La Bohème - La Butte Montmartre

Today’s images are from a visit to Montmartre last week. We took the 67 bus from outside the Cité up to Pigalle and walked up the hill to Sacre Coeur.

It’s an area which is always brimming with tourists and this visit was no different, as the Fête des Vendanges (Harvest Festival) was in progress competing with the usual throng of street artists drawing portraits and restaurant owners touting for customers.

Although the original bohemian inhabitants are long gone, the area obviously enjoys some enthusiastic street art activity, which we enjoyed finding in all sorts of unexpected places amongst the picturesque streets.

Can you believe they still have an operational vineyard up there, amongst what must be some of the capital's most sought after real estate?

Boulevard St Germain

Although strictly speaking a Velo du Jour moment, just have to mention that I had my first ride on a Velibes today – how exciting!

I confined it to an early morning tour, mostly along the banks of the Seine, to minimise any harm to innocent bystanders, as I find the whole driving on the right hand side thing, just too difficult for mots.

Anyone watching me as I attempt to cross the various rues and boulevards, would see a slightly disoriented tourist (though I’m surely not the only one), looking every which way - including occasionally upwards - to check for traffic before she crosses the street. And still I can’t quite get right… don’t suppose it can have anything to do with Parisians’ driving, could it? Mais non!

Much sightseeing to be done today, along the picturesque side-streets off the Boulevard St Germain.

Since many of the galleries were closed, we set our sights instead on the wall-art in some completely unexpected places. I guess you’d call them transfers as the images are printed on paper and stuck on the wall, but at what heights!?

I am deeply admiring of their climbing skills – especially given that I spend quiet a lot of time up ladders these days, installing my own work - though something tells me they probably work a little more quickly than I do (and maybe in the dark)?

My friends who were I town today tell me that Banksy’s Kissing Policemen – famously stencilled straight onto the wall rather than paper (though I don’t think Banksy is afraid of heights either) – has been framed under perspex by Brighton Council (close to where they live). True to form, though, apparently someone has graffiti-ed over the top of it!