Paris Tuesday

We spent a few hours this morning and early afternoon at the Musee de Montmartre. The buildings, which are 3 centuries old, were workshops and studios of numerous artists such as Auguste Renoir, Emile Bernard, Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo, to name a few. The museum is spread over a few buildings and has a very good “Montmartre – a film set” temporary exhibition, showing clips of some of the many films set in Montmartre, many featuring the long flights of steps. Of course there is a café where we had lunch and coffee, in a very peaceful garden. It is so quiet and peaceful that it is hard to imagine that there is anything going on outside the walls.

There is also a building devoted to their permanent collection of paintings, sketches and lithographs. They are all related to Montmartre and the activities there. There are a number of lithographs related to the night club, Le Chat Noir. Most people have probably seen one of the typical posters.

Rick needed a “high up” fix for the day, so the next stop was the Arc de Triomphe. Although we’ve  been up it previously, the air was clear and there are spectacular views of the layout of the roads and buildings around the Place Charles de Gaulle. Unfortunately it’s not as much fun watching the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe as it used to be. There are traffic lights and the traffic flow is reasonably ordered. Click on this link if you want to see a very short video from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. https://youtu.be/JebAlVpOgfw

We went to buy a couple of bottles of water from a street hawker, but we think he was trading illegally, because there were police around him and when I tried to pay, he said the water was free. One of the policemen gave me a second bottle. Don’t think the Hawker made any money today after having the water confiscated/given away.

We made good use of the Metro today, it is a very efficient system and trains on most lines seem to come every 3-5 minutes. There is a lot of walking inside the stations though, up, down and along, to access the other platforms/other lines and entrances/exits. Sadly, we only get one more trip, tomorrow we leave this great little apartment and fun city to catch the Eurostar to London.