Paris Guide
Montmartre and northern Paris
Stacked on its hilltop in the northern part of Paris, Montmartre sets itself apart from the city at its feet. Its chief landmark, visible from all over the city, is the all-white church of Sacré-Coeur. The slopes below preserve something of the spirit of the little village that once basked here, but unlike most villages Montmartre has a very diverse and dynamic population, by turns lefty, trendy, arty and sleazy. Some of the city's hippest and most individualistic clothes shops, cafés and restaurants are hidden away in the streets around Abbesses métro, a quartier within a quartier that seems to become more fashionable every year.
Between Montmartre and the Grands Boulevards, which define the edge of the city centre proper, stretch the twin arrondissements of the 9e (neuvième) and 10e (dixième). While both were born in the same nineteenth-century era, and their architecture and almost total lack of green space make them look superficially quite similar, in other ways they couldn't be more different; where the 9e arrondissement is largely genteel and well groomed, the 10e is rough, boisterous and shabby. In the heart of the 9e you'll find some exceptionally graceful architecture, especially around place St-Georges, as well as two beguiling museums devoted to the nineteenth-century artistic heyday, the Musée Moreau and Musée de la Vie Romantique. In keeping with its period mores, however, the 9e also has a darker side. The area around Pigalle, along the northern fringe of the arrondissement just below the Butte Montmartre, is famous for its cabarets and sex shows.
As for the 10e, while many visitors arrive there – at the Gare du Nord, one of the two northern stations that dominate the quarter – few stay long.