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Walking Paris
Explore the legends and mysteries of Paris in the comfort of a luxury car and experience tour guide. Choose from the left or right banks or why not take both and make a day of it?
We can't say more or we will give it to much away!
Tours by Theme:
Walking Tours
Unique walking tours which help you experience the fabulous
history of the "City of Light," including many intriguing
facts unknown even to most native-born Parisians.
The strolls last about two hours and focus
on a single historical period, theme, geographical area, or,
in some cases, one very important monument. (A café break
along the way is, of course, possible.)
Unlike most walking tours, the approach is personalized and
the groups are kept small, usually limited to no more than six
people – a party of family or friends. This group size
allows for ample time to ask questions and exchange impressions
and information.
The commentary is always historically correct, and includes
little known anecdotes that bring history alive.
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Lutetia
This walk takes you back 2000 years to such vestiges as the sports/theater arena, public baths, Forum, arrow-straight roads, and a trace of the third century wall around the Ile de la Cité.
Medieval Sampler
Including the famous St. Germain des Prés Abbey (built, destroyed and rebuilt from the 6th to 19th centuries), the 13th century Cordeliers monastery refectory, and the 15th century Cluny abbots' "townhouse" - now a marvelous museum on the Middle Ages , Place Maubert where a 16th century printer was burnt alive for heresy for having re-translated one of Plato's Dialogues, and the Bernardins Monastery refectory dating from the 13th century.
Learning in Paris
University and student life (not always very calm!) from the 12th through the 16th centuries, via different "colleges" frequented by students as different as St. Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) and Protestant reformer Jean Calvin.
13th Century City Wall
On the Left Bank, the rampart wends its way through courtyards, mews, curiously twisted buldings and streets, and even one underground parking lot..
Notre Dame
A reading of its amazing "stone comic strip" sculptures, and exploration of very curious and still unsolved mysteries - some concerning Masonic secrets - surrounding the Grand Old Lady of Paris, begun in 1163.
Ile St. Louis
An intimate round-island look at the architecture and (hi)stories of some of Paris's most impressive 17th century mansions, including one where Chopin played for and woo-ed Geroge Sand, not forgetting the home for many years of From Here to Eternity author James Jones.
Ile de la Cite
On the Left Bank, the rampart wends its way through courtyards, mews, curiously twisted buldings and streets, and even one underground parking lot. Cradle of the Capital.
Latin Quarter
Beginning on “Here Lies The Heart Street” (its original Medieval name was far less romantic!), this walk takes in architectural reminiscences of Renaissance King François Ier, 19th century poet Charles Baudelaire, a 16th century Royal Prosecutor who O-D’d here on opium, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Then: a series of antique punning shop signs, the oldest tree in Paris, the intimate 12th-13th century St. Julien le Pauvre church and other medieval memories.
Rue Mouffetard
A highway leaving Paris for Rome 2,000 years ago, Rue Mouffetard still boasts a street market that has functioned since about 1350, not to forget a public fountain erected by Marie de Medici, and church that briefly hosted a convulsionist sect ( “barkers,” “meowers,” “jumpers,” etc.) in the 1700s. This tour also takes in the house where Ernest Hemingway lived in the 1930s and segments of the Medieval city rampart.
Naughty Marais
Feats of derring-do plus some hanky-panky, whose ghosts - including those of King Louis XIV and his mistress (eight, count'em, children) - Mme de Montespan) still haunt the exquisite architecture of what was once THE place to live in the French capital. (Not for children…)
Canal St-Martin
A look at what’s left of the Bastille’s story and reality, the handsome (!) early-17th-century St. Louis plague hospital, and Paris’ main “inland waterway” – a strollers’ delight.
Art Nouveau
An on-the-spot review of original masterpieces of Hector Guimard, Georges Chedanne, Henri Sauvage and other Belle Epoque (ca. 1900) builders who were considered "kinky" because of their lack of symmetry and use of materials (ceramics, steel, etc.) considered vulgar at the time, but who were certainly rich in humor.
Art Deco
Visits to and background on some of the best Parisian samples – Samaritaine department store, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Palais de Chaillot, La Coupole Café etc., of the movement that inspired such great American creations as New York’s Chrysler Building, with memories of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Josephine Baker, among other American luminaries.
