Montmartre + Pigalle

(Katherine) While I spend most of the day making blog updates, Robert went out and explored our neighbor to become more familiar with the area. He came back to retrieve me and I ventured out with him through the area of Montmartre just below Sacré Coeur. We climbed up a huge hill along an ally and found a cute bar at the top called Autour du Moulin, which is located just in front of Moulin de La Gillette (I learned that “moulin” means windmill.) We had a great view of the street below and were amused by the cars that would drive up the narrow street, only to have to roll back down again to exit.

We kept moving up the hill to an area called Place de Terte where Robert had identified a few dining options. We chose a tiny restaurant called Le Poulsbo, Le dernier de Montmartre. Although we were in a very touristy area, this place had a great deal of genuine charm and appeared to have many years of history on the top of this hill. After dinner, we walked back down towards our original ally to a movie theater where we purchased tickets for the Doors documentary entitled “When You’re Strange.” Jim Morrison had died in Paris, so they have a particular fascination with him. Johnny Depp narrates the movie, which gave me a whole new perspective of the band and how their lead singer was both a musical genius and the original definition of “hot mess”.

After the movie, we worked our way further down the hill and came upon a restaurant with a jazz cave downstairs, Autour de Midi. Downstairs we discovered a live band called Arthur playing upbeat French songs mixed with Spanish music. The lead singer even did a dead on impression of Johnny Cash’s “Walk the Line.” We will definitely add this venue to our list of neighborhood bars!

We kept making our way down to Pigalle, which is the red light district. Moulin Rouge is also located along the main street and we stopped in for a drink at their outdoor bar. They also appear to have a nightclub in the back which requires a cover, but you can drink at the bar for free. We kept making our way down the street and found a type of bar that I haven’t been to in quite a while - karaoke! Although there was no stage at L’Epoque Pub (you sing from your table, which I find weird) I still decided to belt out some Joan Jett amongst the sappy French love songs and other random 80‘s music. I think next time I’ll need to come armed with some tunes from Grease, since that movie seems to be a Parisian favorite.