Montmartre
— — the white basilica above the slate roofs.
Not only on a wall.
“The hill that holds the northern edge of Paris, a butte of gypsum and limestone rising to 130 metres above the Seine. Sacré-Cœur sits at the top in travertine white, brighter the older it gets. Below it the streets fold in on themselves: Place du Tertre with its painters at their easels, the vineyard on Rue des Saules, the last working windmill above Rue Lepic. The Métropolitain climbs you halfway; the steps do the rest. from the studio
Montmartre, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Montmartre is the large hill in Paris's 18th arrondissement, rising 130 metres above the Seine and giving the city its highest natural point. The name traces to the Latin Mons Martyrum, the Mount of the Martyr, after the 3rd-century beheading of Saint Denis, first bishop of Paris. The village stayed outside the city walls until 1860, when Haussmann's annexation pulled it into Paris proper. Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries it became a working studio for Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Picasso, Modigliani, and Utrillo, and the gypsum quarried from its slope built much of the older city below.
The Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur crowns the summit, designed by Paul Abadie and built between 1875 and 1914, consecrated in 1919. The travertine comes from Château-Landon south of Paris; it contains calcite that bleaches white with every rain, so the stone grows brighter rather than dimmer with age. The dome reaches 83 metres. Steps below, the small parish church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre is older by seven centuries, founded in 1133 and one of the oldest surviving churches in Paris.
Most visitors arrive at Anvers or Abbesses on Métro line 12, then take the funicular or the 222 steps up to the basilica. The summit is open daily; the dome climb is a separate ticket and runs roughly 8 euros. Place du Tertre fills with painters and pavement cafés by mid-morning. Quieter approaches climb the north side from Lamarck-Caulaincourt, past the Clos Montmartre vineyard, which still produces about 1,000 bottles a year from 2,000 vines. Early morning, before nine, the steps belong to residents and the light is at its best.