Travelday

My favorite arrondissement of Paris by far is Montmartre.

I don’t remember the first time I went terribly well. I do know that I didn’t love it as much as I do now: all I saw was the Basilica at the top and the small square in the center where people have their caricatures done. I thought it was quaint, cute even, but it didn’t become my favorite until much later.

The first catalyst came when I was backpacking through Europe with several friends. Paris was our last stop, and we stayed for nearly two weeks: much longer than our usual three- and four- day stints in the other cities. We treated Paris as a relaxing end to our trip. I don’t know that we went to more than one bar the entire time. One evening, while looking for something to do, we stumbled onto a crowd on the steps of the Basilica Sacre Coeur, doing what I have come to recognize as the international coming-together act of youth everywhere, a phenomenon I had witnessed on las Ramblas in Barcelona, on the Spanish steps in Rome, and in bars and hostels all across Western Europe: one American boy with an acoustic guitar strummed familiar chords, while voices, some heavily accented, others alarmingly American, sang out the familiar words: “So maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me. And after all, you’re my Wonderwall.”

I don’t know how Oasis feels about being the international unifier, and I doubt that they know (or care) that they helped this American to find Montmartre, but they did.

Now I go up to the 18th whenever I feel lonely: it has the incredible attribute of being a friend as well as a neighborhood. I can eat outdoors in café alone without feeling silly, or stroll the streets in and out of boutiques and bakeries, just enjoying being alone. I take my camera and photograph nearly everything I see: there is no lack of beautiful buildings and streets in this neighborhood, so unaffected by the Haussmanisation of Paris, which demolished so many of the quaint, tiny streets that Montmartre offers in favor of the grands boulevards that occupy the rest of the city.

Of course, it’s fun to come with a group. Being hoisted over the communal table at Le Refuge des Fondus by a brusque waiter would hardly be as much fun without your friends to laugh at you, and it’s much easier to cope with eating half a pot of melted cheese and drinking almost a liter of wine yourself (out of a baby bottle) when you’re not the only one. A baguette from Grenier à Pain is just enough to share with a few friends, sitting in the small park by the Abbesses métro, and it’s harder to feel silly riding the merry-go-round when the rest of your 20-year-old friends are up there with you, arguing over who gets which painted pony. You’ll feel much better about drinking in the afternoon at the Cave des Abbesses if you have a handful of friends with you, and you’ll also have more arms to carry the bottles you’re sure to take away with you. The sex shops of Pigalle are funnier with someone else to point and laugh with you, and you look like much less of a creeper if you’re not wandering the Museum of Erotica alone.

Montmartre shows off the best of Paris, the combination of the real and the unreal, the day-to-day and the romance that everyone here searches for. Montmartre is for lovers, for friends, for loners, the epitome of the city of Lights.