Is Montmartre a good place to stay in Paris?

Montmartre suits some stays very well and others badly, and the difference is mostly physical: the hill is steep, the centre of Paris is a metro ride away, and the area is very visited. This page gives the verdict by type of traveller, then the numbers behind it. Our reading comes from the neighbourhood sheet we keep for Montmartre, from the Atout France register of 4 October 2026 and from the timetable of the Île-de-France network for Tuesday 13 October 2026.

The verdict by traveller

• Couples: recommended. Rooms with a view of the Eiffel Tower or the Sacré-Cœur at Timhotel, Regyn’s and Terrass”, according to their sites, and the streets around Abbesses.
• Small budget: recommended. Of 51 classified hotels in the two administrative districts that cover the hill, 33 have between one and three stars: four with one, eight with two and 21 with three.
• First visit: possible. The sights of the centre take a metro ride. The next section gives the minutes.
• Families: possible. Family rooms exist, but the slopes and the stairs are against pushchairs.
• Nightlife: possible. Our sheet puts the evening scene at the foot of the hill, around Pigalle, and calls the top mostly touristic in the evening.
• Shopping: possible. Shops in the Montmartre tourist zone may open on Sundays, but there are no department stores; Galeries Lafayette is in the Haussmann zone.

How far from the centre

From the hill, the centre is reached with one change or more. These are median times by public transport on the reference day, without disruption.

Photo: Maria Eklind, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

No RER station serves the hill. Lines 2, 4, 12 and 13 do. Gare du Nord, where RER B leaves for Charles de Gaulle, is on line 4, which stops at Château Rouge and Barbès-Rochechouart on the eastern side. Line 12 reaches Saint-Lazare, where line 14 runs direct to Orly. The RoissyBus no longer runs, and express bus 9517 replaced it on 1 March 2026.

What the hill asks of you

The natural summit of Paris, 130.53 m, is in the Calvaire cemetery beside the church of Saint-Pierre. The stairs of rue Foyatier have 222 steps, and the funicular, run by the RATP, climbs 36 m over 108 m of track. At Abbesses the platforms lie 36 m below ground, and Wikipedia counts 176 steps or four lifts. Anvers (line 2) gives the most direct way to the funicular and the Sacré-Cœur, and Lamarck-Caulaincourt (line 12) serves the northern slope, on the side of the vineyards.

Photo: Shadowgate, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Two things mark October on the hill. The Fête des Vendanges is held every year around the second weekend of the month, and Wikipedia says it draws more than 500,000 people. The Musée de Montmartre, at 12 rue Cortot, opens a circus exhibition on 16 October 2026; it is open daily from 10 am to 6 pm. The Sacré-Cœur is free and open from 6.30 am to 10.30 pm.

Nine hotels with a file

Four of them have family rooms (BOHEM, Marcel Aymé, Monsieur Aristide, 29 Lepic). Regyn’s Montmartre has no air-conditioned room, only fans, according to its site, and the file for 29 Lepic does not mention air conditioning. After the heatwaves of summers 2025 and 2026, that is worth asking about. For the ranking and the full notes, use our list of Montmartre hotels; the 18th arrondissement list goes beyond the hill.

Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Safety, in what the sources say

No source we read ranks Montmartre as safe or dangerous. The Japanese foreign ministry, in a page updated on 22 May 2026, does not name Montmartre among the places where pickpockets target visitors; it names the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Champs-Élysées and the Trocadéro, the metro and the RER. It also warns of forced sales of souvenirs and rigged shell games in tourist places. The same ministry classes pleasure districts, “in particular the Pigalle sector”, among high-crime zones, with touts and bars that overcharge, without naming an hour or a street. Pigalle is at the foot of the hill. The British Foreign Office adds pickpockets who work in teams in the metro, the RER and stations.

The police statistics are given by arrondissement, not by hill. In the 18th arrondissement the 2025 base records 51.0 victims of theft without violence per 1,000 residents, against 45.1 for Paris as a whole, and 6.4 victims of violent theft without a weapon, against 3.5. The 18th also holds the Goutte-d’Or and La Chapelle, which are not Montmartre, and the rate is per 1,000 inhabitants, which does not count visitors, so this is not a ranking of safety. Wikipedia places the crack-use camp near the porte de la Chapelle; by our calculation it is about 1.7 km as the crow flies from the Sacré-Cœur, outside Montmartre. Our page on the safest area to stay in Paris explains the figures for every arrondissement.

When another area fits better

If the Louvre and the Marais matter more than the village, our comparison of Montmartre and the Marais sets the two side by side. For the foot of the hill, see the Pigalle hotels. The tourist tax in 2026 is €8.45 per adult per night in a four-star hotel, €5.53 in a three-star and €3.25 in a two-star; minors do not pay.