Montmartre

This guide to Montmartre in Paris follows Suzanne Valadon, a circus performer whose fall from a trapeze pushed her into modeling for Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, and who began sketching in secret until Degas noticed her talent. It traces her son Maurice Utrillo, who grew up on these same hilltop lanes and turned to painting them under difficult circumstances. Walk the steep staircases as you listen; they show up again and again in his canvases.