On a misty Saturday morning in Paris, I turned my back on the crowds of tourists outside Sacré Coeur to make a little pilgrimage to Renoir's garden, where a handsome black cat was waiting on this bench ...

Highly appropriate because there was a rather good exhibition on about the famous Chat Noir cabaret.

The garden isn't quite as it was in Renoir's day when, 'It looked like a beautiful neglected park. Outside the hallway of the little house, you found yourself facing a huge lawn of unmown grass dotted with poppies, convolvulus and daisies.'

But you could still imagine it like this ...

Garden in the Rue Cortot, Montmartre, Pierre Auguste Renoir

And I was delighted to see that there was still a swing. If not THE swing ...

From the bottom of the garden, you can look across the Montmartre vineyard, where chrysanthemums grow beneath the vines, to the Lapin Agile.

Then stroll down the road to Moulin de la Galette, where shopgirls and clerks came to dance - and the owner generously provided sandwiches if they were hungry. 

Of course, as soon as I got home I realised that I must have passed within yards of Renoir's other house in Montmartre. Oh, well...
I loved this book but it has been quite a long time since I read it.
Of course, it might have been an idea to pull it down from the shelf before I set out.