Here Comes the Sun

The weather has taken a turn for the better, so now it's time to get out and do some serious exploring on foot. We have a long list of neighborhoods we want to explore in the next twelve days, and the first on our list today was Montmartre. Of course we'd seen Sacré-Coeur from the Pompidou Center:

from the Arc de Triomphe:
and from Buttes-Chaumont Park:

Now we needed to see the cream-puff cathedral up close, so we climbed to the top of Montmartre where it was waiting patiently for us:


Along the way, we walked up and down many pretty little streets, and until we got to the very touristy place du Tertre, we felt that we'd been transported to a Provençal village. First there was the vineyard:


Next, the windmill:


And finally there was the little cafe on a cobblestone street:


Hard to believe that this was the seedy part of Paris we'd visited years before, sandwiched between sex shops and crumbling buildings. Like most of Paris inside the périphérique, the neighborhood has become gentrified, yuppified, spruced-up, and propre. Looks like we'll have to go to one of the banlieus to catch a glimpse of down-at-heel Paris.