Montmartre and Northern Paris

From Paris Hotels Reviews

Stacked on its hilltop is 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 Secré – Coeur, crowning the Butte as if an overenthusiastic pâtissier had run riot with an icing gun. 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 turn’s lefty, arty, and sleazy. Some of the city’s hippest and most invidualistic clothes shop, cafés and restaurants are hidden away in the streets around Abbesses métro, a quertier within a quartier that seems to become more fashionable every year.

Between Montmartre and the Grands Boulevard, which define the edge of the city centre proper, stretch the twin arrondissements of the 9ᵉ (neuviéne) and 10ᵉ (dixiéme). 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 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 the dominate the quarter – few stay long. There are one or two low-key sights, such as the Portes St-Martin and St-Denis, standing sentinel at the foot the faubourgs, but otherwise the main attractions are two beautiful nineteenth – century brasseries, Flo and Julien, and a lively immigrant quarter that is slowly being infiltrated by waves of what Parisians call "bourgeois-bohemians", or bobos.

The far north of the city has less still to offer the visitor. East of Montmartre, you could explore the poor, largely African Goutte d’ Or qurtier. Alternatively, you could enjoy the cafés and restaurants of pleasantly bourgeois Batignolles, just west of Montmartre. Just outside the official city limits, beyond the so – called “plain of Montmartre”, sprawls the St-Ouen market, a segregated empire of antiques and curios.