“Paris is always a good idea.”
Audrey Hepburn
Sites/Topics covered in this post:
• Paris Arrival
• Montmartre Walking Tour
• Basilica of the Sacreé-Coeur
• Musee de Montmartre
• Yellow Jacket Demonstration
Go-Date: Day 122, Friday, May 24
Lesson Learned: The Paris Metro is great. Don’t waste your money on Uber, or cabs, or hired drivers. Download the Paris Metro (RATP) app (Next Stop Paris app) on your phone, also download a PDF map of the lines onto your phone so you don’t need be online to access the map and you can get damned near anywhere. So far, we’ve had great luck with public transportation in Athens, Zagreb, and now Paris.
One tip! When you get to your stop, if the door doesn’t open, push the green button on the door. Its not always automatic. It may be the same when you are on the platform. If the door doesn’t open, push the green button on the door. I promise, its easier than pushing the toilet button in the apartment we had in Dubrovnik.
So, the lesson learned is……. Push the damned green button on the door!
Welcome to Paris
Arrival in Paris was a yawn. That’s my idea of perfect travel. It was an uneventful flight, both Ellen and I had aisle seats, the airport in Zagreb was not crowded, the Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) wasn’t jammed (busy, but not crowded). Ellen sailed through passport control, but I had to wait while the agent did date math to ensure I had not exceeded my EU stay (Schengen Guidelines). I had not.
Dragging our bags, which seem to get heavier in every airport we visit, we made our way towards the train to Paris (RER B). Signage in CDG was decent, with the exception that its not consistent. One sign will point towards RER, the next one will show the direction to the train. They are the same, but different, and you need not worry until you get to the portal to actually board the platform. Make sure you catch RER B headed in the direction of Gare du Nord station.
Tickets are sold at a kiosk terminal you might mistake for an ATM, but don’t get anxious about the group gathering behind you, take your time, select English, and go through the steps (they are watching you to see how you do it). You feel like you are holding up the queue, but everyone does. If you get confused, others that have used the machine before, or an attendant will help you. You can buy the book of ten tickets, called a carnet [kar-nay], which are sold at a nice discount. You can share them among multiple riders as well. But, Ellen and I chose to buy single trip tickets, because we have a habit of ending up with more metro tickets than we ever use (and Paris is a very walkable city). You do need to make sure that you hold on to your ticket until you are finished riding, and have exited the station because if you need to change trains on your route you’ll need to feed a turnstile to the next platform (this is true for some stations, but not for others.) If you are doing a one line hop, there are exits (Sorties) that you just push through to get to the streets (which is different than the DC metro). Cost for the train to Paris (RER B) is about 10.80 Euros ($12.09 by the exchange rate of 1 Euro equals $1.12 US). The metro is cheap, its a flat rate, no mater what time of day or how far you travel.
If you are used to riding the metro (in whatever city) changing trains and finding your platform is easy (I love this metro system), otherwise keep your map handy and ask for help from transit workers if you are unsure. The worst part is there are not escalators everywhere, so you may be lugging your bags up or down stairs (roller bags are of no value for these situations).
We were in the 9th arrondissement. Arrondissements are administrative divisions. Paris is divided into 20 Paris arrondissements (or Paris districts). In each District of Paris, there is a town hall and a mayor (Maire), as well as elected officials, a council, a politician and so on. Of course, the 20 arrondissements of Paris are still subject to the overall policy of the city and the mayor. Arrondissements are arranged like a pinwheel in a clockwise direction. The center of the pinwheel is located in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, so the larger the number of the arrondissement the further from the center of town. You can tell what arrondissement a Paris address is located by the last two digits of the zip code (such as Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004). If you want to be snobby you can compare your arrondissement to other tourists (“You were in arrondissement 10? I stayed in arrondissement 2.”)
We got to Gare du Nord station, transferred twice and got to the location closet to our apartment. Turns out we could have walked from Gare du Nord as it was only 4 blocks further, but no harm, no foul.
Our Air BNB was old, but nice. I’d guess the building was constructed in the late 19th century, but it had a living room, dining room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. It was on the second floor (first floor in Europe) and going up the worn circular treads was interesting, but nobody died. The flooring was original, that creaked and we found a few boards that bent when stepped on. I figured that if they didn’t give way under our weight, they add character, if they did break, they are a hazard.
Paris Walk-About
When you get to a new city, check it out. With no destination in mind we began to explore Paris. We intended to buy a SIM chip for our wi-fi, but honestly the T-Mobile roaming service worked pretty well here. I wouldn’t try to stream a movie on it, but since we had free international data we decided to give it a go to see if our GPS performed satisfactorily. So far so good. We’ve looked up some recommended self-guided walking tours, so we’ll be doing those as well as visiting museums, monuments, cathedrals, and brothels (ok, not really).
Montmartre Walking Tour
They say Montmartre is a good entry point to begin your introduction of Paris. Its up on a hill with a nice view, interesting things, 19th-century Haussmannian architecture, and you begin to enjoy Parisian arrondissements at a local level, so we made our start in Montmartre.
This area has the feel of a small village with several wooden windmills, a vineyard, a magnificent cathedral, and cobblestone streets. Highlights of the Montmartre walking tour of Paris include so many locations of interest, as well as must-see photography vistas.
