Montmartre - Fête des Vendanges
Oct 10, 2010 10:50:12 GMT
Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2010 10:50:12 GMT
The grape harvesting festival in Montmartre has been around for a certain number of years as a little folkloric event for the neighborhood. There are a few grape vines left and some sort of atrocious wine is produced for charity sales. It used to be just a weekend, but now it has expanded to five days of festivities.
There are wine tasting events, tours of Montmartre, music, parades of schoolchildren, visits to famous buildings, etc. It is still a mostly local affair concerning a small part of the 18th arrondissement. Ah, but there are tourists, so something must be done for them.
Therefore, there were fireworks last night, so I decided to drag myself outside and check it all out, since I live with 15 minutes walking distance. I took the metro there anyway.
Plenty of people around. Most of them were completely unaware of the existence of any fête and were just concentrating on eating and drinking in the side streets.
I walked to the funiculaire, where I knew I would have to wait on a Saturday night, but I had no desire to go up all of those steps.
Other people were more impatient. Or perhaps younger.
I watched the electronic sign as I waited my turn.
Once at the top, I saw that I was not the first to arrive, even though the show wasn't for another 90 minutes.
I always love the view of Paris from up there -- it all looks so peaceful down below. We locals can recognize the various monuments at odd angles in semi darkness, but it is often a real puzzle for the tourists. They are always perplexed that you can't see the Eiffel Tower from the Sacré Coeur although you can see the Sacré Coeur from the Eiffel Tower. (There is a building and some trees hiding it off on the right -- no way to get a glimpse from where I was standing.)
The people on the grass thought that they were super clever to have entered that little section of the closed park. They were evicted by the security people about 20 minutes before the fireworks.
At 21:45, the show began.
[photobucket height=480 width=640]http://s450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/?action=view¤t=d479c241.pbw[/photobucket]
There were some huge gas flame effects, never before seen, in rainbow colors. Wow, those flames were hot, even at a great distance!
A YouTube is worth a thousand words, so here is a bit of the action. It can't compare to the big fireworks shows like on the 14th of July, but for a little neighborhood event, it wasn't bad.
It was finished by 22:05 and I walked home, all downhill.
There are wine tasting events, tours of Montmartre, music, parades of schoolchildren, visits to famous buildings, etc. It is still a mostly local affair concerning a small part of the 18th arrondissement. Ah, but there are tourists, so something must be done for them.
Therefore, there were fireworks last night, so I decided to drag myself outside and check it all out, since I live with 15 minutes walking distance. I took the metro there anyway.
Plenty of people around. Most of them were completely unaware of the existence of any fête and were just concentrating on eating and drinking in the side streets.
I walked to the funiculaire, where I knew I would have to wait on a Saturday night, but I had no desire to go up all of those steps.
Other people were more impatient. Or perhaps younger.
I watched the electronic sign as I waited my turn.
Once at the top, I saw that I was not the first to arrive, even though the show wasn't for another 90 minutes.
I always love the view of Paris from up there -- it all looks so peaceful down below. We locals can recognize the various monuments at odd angles in semi darkness, but it is often a real puzzle for the tourists. They are always perplexed that you can't see the Eiffel Tower from the Sacré Coeur although you can see the Sacré Coeur from the Eiffel Tower. (There is a building and some trees hiding it off on the right -- no way to get a glimpse from where I was standing.)
The people on the grass thought that they were super clever to have entered that little section of the closed park. They were evicted by the security people about 20 minutes before the fireworks.
At 21:45, the show began.
[photobucket height=480 width=640]http://s450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/?action=view¤t=d479c241.pbw[/photobucket]
There were some huge gas flame effects, never before seen, in rainbow colors. Wow, those flames were hot, even at a great distance!
A YouTube is worth a thousand words, so here is a bit of the action. It can't compare to the big fireworks shows like on the 14th of July, but for a little neighborhood event, it wasn't bad.
It was finished by 22:05 and I walked home, all downhill.
