While the tourists disembarked at the Abbesses metro station, I stayed on for one more stop and got off at Lamarck-Caulaincourt, on the back (northern) side of the Butte. Along the busy main street were small shops, cafés and brasseries - but these were catering for locals, not visitors, and had a relaxed and friendly air.

Crossing over the road, I followed the rue des Saules up a flight of stairs to a cobbled lane of shuttered, vine-covered houses. The high stone wall along one side belongs to the Cimetière St Vincent. Piano music drifted from the ivy-draped windows of the nearby Au Lapin Agile (the Nimble Rabbit) at the corner with rue St Vincent. This restaurant and cabaret was a famous hang-out for Montmartre's artists and poets.

Opposite, the Montmartre Vineyards cover a picturesque corner plot. Some 2,000 vines produce about 1,000 bottles a year from this vineyard hidden in the city. Further up the hill is the pink Maison Rose restaurant, familiar perhaps from the paintings of Utrillo.

A turn down rue de l'Abreuvoir brought me to the tiny place Dalida, named for the chanteuse-comedienne Yolanda Gigliotti (1933-87) whose stage name this was. Alongside, lush trees and gardens surround the eighteenth-century Château de Brouillards, which adjoins the charming Square Suzanne Buisson, with its stone benches and central pétanque court. Looming over the far end of the court is a statue of St Denis holding his severed head, a reminder that he was martyred on the Butte in AD 250.

Opposite the nearby place Constantin Pecqueur, at 6 rue Lucien Gaulard, is the sole entrance to the Cimetière St Vincent. I paused on a sunny bench to survey this sweet and peaceful spot, with tightly packed graves and monuments rising up the hillside. The top of Sacré-Coeur towers in the distance. The last resting place of the painter Maurice Utrillo is along the eastern wall, just below his old stomping ground at the Lapin Agile.

Walking up avenue Junot, I came to the Villa Léandre, a quaint mews-like street whose pretty houses have ornate gabled roofs and balconies. Through an iron gate at 23 avenue Junot, a cobbled alley runs past an enclosed boules court to a steep bank of steps leading down to rue Lepic. From the top you can see the Eiffel Tower away in the distance. The more prosperous artists of today's Montmartre reside nearby in the Hameau des Artistes (Artists' Hamlet) at no. 11.

Dozens of windmills once crowned the Butte. The most famous, painted by Renoir, was the Moulin de la Galette. This Montmartre landmark towers over rue Lepic, with dense plants spilling down the hillside over the stone terraces. There is an archway above the entrance, but access is private. Opposite this archway, rue Tholozé plunges down into a different world - the dirt, noise and bustle of rue des Abbesses. From the bottom I looked wistfully back up at the windmill, a silent sentry for the peaceful side of Montmartre.