, the city planner who, for better or worse, designed modern Paris.

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On our walk back, we stopped at a modern Paris fast-food joint, “O’Tacos”. We had read about French “tacos” a few nights back, and had to try one. There are several enigmatic aspects to French tacos:

• They’re closer to burritos than tacos. They use a large tortilla, and are fully wrapped, then grilled like a panini.
• Even if you only buy one, it’s still a “tacos”.
• Instead of the standard taco fillings, you’ll find things like chicken nuggets, chicken cordon bleu, french fries, curry sauce, and french cheeses.

Our curiosity (and bellies) satisfied, we continued home. Deciding not to stop at the Métiers museum, we walked about trying to find a park that wasn’t closed (I guess some parks close at 5pm?) to enjoy some more outside time and read a book. Unfortunately, this park closed early too– 30 minutes after we got there, so we were soon told to leave there too. Desperate for somewhere else to spend time, we settled for the square outside of the Pompidou.

After the pigeons kept getting closer, I was sure we were one excited toddler away from a bunch of scared pigeons flying overhead and making a mess of things, so we once again left to find somewhere else to sit. One of Jessie’s mask strings broke, and I took it as a sign that our day was done. We went home, stopping for some fizzy drinks to ring in the new year!

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Today was arguably our most ambitious day – we went to TWO things in one day! (My 20-something self would laugh at this but, man, am I feeling my age on this trip!)

After a quick breakfast of toast and jam, we made our way once again to the Musee Histoire de Paris Carnavalet – this time with timed tickets in hand! Like the Hunting museum the other day, this one also used artifacts and artwork to tell its story (often at the exclusion of much other explanations) AND was housed in a series of 19th century mansions. The Carnavalet museum tells the history of the city of Paris from pre-history up until the ’70s or so.

I had allotted about 3 hours to our time here in order to make our next activity. The hours in museums seem to pass amazingly fast! I was very grateful to the child-friendly signage around the museum that gave pithy explanations of the themes in each room and highlighted objects of interest throughout. Focusing primarily on these, we were able to speed through at a healthy clip. Despite there being relatively little explanation beyond the objects presented, I feel like between our tours and museums, we are slowly starting to piece together a history of the city (a lot has happened here!).

After the Carnavalet, we took one of our longest walks in the city to date – this time out to the Melies Museum.

But first, we must eat! We stopped at a bakery and grocery store to load up on picnic supplies before taking them to Parc de Bercy. Unfortunately, the sun had set behind the buildings by this time so it was pretty chilly (we’d chosen to go without jackets today because it wasn’t raining and touring museums with coats in tow (plus masks) gets HOT!).

Just in time for our timed entry, we headed over to the small museum dedicated to the early French filmmaker George Melies. He was known for taking a fantastical approach to the new moving picture medium (a departure from the largely documentary-style that was common at the time by folks like Edison). He himself was a magician and used jumpcuts, superimposition and more to create fantastical stories for his audiences. His most famous film is A Trip to the Moon.

A few things I was surprised to learn: One, early moving pictures were seen as pretty lowbrow – most of their publicity came through touring with circus acts. Melies himself died in relative obscurity. This is why, I imagine, this museum didn’t have many Melies artifacts. Why keep items from something that is a passing craze? Another thing that surprised me was looking at the works that inspired A Trip to the Moon (including Jules Verne and H.G. Welles)- it’s a pretty blatant rip off!

We made it through this museum much quicker than I anticipated so we headed back to our AirBnb with plenty of evening left. Tomorrow we have a pretty light schedule with options to do more if we like, but either way, it’s a great way to close out 2021!

It’s been a real challenge to beat the jet-lag, and last night was no exception. It’s hard to say at what time I finally went to sleep, but after seemingly hours of breathing exercises coupled with trying to tire my eyes out with reading, I finally got to bed. My best guess would be around 3:00, but I didn’t have my phone to check.

Nonetheless, we got up around 10:30, which was a minor success. After an hour or so of getting ready, eating breakfast, and having coffee, we were ready to face our activity for the day– a trip to the Musée Carnavalet.

