Visiting
Montmatre, Paris/Carlos Pueblo
A young
visitor in the hostel recommended me visit Pigalle where I could
go up to a
big church to have a good view of the city. My fellow Taiwanese
lady visitor
indicated the concern of public safety and I did not know the
reason. I
did go up to the small hill, Montmatre 130 meters high and the
white-domed
church called Basilica of the Sacred-Coeur. Later an e-mail
from home
indicated Pigalle is a night club district and a mixed race area.
Actually it
didn’t bother me at all because I was very early in the morning
to reach to the
domed building while most of the people were still at sleep.
It was
easier to go up from the front side of the church because the sign
direction almost
on each street corner. There are several platform on the
steps up
with many ladder garden lots full of different kinds of flowers. When
I reach up
to the top level, busload of Chinese tourists were released and I
could identify
who they were from by overhearing their spoken language.
A lady guide
was very surprised that I was so early in contrast of her group.
The church
was not ready to open for that day’s visitor. I descended from the
Backside of
the church where I could see the Eiffel Tower far away and still
vividly.
Some early birds were taking exercises like yoga and Tai-chi shadow
boxing etc.
It is surrounded by the residential area of Montmare.
I didn’t
read the map, as a matter of a fact, the map was not as important as
a toilet
location in Europe, without it I could not go further. I found a grocery
store of
frozen desserts and use its toilet with a purchase of an ice cream cup
and I didn’t
believe that a purchase was required because the clerk seemed
very
understanding. I continued walking on the streets without any direction.
I believed that
I passed by a big cemetery which was for commoners, not the
Famous Cimetiere
du Montpanasse.
I decided to
take the subway which I had felt more comfortable with to return
to downtown
Paris. At Stalingrad Station where I received additional information
about the
remain of the Bastille Fortress, I went back to Bastille again. I still could
find neither
the remain and Musee Picasso. There are at least two Picasso Museums
as I know
of, one in Malaga, Spain his birth place; one in Bastille, France his exile
home. I have
been to the one in Malaga.
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