Special:

Quick Links to Places near Paris:

Gay Tours of the Paris Marais

No gay visit to Paris is complete without paying homage to Oscar Wilde and Proust in the cemetery of Père-Lachaise. It is perhaps the most famous cemetery in the world and is the last resting-place of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Isadora Duncan, Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Colette, and many other famous men and women. This 108-acre museum of French history with its magnificent sculptures and tombs is used as much as a park as a cemetery. In 1871 an uprising broke out in Paris, the “Commune de Paris”, which was savagely quelled. The last insurgents were shot in the Père-Lachaise cemetery

After visiting Père-Lachaise Cemetery, we will metro over to Montmartre. Since the middle of the 19th century the “butte Montmartre” has been a place for walking and enjoyment. On the slopes were the taverns, eating-houses and the dance halls where the workers and the middle-class met on Sunday afternoons. Montmartre was the place to celebrate. This place to celebrate. This effervescent atmosphere in addition to the low cost of rents at that time attracted all the artists of Paris to Montmartre.

We will pass the famous “Moulin Rouge” – renowned for the “Can-Can” and Toulouse Lautrec on our way to take a Coffee Break at the café where the very successful movie “Amélie”, about a Parisian waitress, was filmed.

Renoir, the great impressionist artist, lived in Montmartre and his painting of the Sunday afternoon dance in the acacia-shaded courtyard of the dance-hall “Moulin de la Galette” is one of his happiest compositions. The windmill from which it gets its name is still standing. Monet, Degas and Van Gogh all lived or worked on the “Butte”.

We'll also pass “Au Lapin Agile”, which actually began as a cabaret for hashish users, but became the meeting place of the fathers of Modern Art. Just before World War I many artists and writers such as Picassso, Modigliani, Utrillo, Derain and Apollinaire lived nearby and would meet here. The interior has not changed over the years and has a flavor of Montmartre as it was at the turn of the century when it was a favorite of local artists and ‘bohemians’. The walls are full of paintings by artists who frequented the Cabaret, and you still sit at communal tables and join in the singing of “French chansons” and enter and leave as you wish. A lot of “chansonniers” made their debut here as Georges Brassens and Claude Nougaro. In 1905, Picasso gave his famous painting "Au Lapin Agile" to the cabaret, wherein Picasso is represented as a harlequin and Frédé, one of the owners, plays the guitar. This painting belonged to the cabaret for years; until, in 1912, Frédé sold it for twenty dollars... In 1989, it was auctioned at Sotheby's for 41 million dollars!

Off past the last vineyard of Montmartre on our way to La Basilique du Sacré-Cœur which was built between 1876 and 1910. The Revolutionary movement of the Paris Commune of 1871 and its merciless repression was the origin for the construction of the Basilica as well as the loss of French lives in the disastrous Franco-Prussian War and the capture of Paris by the Prussian in 1870. However it is a controversial building as many people still consider the Basilica as the symbol of the authority of the State over the inhabitants of the capital. The Basilica was also the site of the capture of French intelligence officer Gustave Bertrand by the Germans on January 5, 1944. The steps of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur affords a spectacular and romantic view of Paris.

Finally, we#ll finish at the main square of Montmartre, the Place de Tertres, which is famous the world over for its outdoor cafés and artists, and a reminder of the creative community of artists that lived and worked here, such as Picasso, Utrillo, Derain, Braque, Modigliani or at your 1 hour wine tasting.