Montmartre

What Claire said. We spent 2 weeks there and did our own tour, at our leisure. Great shopping around Anviers, as Claire said. Not to far from Pigalle, which should be see at least once. Shops have "unusual" window decorations, to say the least. Go during the day.

Montmartre is a village, you could wander a full day and not even start to see it all.

If you just want to look around on top of the hill (like most tourists do) and maybe have a bite to eat (which would not be very good grub), three hours is plenty.

Yes I did the walking tour. I am not sure how I would rate it - maybe 3 stars out of 5?

We started off after touring the church and it immediately started pouring rain. We ducked into an Irish bar and had a few beers while we waited for it to stop (that was fun). Then we started off on the walk and it was pretty. There was an itty-bitty hill with grape vines right in someone's front yard. In the middle of a major city like Paris - I found that so unique. By and large, you pretty much walk around looking at apartments and homes of extremely famous artists. You can't go in them. You just stand outside looking at them and they are not terribly interesting to look at. Standing outside Picasso's apartment, I remember feeling "this is neat". But "neat" is probably the best I can say. If you are a HUGE art fan, you might be more interested. We also got lost and it was difficult to tell if we were even looking at the right house sometimes.

We also had lunch at the restaurant that "Amelie" was flimed in. That was purely on accident - but a great memory now that I have re-watched the movie.

We ended down in the Red-Light district and had a drink at some Black Cat bar (Noir Katz) or something. Eh.

Overall - I enjoyed that we walked around, but I sorta wish I had gone to the graveyard to tour instead. Next time!

We stayed in Montmartre for a week recently but we didn't do Rick's tour. It's a great part of the city. I would highly recommend the cemeterie, probably my favorite Montmartre spot. It was beautiful. If you go to Sacre Coeur, climb the dome. It's a great sight (both of the city and of the church's architecture). We also enjoyed the street markets at the park right by the Anvers station.

The area is large and very nice to wander but certain parts are crawling with tourists which made me not want to linger. We wandered the Place du Tetre around 9pm and it was lovely. I understand it's quite crowded during the day.

If you're going to spend some time there, definitely check out the movie Amelie for fun. The movie was filmed all over that neighborhood and you will recognize a lot of sights. Plus, it's a fun movie and will get you in the Parisian spirit even if you're not in Montmartre a lot.

We did a variation of Rick's walking tour starting at Sacre Coeur with a couple of stops and it took us about four hours. It's a fun area to get "lost" in. Go during the day. The walking tour was a good guide to orient us, but then we went off on our own when we saw something interesting and then picked up on the tour where we had left off.