Paris off the beaten track – walking around Montmartre

Brighton – St Pancras – Eurostar – Paris

      

A city break in my favourite city – food for the soul after being unwell on and off for some time.   Pack my walking round Paris guide, Steve Kowit’s poetry manual ‘In the palm of your hand’ (which  somehow  I’ve never got round to reading right through), a few pairs of clean pants, a toothbrush, oh and best take Alan too, I guess!

He even insisted he needed some soul food too! Apparently practicing his melodion half the night, learning new musical techniques on youtube, reading books on railways and doing the washing up can get a bit monotonous, or so he claims!

So here are the pics giving you a taste of  the best of walk one – around Montmartre, including finding the oldest grapevine in Paris

 

and the oldest house, which is now the museum of Montmartre, (yes google this one)

 

and it’s famous garden.                    

So many lovely places that one can only really get to on foot, where writers, painters, poets and philosophers in happier days sat around writing, painting, poeting and philosiphising I guess.

Paris is a city of contrasts. As well as the vibrancy, the posh shops and the gourmet restaurants, both of which we tend to avoid, there are plaques commemorating people sent to concentration camps during the war including hundreds of children attending this school (below left) A whole road where the poets and philosophers of the day were also herded into death camps.

      I prefer going it alone, walking, getting a real sense of what makes a place and its people.

Part 2 tomorrow – The Quais, Corot and feminism