All Saints

The posing tourists and glamour girls are gone. All that's left on the Champ de Mars is fog, drizzling rain and mud.

Out of sight are a handful of the usual guys who hang around trying to sell cheap, tower-shaped trinkets and twinkling tchotchkes to the thousands of picnickers who crowd the lawns every day and night, all summer long. Today they have added umbrellas to their inventory. There are not many customers. 

In Paris, where there are always lots of people everywhere, all the time, dozens of people would be the same as none. On the Champ de Mars, hundreds is the same as none.

Elsewhere in Paris, it was Toussaint, a national holiday coinciding with the Catholic Feast of All Saints. Traditionally, French people visit cemeteries on Toussaint, sprucing up the resting places of their deceased loved ones and ancestors--in a way, getting out in front of All Souls a day early.

Or you could do what I did: brave the throngs of tourists up the Buttes de Montmartre and wait in line for an hour to visit Cimitière du Calvaire. It's the oldest remaining cemetery in the city (from 1688), and the smallest at only about 6,500 square feet (about 600 square meters). Given the fragile state of the graves and the vast number of people who pack into the quarter each day, the parish only allows visitors one day a year, on Toussaint, and only then in guided groups of 10 people. I was prepared to be underwhelmed, but still could not pass up the opportunity. Tourists notwithstanding, the Montmartre neighborhood still reveals new charms every time I go.

A once a year view of Basilique du Sacre Cœur from the Cimitière du Calvaire, 18th Arr.

The walk up the steps to Calvaire brings you to the art nouveau front door of Maison Maurice Neumont, 18th Arr. The right panel shows the owl and spiderweb details.