Montmartre

Montmartre rises 130 metres in the north of Paris, the city's highest point and the heart of the 18th arrondissement. Until 1860 it was an independent village of windmills and gypsum quarries; by the late 19th century it had become the cradle of the Parisian avant-garde. Renoir painted Bal du Moulin de la Galette here, Picasso lived in the Bateau-Lavoir studio, and Toulouse-Lautrec immortalised the dancers of the Moulin Rouge at the foot of the hill. The white basilica of Sacre-Coeur, built between 1875 and 1914 as expiation for the Franco-Prussian War, crowns the summit. Today tourists, street painters and caricaturists crowd Place du Tertre. Step away and you find quiet stepped lanes, the last working Parisian vineyard Clos Montmartre, and the cafe from the film Amelie. The funicular spares you 222 steps.