Montmartre: the back lanes
The village above Paris done from behind — the windmill, the vineyard, the basilica without the steps. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Place des Abbesses
Come up the lift, not the spiral stair, and start at the green *Art Nouveau* métro mouth. A coffee here, then turn your back on the funicular entirely — you won't need it.

2. Rue Lepic
The market street that climbs. Take it slowly past the *boulangerie* fronts and the bend where it kinks left; this is the working spine of the hill, before the postcard part begins.

3. Moulin de la Galette
One of the last two windmills left on a hill that once had thirty. You can't go in — it's a restaurant now — but stand at the corner and read it as the survivor it is.

4. Place Dalida
A small triangle with a bust of the singer who lived round the corner, her face worn bright by decades of hands. The lane drops away here towards the prettiest stretch of the walk.

5. Rue de l'Abreuvoir & La Maison Rose
The pink-walled café on the corner is the one every painter has painted. Walk the cobbled curve below it; early enough, you'll have the whole lane to yourself.

6. Clos Montmartre
A working *vigne* (vineyard) on the north slope — a few hundred vines behind a railing, harvested each October with a neighbourhood parade. Look over the fence; that's all you can do, and it's enough.

7. Sacré-Cœur, from behind
Approach from rue du Chevalier-de-la-Barre and the basilica arrives sideways, without the tour-bus terrace. Slip in for the dome's cool quiet, then come out to the view. The painters' scrum of Place du Tertre is a block west if you want it — but the lanes you've just walked are the better Montmartre.

Montmartre: the back lanes