The museum was a fifteen-or-so minute walk from our AirBNB. The trip was not terribly remarkable, but worth noting how focused on walkability this city is. Pedestrians everywhere. This neighborhood, and perhaps city, is build upon seemingly endless streets full of shops. Cheese shops, Meat shops, fruit shops, hat shops, clothes, luggage, succulents, baked goods— everything at street level was a shop. Jessie and I were in awe of how everyone is seemingly always shopping. Perhaps its just for the tourists, but that can’t be the full story.

Arriving at our destination, we learned that we needed to reserve our spot ahead of time. The tickets themselves were free, but due to covid, there were timed entry restrictions, and they were all full for the day.

Disappointed by the change in plans, we went back to Jessie’s initial research document. Jessie is a great travel buddy, in part because of how thorough her preparation is– even in more loosely scheduled trips such as this one. She had a full document chockablock full of different shops, parks, and walks we could take.

Nearby, there were a number of decent cafes and tea shops that we could choose from. We decided to return to the Marché des Enfants Rouges, a courtyard market full of restaurants and food vendors. We had lunch at a Moroccan restaurant. In order to keep things simple (and to save face on having to order anything complicated in my barely passable French), I ordered the Plat du Jour for myself, and the Kefta and Vegetable Tajine for Jessie.

After lunch, we browsed other offerings at the market. At a nearby produce vendor, we bought some tiny bananas, almost just for the fun of it, and some red currants. An adjacent cheese stand was able to help me find some pregnancy-safe cheese using pasteurized milk (up until now, we’d been buying it at the local grocery store, which is not nearly as exciting).

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With no grocery bag to speak of, Jessie stuffed the cheese and fruits into her jacket, and we were off. We walked down to the Seine, stopping near a courtyard full of more shops: Le Village Saint-Paul.

On our way back, we stopped at the park Place des Vosges, which is (according to wikipedia) the oldest planned square in Paris. I’m not entirely certain what makes it a square (other than shape), or what an unplanned square would look like, but it was beautiful nonetheless. In the center, the typical European sculpture of a guy on a horse. Around the exterior there is some playground equipment that appeared shamefully hidden in some shady trees. There were a few sand-boxes, but they nearly blended in with the rest of the surroundings.

Of the few parks we’ve been in, they all seem meant to function both aesthetically, but also as a play place for children. So far, we haven’t encountered one with actual grass you can play on– it’s all been sand and gravel. Even the parks with larger playgrounds still seemed as though they needed to be a bit more grown-up.

Approaching our apartment, we stopped for a boba tea. To my surprise, they required several more choices while ordering than in the states. Iced? Sweetness level? I fumbled my way through that conversation, with the attendant finally speaking English seeing my confusion.

I left Jessie back at the apartment so that I could run some errands. I needed some new luggage to fit souvenirs and my booze from yesterday in, as well as seeking out a baguette for dinner. With these acquired, I returned, and had our picnic dinner: A baguette, some cured meats, some cheese: (for posterity, pasteurized cheeses Brillat savarin aux truffes, and some Comté…. but dang… that Brillat-Savarin), and currants and wine for me, juice for Jessie.

And that’s where we are now! Planning the next few days, getting read to watch Voyage Dans La Lune film in preparation for our trip to the Cinémathèque Française.

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This week is the only week I really had scheduled day-to-day. But of course, as we know, plans change! We originally planned to visit the Pantheon after our tour yesterday but I was just so tired I couldn’t make the trek – so we’ll leave that for another day. And the Louvre, which we originally intended to visit Thursday, is booked until next week. So things get a little squiggledy-piggledy – and that’s okay!

On today’s agenda was to visit the Archaeological Crypt of the Ile de la Cite – a history museum of the island on which Notre-Dame stands but – go figure! – it’s closed while the fire renovation continues. So, we went with Plan B which was paying a visit to the “quirky, astonishing, strange and eclectic” Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature (Museum of Hunting and Nature). It was a strange mixture of taxidermy, weapons/hunting accessories, and classical and modern art. It was all housed in a beautiful 17th-century mansion.

