Montmartre - Sacré Coeur, Paris

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The first photo of the Sacre Coeur is my best picture ever so far!

The Basilique du Sacre Coeur (English: Sacred Heart Basilica) is a basilica in Paris. He is on the Montmartre hill in the 18th arrondissement in Paris and is dedicated to the Sacred Heart-worship.

The church is remarkable for its bright white appearance, and prominent location on a hill. In order to arrive at the church, one can climb 237 steps or the Montmartre Funicular (cable car) to take. At the top you have views over a large part of Paris.

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Montmartre is a high hill and a district in Paris, located in the 18th arrondissement. If we speak of the hill is often spoken of la Butte Montmartre. Unlike what is often mentioned is not the highest point in Paris, which lies in the Rue de Telegraphe, in the 20th arrondissement.

The hill is some 134 meters high. Montmartre is one of the most famous tourist sites of Paris. On top of Montmartre is a beautiful city views. The Montmartre district attracts many artists have long and especially painters. On the Place du Tertre, atop the hill, the specially-made paintings sold to tourists.

Montmartre is also famous for its many and often steep stairs. At the stop Anvers you will find the Funicular de Montmartre, located parallel with the rue Foyatier component consists of a 300 steps stairway leading to the steps of the Sacré-Cœur leads.

On the hill of Montmartre, the great white Sacre Coeur Basilica.

Near the vineyard is one of the most famous cabarets of the neighborhood, the Lapin Agile. Most theaters are now home on the south side of the hill, on the rue des Martyrs and the adjacent boulevard de Clichy in Pigalle. Montmartre also has two cemeteries, the best known is the Cimetière de Montmartre in 1795 that was put into use. There are many well-known French artists buried. A smaller cemetery, the cimetière St. Vincent, one finds on the rue Caulaincourt.

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This is my nomination for the ugliest building in Paris.

Or at least the ugliest prominent building. Paris like all cities has numerous ugly buildings, but most of them are smaller and are tucked away in side streets where they only nauseate their immediate neighbors.

Sacré-Coeur, though, is certainly a prominent landmark, even for those of us who dislike the building and what it stands for. Looming above Paris from its position on a hilltop at the north end of the city, it can be seen from most places that have any sort of view at all, and it even serves a useful purpose for those who emerge disoriented from the Métro in some other part of the city and want to know which direction is north.

Like the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière, which has a similarly dominating position on a hill above the French city of Lyon, the construction of the Basilica Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre was begun in the troubled period of the 1870s to celebrate (or at least assert) the triumph of reactionary "Christian values" over the socialist aspirations of the Paris and Lyon communes.

In the words of Bertrand Taithe, Professor of Cultural History at The University of Manchester: "The reaction to the communes of Paris and Lyon were triumphalist monuments, the Sacré-Coeur of Montmartre and the Basilica of Fourvière, dominating both cities. These buildings were erected using private funds, as gigantic ex-votos, thanking God for the victory over the socialists and in expiation of the sins of modern France." (From the book Citizenship and Wars: France in Turmoil, 1870-1871 by Bertrand Taithe.)

Second photo: Looking up at Sacré-Coeur.

Third photo: Sacré-Coeur from the bottom of the stairs.

Fourth photo: I took this photo from the roof of the Centre Georges Pompidou a.k.a. Beaubourg, which is about three kilometers south of Sacré-Coeur.

Fifth photo: I took this photo from the balcony on the 28th floor of the Chambord Tower at the far south end of Paris. From there it is possible to see both Notre Dame (3.6 kilometers away) and Sacré-Coeur (up on a hill at a distance of 7.4 kilometers) if you look north between the nearby buildings.

If you promise not to be offended I’ll tell you what the Basilica Sacré-Coeur reminds me of. – – –
What? You don’t promise not to be offended? In that case I won’t tell you, so you’ll never know.
(It wasn’t anything very nice, anyway.)

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At Place Marcel Aymé, just off of rue Norvins, there is a statue by sculptor Jean Marais called Le passe-muraille, based on a short story by the French author Marcel Aymé (1902–1967), who lived here in Montmartre for many years.

In this story a quiet middle-aged office worker named Dutilleul suddenly discovers that he has “the unusual ability to pass through walls without inconvenience”. His doctor discovers the cause, un durcissement hélicoïdal de la paroi strangulaire du corps thyroïde (which I won’t attempt to translate), and prescribes "le surmenage intensif“ (intensive overwork) and some packets of medicine.

