Finally....Pictures!

So I did go out and get a new camera.  Upon suggestions from a couple of people and my own search online, I found a place called FNAC....kind of a French Best Buy.  Don't know how great a camera it is, but I paid 150E for it....so I hope it's even close to as good as my last camera.  This one is an Olympus....the last on was a Canon.....who knows....so far so good.

You should have seen me getting ready to go out the day after the camera was taken....I'm so paranoid now about where things are on my person and whether anyone could get them....or even see them.  My little purse with my money, etc has a long strap...so it goes across my body, under my clothes and then I shoved it as far down in my pants as it would go.  I figure if some merchant doesn't want to wait while I pull money and credit cards out of my ass......he can kiss it!

So I went back to Montmartre today to re-take the pictures I took the other day that were on the other camera.  That day was a beautiful day with blue sky and warm sun.  Today it was really cold, gray and even raining a few times.....just like home.....  So the pictures did not turn out quite as good.

Montmartre is such a magical place.  All the tourists aside....it is such a beautiful, old, picturesque place.  Because it is the highest part of Paris, everywhere you look, you look out at a view.  It is a warren of narrow, winding, stone streets, which are so steep sometimes it feels like you're trying to walk up a wall.

Before I show you my particular places, which I wanted to see for their connections with the lives of the artists which I have loved for so many years.......here are just some general pix of buildings, streets, etc.  

                                       Very large sand box with fine, soft sand in Park.

                              Plaque on wall....don't know what it means...I'll have to look it up.

                                                       Street Musician

                                                       Allee Des Brouillards - Fog Alley

This is the famous La Maison Rose made famous by a painting by Utrillo - an artist for whom I have had a passion for years.  He and Picasso both hung out here.

The following pictures are all of the Moulin de la Galette.  A little history.....only two windmills (moulins) remain on a hill that once had about 30 of them.  Originally, they were used for pressing grapes from the monks' vinyards and for grinding grain....and for a long time, used to crush the gypsum that was mined from within the hill.  The gypsum powder is what we refer to as plaster of paris.  The two moulins became the centerpiece of a popular outdoor dance hall.  The very famous Renoir painting "Bal du Moulin de la Galette" which I will see when I go to the Musee d'Orsay, shows the place in its heyday - a sunny Sunday afternoon in the acacia-shaded gardens with people dancing and drinking and eating the crepes...called Galettes.

This time of year, of course, it doesn't look very green and acacia-shaded....but I'm going to go back once the place has gotten a full load of Spring and try to get some better pictures.

All this is part of it....I don't know if those are rooms or the windows of a large room like a ballroom.  I believe the outdoor restaurant and dancing space is behind it.

This is the last remaining vineyard in Paris.  Closed to the public except in October during the harvest fest when the wine is auctioned off to support local charities.

The buildings you see behind the vineyard are the Montmartre Museum....of which I have lots of pictures....

Across from the vineyard is Au Lapin Agile Cabaret.  The poster above the door, which you can't see very well in my photo because of the reflections....but I bought a print of it, I love it so much....the poster gives the place it's name.  It's of an agile rabbit leaping out of a pot while balancing a bottle of wine that he can now drink...rather than be cooked in.  This was another hang-out of all those guys...Renoir, Utrillo, Paul Verlaine, Modigliani, etc. all hung here.  It is actually Utrillo's painting of the place that got me interest in him.  I inherited, from my beloved great aunt Bea, a print of the painting.  So I have a particular fondness for it.

                                   This is almost the same perspective as the print that I have.

This is the studio of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  It's at the top of his house which is located, not up on the hill in Montmartre, but closer to the bottom of the hill and close to the Moulin Rouge.  What a studio!  So much fabulous light!  It's about 5 or 6s block from the Moulin Rouge.  I just can't imagine him, with his poor deformed legs, walking all that way every night, all dressed up in his tuxedo, and then all the way back and up to his studio.  I'm so glad he did!

I'm going to save the  pictures of the Montmartre Museum for another post.  I've been doing this blog session for a couple of hours.....  I need a break.  But it's coming soon to a computer near you....