We noticed it getting progressively busier as our visit came to an end – apparently this is a favorite spot for children? – so were very ready to leave. And very excited to discover the sun had come out while we were inside!

It’s been awfully cloudy and rainy for most of our trip, so the sunshine meant it was time for another meandering walk around the neighborhood. I’d read about a street that had lots of street art, so we decided to make our way there and see what we could see along the way.

By the time we got back “home” my feet were killing me, so we just grabbed some shawarma and fries from a place on the corner. So garlicky – YUM!

Now to keep up our nightly tradition of watching a vaguely Paris-themed movie before bed!

Today was the day we were finally going to do it! We finallly woke up before noon! We were scheduled for a walking tour, so we got up bright and early at 10am and made our way to Place Saint Michel, where our tour started.

The tour brought us up to Notre-Dame, around Sainte-Chapelle, across the Pont Neuf bridge, and up around the Louvre. Much of this had been covered by our walk yesterday, but we didn’t mind.

Once we crossed the bridge, it became less familiar territory. At the Louvre, we learned about it’s history as a palace, and then eventually as an art museum once Versailles was built. Then about how the pyramids (and the Eiffel Tower) were built as part of the world’s fair. We ended our walk at the Jardin des Tuileries, where there was a Christmas market.

At this time, we were past hungry. We walked north to find a boulangerie, where I clumsily ordered some baguette sandwiches, with a chouquette (a small chou pastry) and a macarron.

We meandered back home, trying to see as many passages as we could. A passage, basically, is a covered alley way full of shops. We were not very diligent at snapping photos, but they can be quite the sight!

Once home, Jessie crashed, while I attempted to assimilate as best I could… by drinking wine, eating cheese, and reading.

When Jessie woke back up, I was sent on a mission to a local pharmacy to get antacid pills for some heartburn she’s been having. During which trip, I also picked up more wine and pastries. Turns out my french improves when I’m properly motivated!

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On the left: Our AirBnb room lit up

On the right: Eclair Chocolat & Vin!

Today we slept in again later than intended which meant a slight change in plans. I had penciled in the Picasso Museum for today, but the benefit of being here for so long is we have time to be flexible (plus, after five hours at the Pompidou yesterday, I was happy to not do another museum today).

Instead, we decided to do Rick Steves’ audio tour of Historic Paris. We so enjoyed his tour when we were in Rome and he once again did not disappoint. The first stop on the tour was Notre-Dame. Because of the fire a number of years ago, we couldn’t get terribly close (I was hoping to recreate a photo from when I was here in high school of standing on Point Zero (the marker from which all distances in the city are measured) – I was told back then that if you stand on it, it means you can return to Paris one day – and here I am!)

One of my favorite stops during our walking tour was at an intersection in medieval Paris – which also happened to have hot chocolate and choux buns! It was a charming little street with winding roads shooting off of it and a lovely view of Notre-Dame – with Santa!

This tour also taught us about how cool some of the alleyways are! Lots of less-busy, less-touristy, often old, cobblestone neighborhoods lay right off of the main drags in these cute little alleyways. So that’s how we spent the majority of the rest of our evening – wondering around the streets of the Left Bank, ducking into cute little streets with shops and restaurants.

As we meandered our way towards home, we stopped for a Nutella waffle and Vin Chaud (hot wine) at one of the Christmas Markets in Place St. Michel – yum!

Finally, we made our way to L’As Du Fallafel – one of the highest-rated falafel places Ray could find. By this time it’d begun raining so we were a little wary of waiting in the loooong line. But the guy in front of us told us it was the best falafel he’d had – and he’d spent time in Israel and Lebanon! So we decided to stay and ended up chatting with the guy, Jackson. He and his girlfriend are from Nashville and are planning to go skiing in Paris (the recent ban on travel from the EU means it’ll be pretty vacant) and on a wine tour with one of his clients – Oh la la!

Admittedly, it was very good (though I lost three of my falafel balls to the street!) – so good I neglected to take any photos! After scarfing it down and saying good by to our Nashville friends, we headed toward home, stopping for some more groceries along the way.

Now, to get a good night’s sleep that doesn’t eat into our daytime plans!