Fête des Vendanges: A French Harvest Festival

Imagine endless booths of wine and champagne, sausages roasting on an open grill, French mashed potatoes stewing over the counter, the scent of hot spiced wine, and limitless varieties of cheeses handed out as free samples: Welcome to La Fête des vendanges de Montmartre: A “grape” harvest festival located just around Sacré-Cœur, one of Paris’ most iconic churches.

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The festival under the basilica
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Various sausages roasting
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Mashed potato stuff, chili con carne, and things I don’t know the names of
Sausage from around France
Sausages from around France
Hot spiced wine and hot chocolate booth
Hot spiced wine and hot chocolate booth

I spent the day wandering through the festival, drinking hot chocolate and admiring the variety of booths the festival offered. I even picked up this for lunch:

A sausage in a French baguette topped with caramelized onions and ketchup and mayo. Then that mashed potato thing.
A sausage in a French baguette topped with caramelized onions and ketchup and mayo. Note the American flag on the wrapper. Then my friend ate that mashed potato thing.

After dinner we returned to watch the fireworks…

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It was a mosh pit

Once the fireworks started though I felt like I was at one of Gatsby’s parties.

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They shot off the fireworks to go along with some music and poetry. The theme of the entire festival was in fact poetry so we were listening to poems about what it means to be a poet, which meant that the entire show was just a big poetical thing

Just a little inception there
Just a little inception there

But the results were absolute astounding.

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Photographs never do fireworks justice!

Then when it was over we almost got trampled leaving. I swear I would have fallen over if I wasn’t pressed up against other people on all sides to keep me from falling!

Since I’m on such a Leonardo DiCaprio theme I’ll just leave you guys with this:

Cheers!
Cheers!

I’ve got some longer posts coming up about classes and a weekend trip to Strasbourg so stay tuned!

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4 thoughts on “Fête des Vendanges: A French Harvest Festival”

  1. Emily… I hope this is not a frequent occurrence… you’ll return weighing 300 pounds. Sacre-Coeur! I remember it well, and would love to see it again. Stay well, sweetheart, and don’t eat, or drink, too much. I love you!… Grandpa

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