Montmartre. It’s not like there are no tourists here, but this part of town really feels like a blast from the past free from tour buses and you are meeting up with Earnest Hemmingway to have a drink far away from the Eiffel Tower. This neighborhood is definitely best explored on foot, but you can take a tram up the hill to the cathedral if the stairs appear a little too daunting and there’s a little white train you can board to shuttle you up and down the rolling cobblestone streets (we passed on this option). Its quirky, jumbled architecture, rich, long history, and the fact that it has been home to artists, poets, entertainers, and writers alike for centuries make it the perfect spot to get lost. Which has been our mission for this trip.
Walking time: 30 minutes (plus time spent at venues)
Distance Covered: 2km
Points of interest:
Arrive at the Parvis du Sacré Coeur [metro station is Anvers (line 2 blue)]
• Basilica of the Sacreé-Coeur
• Musee de Montmartre
• Clos Montmartre, one of the last working vineyards in the middle of Paris.
• La Maison Rose (café)
• Rue l’Abreuvoir
• Place Dalida – Square (named after the iconic singer Dalida)
• Moulin de la Galette – the hill of Montmartre (windmill)
• Picasso’s Paris Studio
• Le Consulat Cafeé (18 Rue Norvins)
• Place du Tertre – where the artists spend their time in Paris
• Le Mur des Je T’aime – A wall dedicated to love
• L’Objet Qui Parle – vintage shopping a la Parisienne
Basilica of the Sacreé-Coeur
The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica (it didn’t look minor to me). A popular landmark and the second most visited monument in Paris, the basilica stands at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. I really don’t trust these rankings on how many people visit a site or monument since it seems they rank differently (The Louver, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Henri’s Peep Show and Caberet’) Sacré-Cœur Basilica has been around since 1885, and was in the midst of the socialist Paris Commune of 1871 anchoring this rebellious neighborhood. It’s a fabulous structure with a killer view of the city and its not to be missed.
Musee de Montmartre
The Musée de Montmartre is located in the 18th arrondissement of Paris and contains art and history from Paris in the 19th century. It was founded in 1960 and was classified as a Musée de France in 2003. The museum is housed on an amazing street in Montmartre at 12, rue Cortot in buildings which are three centuries old, the Hotel Demarne and the Maison du Bel Air. The 17th-century French actor Rosimond acquired the house in 1680. It was home to many famous artists and writers such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir who painted his celebrated La Balançoire and Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette here in 1876. As a home its residents included:
• Suzanne Valadon
• Maurice Utrillo, Valadon’s son, painter
• André Utter, Valadon’s husband, painter
• Émile Bernard
• The fauves Othon Friesz and Raoul Dufy
• Demetrios Galanis
• Francisque Poulbot
• Léon Bloy
• Pierre Reverdy
Part of the museum includes Renoir’s Gardens and a vineyard. The gardens have been renovated to reflect the way they looked in Renoir’s paintings. Not only are they peaceful, beautiful, and soothing, if you peek over the garden wall they provide a good view of the vineyard, which has existed since the Middle Ages and was replanted in 1933. Who knew that a vineyard exists in the middle of Paris? According to the New York Times, its working vineyard is said to make the most expensive bad wine in the city. I didn’t say that, but of course how would I know how good or bad the wine is but they auction it off and use the money to support the museum. We could have spent all day here, but we had to move down the street and have lunch in a windmill, Moulin de la Galette. Very touristy, but pretty cool, and the food surprised me, it was very good.
Yellow Jacket Demonstration
After leaving Montmartre, we ran smack dab into a demonstration (which is what we precisely attempted not to do). As we descended the hill from the cathedral we ran into a wave of humanity being guarded by swarms of police in tactical gear. No violence was seen, but a few confrontations, lots of chanting, and people dressed up like they were picking up garbage on the highways. Most of them were old farts like us, but there were some young guys/girls as well. I’d heard about violent confrontations with police in the past, but today was on the quiet side at this event. The yellow vests or yellow jackets movement is a populist, revolutionary political movement for economic justice that began in France in October 2018. After an online petition posted in May had attracted nearly a million signatures, mass demonstrations began in November, 2018 in Paris.
The movement is motivated by rising fuel prices, a high cost of living; it claims that a disproportionate burden of the government’s tax reforms were falling on the working and middle classes, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. The protesters have called for lower fuel taxes, a reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, a minimum-wage increase, the implementation of Citizens’ initiative referendums, as well as the resignations of President Emmanuel Macron and the Second Philippe government. Basically, they are borderline anarchists, with a lot of the same tendencies as the Tea Party (Teabaggers) in the US.
The movement spans the political spectrum. According to one poll, few of those protesting had voted for Macron in the 2017 French presidential election, and many had either not voted, or had voted for far-right or far-left candidates. There is no middle ground in this group, and its and about the only thing they agree on is they are angry. Rising fuel prices initially sparked the demonstrations. Yellow high-visibility vests, which French law required all drivers to have in their vehicles and to wear during emergencies, were chosen as “a unifying thread and call to arms” because of their convenience, visibility, ubiquity, and association with working-class industries. They probably want to revoke the law requiring yellow vests be kept in your car as well.
The protests have involved demonstrations and the blocking of roads and fuel depots, some of which developed into major riots, described as the most violent since those of May 1968, and the police response, resulting in multiple incidences of loss of limb, has been criticized for their harsh reaction to the mobs. On the day we saw the demonstration, the cops were pretty low key, though they were equipped with riot gear and didn’t give an inch when the demonstrators wanted to expand the protest area.
What a wonderful way to start our stay in France.