55 min
45 min
2 · 4 · 12
33.9 / km²
10
15
8,150
−27% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Mixed after dark
The hill and the streets west of it are fine day and evening. The eastern strip around Barbes, Chateau Rouge and the Goutte d'Or, and boulevard de Clichy after dark, are the parts to plan around.
Staying in Montmartre (18th)
Montmartre earns its reputation. Sacre-Coeur sits 130 metres above the rest of the city, the streets around Abbesses and Lamarck-Caulaincourt are ordinary residential Paris with good bakeries in it, and the view from the basilica steps at sunset costs nothing. Rooms go for roughly half what the same room costs in the 4th.
The qualifications matter. Place du Tertre is a portrait-painter's queue and the restaurants circling it charge accordingly - eat one street down. The hill is a hill: stairs, or the funicular, and a suitcase makes the point. And the arrondissement is much bigger than the postcard. Its eastern side, around Barbes, Chateau Rouge and the Goutte d'Or, is a working immigrant quarter that is fine by day and not what most visitors are expecting after dark, while the southern boundary along boulevard de Clichy is strip clubs that work tourists hard.
Book west or north-west of the hill - Abbesses, Lamarck, the streets towards place de Clichy - and check the address on a map, not on the hotel's description of it. Metro 12 and 4 both reach the centre in about twenty minutes, and Gare du Nord is walkable, which is worth something if you arrive by Eurostar.
What works
- Rooms cost about half the equivalent in the 4th arrondissement
- Metro 12 at Abbesses and 4 at Barbes both reach the centre in 20 minutes
- The streets north-west of the hill are lived-in Paris, not a film set
- Gare du Nord is walkable, so the Eurostar and RER B are close
What does not
- Fifty-five minutes on foot to Notre-Dame; the metro is not optional
- Place du Tertre and the restaurants ringing it are a tourist operation
- The hill is steep and the metro exits are at the bottom of it
- The eastern strip - Barbes, Chateau Rouge, the Goutte d'Or - is a different district
The 18th, 19th, and 20th arrondissements are widely seen as the least safe areas of Paris, but safety levels vary dramatically from street to street. During the day, they're usually fine; you might have to watch out for pickpockets and scammers, but not much more. However, be on your guard at night.The sleaze of boulevard de Clichy between place Pigalle and place Blanche can provide a moment of distraction. Be warned if you are male it is better to do this in the company of a female fellow traveller, as the clubs often send the girls outside to attempt to physically drag passing men off of the street.