when I was 11, I went to montmarte with my family. I was young and completely overwhelmed but the bohemian vibe with artists painting everywhere and beautiful views was indelibly marked on my mind. so when we were planning where to go this trip, I knew I wanted to re-experience montmarte again through new eyes. montmarte was close to our hotel but it took quite a few days to actually get over to that part of town. after getting lost (typical), we finally saw sacré coure beckoning from afar. probably in all of Paris, montmarte is where we felt the least safe. there were tourists everywhere and people haggling us to buy things and guys telling us we’d be prettier if we smiled (so odd) and honestly, it was pretty stressful. we were beginning to feel like montmarte was a lost cause when we began to descend the hill and stumbled upon the cutest cafe I have ever seen. they had the largest array of gluten free treats I had seen yet in Paris and conversation cards (in English!) and glorious lemonade and seemed like an oasis after our hot and stressful bout. we stayed for hours and people watched (all the customers were intimidatingly cool) and chatted and enjoyed the good food and decided our trip to montmarte was pretty great after all.