Montmartre

Welcome, observant scholars and intrepid walkers, to the summit of Mon-mart-ruh. We are standing upon a prominent geographical anomaly in the otherwise relatively flat basin of Paris, a large hill soaring one hundred and thirty…

We commence our ascent just behind the Abbesses metro station, pausing before a decidedly modern addition to the neighborhood: Le Mur des Je T'aime, or the Wall of Love. Constructed in the year two thousand, this installation…

Let us climb further up the winding paths to a small, unassuming square and focus on a specific, historically critical site: the former location of the Ba-toe Lah-vwar. Originally a piano factory, this bizarre, awkwardly shaped…

Continuing our walk, we confront an iconic silhouette against the sky: one of the two remaining original windmills on the hill, known as the Moo-lan duh la Gah-let. In the seventeenth century, the slopes of Mon-mart-ruh were…

We now navigate towards the northern, steeper slope of the hill, arriving at a highly unexpected sight in the middle of a dense metropolis: a functioning vineyard, the Cloe Mon-mart-ruh. Wine cultivation in the surrounding region…

Prepare yourselves for a dramatic shift in density and noise as we enter the Plass doo Tair-truh, the bustling main square of the upper village. This space is heavily populated by artists working en plein air, painting portraits,…

We arrive finally at the visual crescendo of the hill, the gleaming white domes of the Basilica of the Sah-kray Kuhr. Sitting at the highest point in the city, its imposing Romano-Byzantine architecture violently contrasts with…

As we conclude our rigorous ascent and descent of Mon-mart-ruh, let us find a quiet corner away from the main thoroughfares to synthesize our observations. We have traversed a landscape defined by its contradictions. …