Sacre-Coeur Basilica

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This is a view of the basilica of Sacré-Cœur (pronounced /sakʁe kœʁ/, and meaning "Sacred Heart"), near Pigalle, as seen from the square Willette. The basilica is at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in Paris.

The basilica was constructed in the nineteenth century, and was criticized by some as the time as gawdy, with its tapering white marble domes, but—like so many other landmarks in Paris—it came to be accepted after a time, and now it is hard to imagine Paris without it.

You can see the main stairways leading up to the basilica through the rather steeply inclined park in front of it. There are also zig-zag stairways on either side that are just barely visible here (on the left); they sometimes smell faintly like urine because male visitors with small bladders and smaller brains sometimes mistake them for urinals. Anyway, you can climb any of these these steps to reach the basilica, or you can take a small funicular (inclined railway) up to very near the summit (the railway is operated by the Independent Paris Transport Authority and is considered part of the Métro, or subway). The funicular is behind the trees on the left.

Just west of the basilica at the summit of the butte Montmartre is a very famous and touristy quarter frequented by artists, the place du Tertre, of which I also have a picture, if you are interested. If there were no trees or ground in the way here, this small neighborhood would be right up in middle left of this photo, just behind the tops of those trees. It's about 220 metres away from the camera, in any case.

On the steps right in front of Sacré-Cœur (hidden by a stone railing in the background of this photo), tourists (especially students) gather and generally loiter about at all times of day. In the morning, the area around the basilica is spotless, freshly cleaned by Parisian sanitation workers. By evening, it is littered with beer bottles and broken glass, courtesy of these tourists. The cycle repeats the following day.

People sitting on the steps also seem to feel a compulsion to sing and play the guitar. The songs you'll hear most often are Let It Be, Hey Jude and Hotel California, the only English-language songs that most French street artists seem to have mastered. The last song is considered very romantic in France (I’ve even heard it played as a sort of epithalamium at weddings!), since almost nobody in France actually understands the words.

In the photograph, you are looking northwest. The time is late afternoon, on a day late in the spring with a clear sky. I have a picture of the view from the steps of the basilica, if you are interested in seeing that, as well as a closer look at the front of the basilica itself, taken before the tourists arrived for the day.

Photographed on June 18, 2000.