Since there is no way he can be overworked in his quiet office job, and since he neglects to take the medicine, he retains his unique ability and gradually finds some uses for it, first to frighten his new boss, then to rob banks and jewelry shops and finally to have an affair with a frustrated housewife who lives nearby.

By accident he takes some of the medicine, and his affair with the frustrated housewife provides him with some unaccustomed and very intensive exercise -- so he loses his ability just as he is in the middle of a wall, where he remains stuck for ever.

The statue shows him stuck in the wall. This is close to where Dutilleul lived in the story (75 bis de la rue d'Orchampt).

Second photo: VT member Maaike (VonDutch) holding hands with the statue of the man who could walk through walls.

Third photo: Signs at Place Marcel Aymé.

Fourth photo: Since I had never read the story Le passe-muraille I bought a copy the next morning at the fnac bookshop at the Gare de l’Est (East Station), thinking to read it on the train. But the story turned out to be quite short and easy, so I read it in the café before even getting on the train. Fortunately there are nine more of his stories in the book that I read later.

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The singer and actress Dalida (Yolanda Gigliotti) lived in Montmartre for the last twenty-five years of her life. Ten years after her death a little square at the corner of rue Girardon and rue Abreuvoir was named Place Dalida, and a life-size bronze bust of her was set up. The bust was made by the sculptor Aslan (Alain Aslan, born 1930), who also made a statue of Dalida for her grave in Montmartre cemetery.

Dalida publically supported François Mitterrand during the French presidential election campaign in 1981. Inevitably there were rumors (probably true) that Dalida and Mitterrand were having an affair during the two years prior to his election.

In my first photo -- with VT members in the rain including Maaike (VonDutch) on the right -- you can see that Dalida’s breasts on the bust are a much lighter color than the rest of her. This is because touching her breasts is supposed to bring good luck and/or fertility, just like touching the breasts of the statue of Juliet beneath her (fake) balcony at her (perhaps real) house not far from Romeo’s house in Verona.

Second photo: Plaque on the statue: “Yolanda Gigliotti called Dalida, singer, actress, 1933-1987.”

Third photo: Sign at Place Dalida.

Fourth photo: Dalida’s house in Montmartre. François Mitterrand supposedly came here to visit quite often in the evenings from 1979 until he was elected president in 1981.

Fifth photo: Plaque on the wall by her house: “DALIDA lived in this house from 1962 to 1987. Her friends in Montmartre will not forget her.”

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At this address there used to be a collection of flimsy, run-down buildings where dozens of famous or soon-to-be-famous artists lived and worked starting in the 1890s. Among the residents were Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Maurice Utrillo.

The original buildings burned down in 1970 and have been replaced, but in the window at the front there is an interesting display about the artists who once lived and worked here.

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The British and Australians have a nice word for street musicians -- buskers.

You can find buskers busking at lots of places in Paris, for instance at the Place des Abbesses in Montmartre.

I was surprised to find these guys playing in the rain, since most musicians I know are very careful not to let their instruments get wet and pack up at the first sign of a shower.

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In the Square Jehan Rictus at the Place des Abbesses there is a blue tiled wall with the words “I love you” written in more than 250 languages and dialects.

These were collected by a French musician and artist named Frederic Baron, who “began his project in 1992 by wandering the streets of Paris and asking people to write these words in their mother tongue. Baron feels he has toured the world without ever leaving Paris.”

At first I thought the German sentence was grammatically incorrect, but that turned out to be some other language entirely, and I found a correct German sentence in the bottom right corner.

Second photo: Above the blue-tiled “I love you” wall there is a painting (added later by someone else, I believe) of a woman in a long blue dress saying: aimer c’est du désordre… alors aimons! Which means “Loving is disorder… so let’s love.”

Third photo: Ed (Kaspian) pointing to the sentence in English.

Fourth photo: Ilse (MATIM) getting her camera ready to take a picture of the Dutch sentence: “ik hou van je”.

Fifth photo: VT group in the rain at Square Jehan Rictus. The square was named after an anarchist poet (1867-1933) who used the pseudonym Jehan-Rictus and belonged to the chaotic Bohemian poetic scene in Montmartre starting in the 1880s.

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