Mon dieu, Montmartre
Métro Walk 1, 2005-02-14
Abbesses to Lamarck-Caulaincourt (Line 12: see network diagram)
The rules devised for London Underground by the eponymous tubewalker stipulate that adjacent stations must be walked pairwise in alphabetical order. The Paris walks, therefore, start auspiciously at Abbesses in the tourist village of Montmartre. I recognised the name of the station from Amélie, but apparently neighbouring Lamarck-Caulaincourt doubled for it in the film.
And you can see why. The platform walls at Abbesses have been ripped of their tiles, exposing graffiti and shredded advertisements. There is some compensation in the continuous mural of local scenes which winds round the spiral staircase. Abbesses is the deepest station on the Métro: 280 steps, each tagged with graffiti. It does preserve a pretty canopy of glass and iron at the entrance, in a grassed square where we somehow missed the Mur des Je t'aime.
Lunch was a pancakes-and-cider combination to fortify the team against the predicted gusts of 70 km/h to which the highest point in Paris would be cruelly exposed. The ascent is possible by funicular railway, an integral part of the Métro network, so purists may argue that the first walk is Abbesses to Funiculaire. My charming companion, j4, likened the boxy carriage to an early Atari console. The funicular arrives in front of the white dome of the Sacre-Coeur basilica, described in my guidebook as a 'puffed-up excrescence of lard'. The panorama of Paris was disappointing on an overcast day: a view of colourless rooves and tower blocks with no evidence of planning in this famously planned city.
Montmartre has a reputation as the home of bohemian artists, which today means an ambush of caricat(o)urists hoping to make you look silly by giving them money. Avoiding them we risked truly distorted genius at the Espace Salvador Dalí. There are three sculptures of melting clocks, of course, but the majority of the works on display are Dalí's illustrations for the Bible, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and other classics of the imagination. He would be pleased, I think, to know that a square nearby was renamed after Dalida, a flamboyant chanteuse unknown in Britain who merits her own statue here.
The twisty turny streets of Montmartre are ludicrously precipitous. Twice we wandered a long way downhill to Janet's justifiable insistence that no way would she walk back up; twice we found we had to retrace our steps. Having exhausted the attractions open on a Monday out of season (who visits Paris on 14 February?) and conscious of allowing time to return to the Eurostar, we went hand in hand down staircases and steep boulevards until the M of Lamarck-Caulaincourt station appeared to mark the completion of the inaugural Métro walk.
Abbesses to Lamarck-Caulaincourt (Line 12: see network diagram)
The rules devised for London Underground by the eponymous tubewalker stipulate that adjacent stations must be walked pairwise in alphabetical order. The Paris walks, therefore, start auspiciously at Abbesses in the tourist village of Montmartre. I recognised the name of the station from Amélie, but apparently neighbouring Lamarck-Caulaincourt doubled for it in the film.
And you can see why. The platform walls at Abbesses have been ripped of their tiles, exposing graffiti and shredded advertisements. There is some compensation in the continuous mural of local scenes which winds round the spiral staircase. Abbesses is the deepest station on the Métro: 280 steps, each tagged with graffiti. It does preserve a pretty canopy of glass and iron at the entrance, in a grassed square where we somehow missed the Mur des Je t'aime.
Lunch was a pancakes-and-cider combination to fortify the team against the predicted gusts of 70 km/h to which the highest point in Paris would be cruelly exposed. The ascent is possible by funicular railway, an integral part of the Métro network, so purists may argue that the first walk is Abbesses to Funiculaire. My charming companion, j4, likened the boxy carriage to an early Atari console. The funicular arrives in front of the white dome of the Sacre-Coeur basilica, described in my guidebook as a 'puffed-up excrescence of lard'. The panorama of Paris was disappointing on an overcast day: a view of colourless rooves and tower blocks with no evidence of planning in this famously planned city.
Montmartre has a reputation as the home of bohemian artists, which today means an ambush of caricat(o)urists hoping to make you look silly by giving them money. Avoiding them we risked truly distorted genius at the Espace Salvador Dalí. There are three sculptures of melting clocks, of course, but the majority of the works on display are Dalí's illustrations for the Bible, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and other classics of the imagination. He would be pleased, I think, to know that a square nearby was renamed after Dalida, a flamboyant chanteuse unknown in Britain who merits her own statue here.
The twisty turny streets of Montmartre are ludicrously precipitous. Twice we wandered a long way downhill to Janet's justifiable insistence that no way would she walk back up; twice we found we had to retrace our steps. Having exhausted the attractions open on a Monday out of season (who visits Paris on 14 February?) and conscious of allowing time to return to the Eurostar, we went hand in hand down staircases and steep boulevards until the M of Lamarck-Caulaincourt station appeared to mark the completion of the inaugural Métro walk.