We started out this morning for the chateau at Fontainebleau (http://www.musee-chateau-fontainebleau.fr/spip.php?lang=en). We traveled by Metro to the Gard du Nord train station only to be met at the station by a very nice woman in an official looking vest who told us there was a train strike today. We may be able to get to Fontainebleau, she said, but we may have problems getting back. She suggested we wait a day or better, two days, and then go. Okay, we're flexible.
 
Since we were already in the Metro station, we checked our map and decided to visit Montmartre instead . Back into the Metro and we emerged at the base of hill in front of Basilica of Sacre-Coeur (the big white church) that sits on the crest of the hill. It's about 125 years old, young in comparison to Notre Dame and other monuments in Paris, but beautiful and crowning jewel 420 ft above Paris.  You can see over all of Paris from the courtyard in front of the Basilica. We toured the Basilica. It's beautiful, but more of an "everyday" type of church than others we've seen. This is appropriate to the village of Montmartre which was a separate village from Paris for centuries. The village vibe still lingers, although it's main industry is obviously tourism. We stopped in the Museum of Chocolate and gawked at chocolate replicas of Notre Dame and other huge sculptures all of chocolate. Yes, we tasted the goodies! Yum.

We walked to the Place du Tertre where the legends of 20th century art used to roam. Now artistic wannabes set up their easels and create art for the many tourists who sit at the cafes and drink wine . We were tourists, so we stopped for some lunch and wine and watched the people and artists in the square.

We then walked down the most interesting streets of historic Montmarte filled with narrow cobblestone streets and sometimes beautiful private gardens. We realized why this was truly considered a village once, set outside the city limits. At that time it was covered with vineyards and gypsum quarries and was a real working class neighborhood to which the artists came for cheap rent and tax free wine. Now the former studios and crumbling apartments have been converted to modern apartments, but the village is still recognizable. We saw the Clos Montmartre Vinyard which still produces a few hundred bottles of wine a year.

We then found the Bateau Lavoir, an art studio/building where Pablo Picasso and other famous artists and poets once lived and worked. It is without a doubt the most famous art "studio" in the world .  Apparently there are countless stories of the wild days at Bateau Lavoir. Many of these same artists painted the Moulin de la Galette, our next stop. This is the site of the two remaining windmills on Montmartre and was home to a famous cabaret a hundred or so years ago.

We finished our exploration of Montmartre at the Place du Blanche where we saw the legendary Moulin Rouge. It still sports a large red windmill, but probably not the original windmill. Posters and videos of the show in the lobby appear to feature a Vegas-style show with scantily clad show girls, lots of rhinestones, feathers, music and dancing and the traditional cancan as the finale. It's very expensive, about $300 for us both to see, so we passed on that, considering we've seen Follies Bergiere in Vegas and multiple other Vegas shows. A quick Metro trip brought us back to our apartment after clocking 3 miles on Cory's pedometer. Feet are holding out well!