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Theme-tours – a few suggestions

Please propose others!

 

THESE WALKS COVER MORE THAN ONE NEIGHBORHOOD –

 we adapt itineraries to your interests.

The Louvre, a royal palace

in themselves reveal key aspects of France... 

 

 
Europe's first major work of defiance (in 1819)

and interpret works that have become part of the French sensibility.
Martyrdom of the missionaries who Christianized Gaul, one of France's founding stories

Consider a specially-designed Louvre tour, the tombs of kings (once a days' march away, now a 40-minute métro ride from central Paris) or intimate museums that are adapted to kids . . .  (For Versailles, ask us for suggestions.) 
"I like all the storys you have told, especially the gory storys". - Tasha, age 9 (spelling hers)

And children love our stories, which we illustrate with works of art. 
Craftsman for haute couture

Seek out what only Paris can offer – craftsmanship that comes down the royal Court and that mass production cannot copy, boutiques whose owners love what they do,  streets dedicated to particular looks, vintage clothing,  flea markets  . . .  or ask us about famous brands at discount.. .    
Hidden stores for connoisseurs

Personalized itineraries. Ask us to include wares that interest you in a broader walk. 
Gardens of Palais-Royal, 18th century

Come upon oases of greenery that are part of wider walks, a cemetery where tombs of the celebrated blend with nature, or go outside Paris to an orchid farm and château domains that are at the source of France's classic landscaping.
Paris's latest park (opened in 2008)

Discover environmental visions, from kings' to ecologists'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember that Paris is a city of revolutions – learn about the Revolution and other upheavals from the 14th century to the 21st, their influence on revolutions elsewhere and the effect of insurrections (or fear of them) on Paris’s beauty. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forty years after taking the Bastille...
Paintings surge out from the walls.

Explore neighborhoods where affordable rents attract youth and artists, as Montmartre and Montparnasse once did. Discover immense paintings...
Hub of creativity now

that turn streets into art galleries, ecologically-inspired gardens and, at night, music in almost every other café. 
Poisoner, leader of a crime that suited women (1680)

Visit the little-known Police Museum and, preferably after dark, once-dangerous neighborhoods as celebrated writers evoke them.
Arrest, 1904

See Paris differently – its crime stories are legendary too.   
Memory

Do this in Paris, with sites and stories of occupiers, resistances, collaborators, Jews in hiding and their greatest rescue in Europe, and the Liberation. 
Near Caen, a very rare ruin

Or do this in Normandy, with battlefields and cemeteries – and one of the war's few extant ruins, a privately-owned, bombed-out château, vestige of a major yet forgotten battle.

 

Grasp the time's complexity.

 

 

  For battlefields of World War 1, please ask us. 
Nuns and Muslims

Explore its Jewish heritage, or discover a Protestantism (that of the Huguenots) that is specifically French. Or, learn about the two centuries of contributions from North Americans in Paris.
"Explorers' feast", a first contact

For ebullience, partake of an 'explorers' feast' – a nomadic repast on a medieval trade and pilgrimage route where 50 nationalities live together.

 

 

Credits; painting Louvre / Julien Debure ;  craftsman / Claude Abron ; hidden site / Claude Abron ;  Palais-Royal / Claude Abron ; poisoner / cover of "L'affaire des Poisons" by J-C Petitfils, detail ;  arrest / Le Petit Journal, August 14 1904 ; bombed-out chateau / Claude Abron ;  other photos / Catherine Aubin