Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre: Managing One of Paris’s Most Overrun Hills

Sacre-Coeur sits at the top of Montmartre and is free to enter. The dome is worth the climb for views across Paris; on a clear day you can see 30-40km. The queues for the interior are usually 20-30 minutes in high season; arrive before 09:30 or after 17:00 to reduce that. The exterior is more impressive than the interior anyway.

The steps in front of the basilica are where pickpockets operate systematically. Keep your bag in front of you. The vendors with “friendship bracelets” and the people approaching you with clipboards are not fundraising for anything real.

Montmartre Beyond the Tourist Trail

Most visitors go to Sacre-Coeur, take photos on the steps, walk ten minutes to Place du Tertre (portrait artists, overpriced crepes, significant crowds), and then leave. The actual neighbourhood is considerably better than that circuit suggests.

Walk down Rue Lepic instead. It goes north-south through the residential part of the hill and has a decent market on Tuesday and Friday mornings, normal cafes with normal prices, and the two remaining windmills. Moulin de la Galette at the top of the street is a restaurant now; Moulin Radet still looks like what it is.

Rue des Abbesses is where people who live in Montmartre eat and drink. More interesting than Place du Tertre.

Cimetière de Montmartre (open daily from 08:00, free) is one of the genuinely atmospheric Parisian cemeteries, with Degas, Truffaut, Nijinsky, Heine, and Emile Zola buried here. Good for a quiet 45-minute walk.

The Musée de Montmartre (12 Rue Cortot, around €15) is in an old manor house where Renoir had his studio and Utrillo lived. The permanent collection covers the neighbourhood’s artistic history well; the garden has a good view of the Sacre-Coeur without the crowds.

Eating and Drinking

Avoid anything on or immediately around Place du Tertre. The markup is severe and the quality is below the Paris average.

Le Moulin de la Galette (83 Rue Lepic) is technically a tourist restaurant in the old windmill building, but the food is consistent and the setting is good enough to justify it. Around €35-45 per person.

For a cheap, excellent meal: take the Metro to Jules Joffrin (line 12) and walk the short distance to Rue du Mont-Cenis. Several very ordinary-looking restaurants here serve neighbourhood food at €12-15 for a two-course lunch. This is not glamorous but it’s how the 18th arrondissement actually eats.

Cafe des Deux Moulins (15 Rue Lepic) from the film Amelie is still there and still serving coffee. It’s fine. Budget a coffee rather than a meal.

Getting There

Metro line 12 (Abbesses station) drops you at the base of the hill with a funicular option up (Metro ticket, runs continuously) or stairs. Anvers station on line 2 is the other option. From the Marais, it’s about 30 minutes by foot or 15 minutes by Metro.

The neighbourhood is worth at least half a day if you explore properly rather than just queuing for Sacre-Coeur.