The postcard frame
From the square's base, Sacré-Cœur completes itself above the green terraces — the opening shot of every Montmartre album.
Dietmar Rabich — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mbzt — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Maria Eklind — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire) — Public domain
Up by funicular if saving energy for the full Montmartre day, down by the steps always — the view faces you descending and hides behind you climbing.
A teacher and revolutionary who led the women of the 1871 Paris Commune from Montmartre itself, was exiled and returned a legend — that Sacré-Cœur's garden bears her name is a historical irony the quarter cherishes.
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The green carpet unrolled at Sacré-Cœur's feet: Square Louise Michel — named for Montmartre's revolutionary heroine — with its terraces, fountains and the famous double stairway climbing the hill between lawns toward the basilica's whiteness. This is the classic foreground of the Sacré-Cœur postcard: from its base you frame the full cathedral above the hill's green, and on its terraces half of young Paris sits every sunny afternoon waiting for sunset — the stairway itself a cinema icon that hundreds of films have climbed. Practically, it is Montmartre's southern gateway: the funicular rises from here on an ordinary metro ticket for those sparing their knees, and at its base a heritage carousel has turned for decades — but mind the pushy "wrist-string" hustlers by the steps; smile, decline, and keep walking.
From the square's base, Sacré-Cœur completes itself above the green terraces — the opening shot of every Montmartre album.
As the sun tilts, steps and lawns fill with an audience awaiting Paris's orange blaze — join them; the front seats are free.
The old horse carousel at the stairway's foot appears in every film shot here — children's joy and photographers' backdrop at once.
Foot of Montmartre hill below Sacré-Cœur, 75018 Paris