Parc Marcel Bleustein Blanchet dit Parc de la Turlure

You are approaching the Parc Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, a terraced garden that occupies a steep hillside just behind the Sacré-Coeur Basilica. Long before this was a quiet public park, the site was dominated by the Moulin de la Turlure, a windmill that operated here from seventeen seventy until eighteen twenty. The mill eventually fell into disrepair after the ground beneath it was destabilized by local quarrying, leading to its demolition. For a brief period in the mid nineteenth century, a tavern known as the Tower of Solferino stood on this same spot, taking advantage of the dramatic views that still characterize the location today.