#6 Wandering Montmartre
- Shelley Dark
- Apr 15
- 6 min read
Monday’s heroic walking did absolutely nothing to deliver the full night’s sleep I so richly deserve. So when I woke at 3am on Tuesday, I did the only sensible thing: I wrote you the letter about Monday! Quelle fun!
By the time I’d finished fiddling with my website—don’t ask—had a brief and fruitless chat with support, then solved it myself the second we hung up — it was already late morning when I finally burst out of our little house. The reward was instant: the most ridiculously perfect spring morning Paris has ever served up!
Four degrees is actually wonderful when there‘s no wind—chilly in the shade but you can positively cook under this possum-powered sun. Specially if you climb a few stairs. Did i say few? The people of Montmartre must have hearts like Olympic rowers.
My heart was singing like the little trilling birdies in the trees. Until the first set of stairs appeared. I’ve perfected a highly sophisticated technique for dealing with them.
I arrive at the top, phone already raised, and peer out at the rooftops of Paris with a dramatic, contented sigh. Magnifique.
Phone still raised, I do a quick assessment. :Number of steps—somewhere between ridiculous and why do people live here. Energy levels, already waving a huge white flag. Mental willingness factor: nil.
When my nerves have stopped screaming, I let my eyes drift lazily down, down—into the actual jaws of hell. That’s the exact moment the horror movie trailer starts playing in my head. I’m tumbling in glorious slow-motion, bouncing, somersaulting and grunting my way down while Parisians below look up and wonder where the film crew is.
Going up, by comparison, is merely delightful character-building torture. I can stop halfway, gasp like a happy or dying fish, lean on the railing, and beam at anyone who looks concerned. Just admiring the view, my friend!
But back to reality: with great composure, I sigh again and saunter off as if I never intended to go down in the first place. I‘ll find a gentler slope around the butte. Flâneuse, not coward.
At Place du Tertre the artists were already setting up, chatting and stamping their feet in the morning chill, their easels catching that buttery early light. Anyone with red curls looked on fire! So much talent and magic in one historic square.
By now, I was striding, practically bouncing, down the gentle slope. A man older than me whizzed past on a uni-cycle. I admired him unreservedly, but I‘d rather poke myself in the eye with a stick.
By now, it was half past ten. Theoretically the time the shops open. In fact, on Rue des Martyrs, about a thousand feet lower, everyone was still asleep. Shutters down, a few early risers inside cafés, chairs still stacked. People going home with their baguettes. The art is in the paper bag that allows just the tantalising top of the loaf to stick out.
Thrill of thrills, inside a boulangerie, I found my dream pastry. Heart hammering, I bought a packet of six.
I ate one chouquette.
We will never speak of them again, except to confirm that someone had definitely mistaken detergent for butter. Breakfast officially abandoned.
So I wandered happily through Pigalle instead, smiling like an idiot, letting a VoiceMap audio art tour pull me back uphill. This light makes every peeling shutter and crooked chimney pot look like a Renoir.
At the Abbesses métro entrance, a small group had gathered, phones up. One woman panned a full 360 as if the whole construction might disappear if she blinked. Children posed with Dad. I waited my turn. Isn’t it wild that when Hector Guimard designed these glorious Art Nouveau swirls, Parisians thought they were so vulgar that half of them were pulled down? Now we queue to photograph them.
The I Love You wall was shut for maintenance behind a gate. A couple stood there reading it through the bars anyway. I love you, I love you, I love you. Determined romantics.
Further along Rue Lepic I stopped here, at 34, Van Gogh’s old building—at that time a pretty disreputable area. Nothing to see, really—just a door and a few windows—but I stood there, enchanted, imagining Vincent and Theo arguing about money and how much absinthe Vincent was drinking with his mate around the corner.
And the mate was, of course, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, only a hundred or so yards away. This is his studio with the tall, angled bay window, exactly as it must have been when he was sketching dancers and drinking with Vincent late into the night. I could almost hear the clink of glasses and the echo of the can-can.
Two of Henri‘s paintings. The first of Suzanne Valadon called The Hangover, 1888. She was originally a trapeze artist and then an artist‘s model before she became a painter, and was thought to be Renoir's as well as possibly Henri‘s lover. She became successful through the help of Degas. And the second is of Vincent, 1887.
And not far further on, the Bateau-Lavoir, once a ramshackle, boat-shaped building—since rebuilt after a fire—where the two young Spaniards set up camp with a couple of models. I pictured Picasso and his painter friends, poets, danseuses and models climbing rickety stairs, all broke and brilliant and probably arguing about who owed whom for the wine.
Back at the apartment I tried to book lunch at Hôtel Particulier—reportedly once owned by the Hermès family. Tables for one were booked out until June, which naturally made it irresistible.
First I had to find it. Then I had to get in. I pressed a buzzer on one side of the entrance pillar, and then another.
I pressed again. Nothing.
Then, like someone sent from a casting agency, a gorgeous young American named James appeared. He introduced himself with effortless charm, said he lived nearby and had a reservation for lunch, and opened the gate so fast I didn’t see how he did it. And my head was turned too much to ask him to demonstrate.
We walked along the little laneway together to this absurdly handsome teeny hotel—only five suites—and a few tables with people were set on the front path. James and I were shown to a slightly higher gravel terrace.
He took my hand and asked my name again before he joined an older gentleman.
I put my head back in place and ordered the foie gras and then sole meunière, and a glass of champagne. The sound of children‘s laughter drifted from the unseen playground next door. No noise more beautiful.
Halfway through the fish, a loud, indignant squawk cut through the garden.
Enter OL. Pronounced OH-EL. The very pretty resident chicken.
To look at her more closely, click on one photo and it will bring up a slideshow.
She dashed straight through the tables, looked about to check the diners, hopped onto a recently vacated chair, and began scratch-inspecting the cushion with the intensity of a restaurant critic. The woman at the table was delighted. Someone lifted their phone. Within seconds, OL had a paparazzi audience. We were all laughing.
OL was scolded by the staff and left, outraged.
When the same woman had finished lunch, she nearly left without her credit card, then she had to come back for her shopping bag. Two separate reminders from neighbouring tables. She collected her belongings with a smile and great dignity. I was full of admiration.
After this masterclass in Parisian lunch theatre, I wandered down to Rue Caulaincourt and bought a salad, some fudge, and a small tub of ice cream, planning a simple salad-and-ice-cream dinner. Or more probably, none.
Back at home, I discovered the under-bench fridge has no freezer whatsoever. I am destined to eat ice cream soup this evening and am too full of lunch to care.
C’est la vie.
Until next time, mes chers copains — I can’t wait to share more of this ridiculously happy Paris adventure with you!
And of course, je t‘attends toujours.
