Hello everyone! After visiting Egypt, this week we are travelling to Paris. I have visited this wonderful city a couple of times some time ago. On purpose I will avoid the very obvious Louvre and Orsay museums, and will talk about some of my favorite things in the City of Light. 

My subject for today is Montmartre, the quarter of the artists. It is located in a heel that dominates the city, and this means that you have to climb its iconic and beautiful steps. It was the mythical bohemian district where many artists lived during the Belle Epoque. Picasso lived there in the famous Bateau-Lavoir, which was a cheap building for poor artists and where Modigliani also lived. It is there where Picasso painted the famous Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, giving birth to cubism. Not far away lived Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo. Van Gogh left us many scenes of the quarter, like the famous Moulin de la Galette, a very popular meeting place for bohemian nightlife. Renoir, who also lived in Montmartre, painted a famous scene of a dance in the same place, Bal au Moulin de la Galette. One of the characters in the painting is Suzanne Valadon. She was another artist, also a resident there, and the first woman to be admitted in the prestigious Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. But perhaps the artist that better symbolices that era is Toulouse Lautrec, who could be always seen in the cafes and cabarets, like the legendary Le Chat Noir.  

Today Montmartre retains part of this artistic and bohemian aura, with its many narrow streets full of galleries, vintage stores and cafes. We can see it in the movie Amélie. This is all for today, au revoir..!