Final days in Paris

Ben was in Paris with me for my final few days before I moved to Stuttgart, so we decided to see all the things close to home that for the past year we had said, "Oh, we should do this sometime," but never did.

Historic Montmartre

First, I took him on a tour of historic Montmartre, my neighborhood in Paris, which is one of the most picturesque and filled with artistic history of any in the city. The summer is a beautiful time to visit these less cosmopolitan areas, so I hope you enjoy this little tour of my old backyard!

Once you go up the stairs to Sacre Coeur, if you go around the front of the basilica and to the second street on the right, you come to the famous Place du Tertre. On the way, you often pass street performers, like this woman:

Accordion player outside Sacre Coeur

Place du Tertre is a big square where artists sit and paint and also sell their work. All around the square are restaurants and many street performers. Somehow, neither Ben nor I took a picture of this, so I had to find this one on the internet:

Place du Tertre in Montmartre

Behind Place du Tertre is the Dalí museum, which I never actually visited. The gift shop has all sort of Dalí-inspired souvenirs, including melting clock clocks and watches, 3D postcards, and other amusing things.

 

When you walk down from Place du Tertre, you eventually get to a sculpture of a man emerging from a wall:

 

Apparently you’re supposed to shake his hand for good luck. :)

Around the corner from this man is La Maison Rose, made famous in a Utrillo painting by the same name, a very picturesque little spot:

Street leading up to La Maison Rose

Old building next to La Maison Rose

La Maison Rose

If you go down the hill from here, you get to the Clos de Montmartre, the only remaining (and still functioning) vineyard in Paris. This area used to have tons of vineyards, but this is the only one left. Despite its small size, it produces about 1500 bottles of wine a year.

Clos de Montmartre

Right next to the vineyard is another famous spot, the Lapin Agile, the famous Montmartre cabaret where artists like Picasso used to hang out. They still have shows here, apparently.

Lapin Agile. Picasso wasn't there that day.

If you continue down the road in front of the vineyard, you eventually reach the building that Berlioz lived in from 1834-1836. It’s interesting to me as a violist that the two works of his printed on this plaque are Harold in Italy (the only viola concerto from the Romanic era) and Benvenuto Cellini, and not Symphonie Fantastique, which is probably the most famous and often performed of his pieces.

Where Berlioz used to live

If, at La Maison Rose, you had gone up the hill, you would come to the Museé de Montmartre, a very cute little building with stuff about the history of the area:

Right next to the museum is the former residence of Erik Satie, a famous and eccentric early 20^th century composer.

"Erik Satie - Composer of music lived in this house from 1890-1898."

What do you think this is?

Looks fancy, right? It’s just a water tower. :)

To the side of Sacre Coeur (to the right if you’re standing in front, to the left if you’re coming around the back) is a charming little park that you might never notice unless you were looking for it:

It’s quiet and peaceful in here, quite a contrast to the bustling tourist streets a stone’s throw away.

The Paris Opera (Palais Garnier)

One of the other things on our list was to take a tour of the Paris Opera. There are actually two Paris Operas now, the more modern Opéra Bastille and the older and more famous Palais Garnier. The Opéra Bastille was built to replace the Palais Garnier and it opened in 1989, on the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille at the start of the French Revolution. These days, the Palais Garnier is mainly used for ballet performances, not opera. It's incredibly ornate, both inside and outside. Here's the front:

Front of the Palais Garnier

Before you even get to the famous Grand Staircase when walking from the ticket area, you are greeted by this amazing ceiling:

Standing under it on this particular day were some very distinguished looking frogs:

Good thing these frogs are here and not in the throats of the singers...

As you go up the stairs to either side, if you look up, this is what you see:

Unfortunately, the Grand Staircase was under construction/maintenance while we were there and there was scaffolding everywhere, so we couldn't get a good picture. Here's a picture I found on the internet in case you haven't seen it before:

Grand Staircase

As you can see from this picture, the staircase takes up the entire central part of the theater, with balconies all around it. The balconies are also amazingly ornate:

While we were there, they had an exhibition of costumes worn at the opera on display. Here are a few of the pictures we took of them:

Too warm to wear in the summer

Close-up of a dress made out of music

We also paid a visit to the Grand Foyer, which reminded me a lot of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles:

Grand Foyer at the Palais Garnier

Some of the smaller foyers were considerably less ornate, but still interesting:

Finally, we went to see the inside of the theater itself. The famous (and huge) red curtain was down for cleaning that day, unfortunately. But it was still pretty magnificent! My favorite part of the whole building was the Chagall ceiling inside the theater, which was added in 1964.

Chagall ceiling at the Paris Opera

Paris Opera seats

That's the end of my posts from Paris. From now on, they'll be about Germany and the other places we visit. But hopefully I'll get to take a trip back to Paris before I leave Europe for good!

Two final pictures from Paris:

A fire dancer outside the restaurant at the top of my street

View out my window at sunset