Place des Abbesses is postcard-pretty, with one of the few complete surviving Guimard Art Nouveau métro entrances (transferred from the Hôtel de Ville), with glass porch as well as original railings and the slightly obscene orange-tongued lanterns. The bizarre-looking church of St-Jean de Montmartre, on the downhill side of the place, is well worth putting your nose inside for its radical construction, dating to the early 1900s. The incredibly slender pillars and broad vaulting were only made possible by the experimental use of reinforced concrete, a material that was, as its architect Anatole de Baudot claimed, both the bones and the skin.East from the place, at the Chapelle des Auxiliatrices in rue Yvonne-Le-Tac, Ignatius Loyola founded the Jesuit movement in 1534. This is also supposed to be the spot where Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris, had his head chopped off by the Romans around 250 AD. He's said to have carried it until he dropped, on the site of the cathedral of St-Denis. Just beyond the end of rue Yvonne-Le-Tac, in the beautiful little place Charles-Dullin, the Théâtre de l'Atelier is still going strong after nearly two centuries. Heading west from place des Abbesses, the café Le Sancerre is a popular sun-trap on the south side of rue des Abbesses.
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