An artists' haven

There are some parts of Montmartre which normally are hidden… except at a few occasions. This is the case with this surprisingly wild and green space. Exceptionally the gates on Rue Norvins and on Rue Girardon were open a Saturday in May. 

Spread out between the trees and the more or less wild grass and flowers there are a number of buildings in which you can find some artist workshops.  They are managed by the “Cité Internationale des Arts – Paris”, which started its activites in 1965 and provides short or long stays for professional artists. Most of the facilities are to be found elsewhere in Paris, some 270 in the Marais district, but some 35 workshops can be found here.  The founders include the City of Paris, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also schools, institutes, universities and ministries from some 50 countries. This explains why most of the artists I met were from foreign countries.

The day of the visit was cool and rainy; you can however hopefully imagine how nice it can be to live and work in this surrounding.

I already posted about other "artist places" around Montmartre, e.g. here.

I'm in Sweden for a good week. This post is preprogrammed.