Paris is a source of constant inspiration for me - the history, the streets, the big metal asparagus... this is a city with thousands of stories. What's yours?
PAST IMPROBABLE WALKS IN PARIS INCLUDE:
CRUCIAL INGREDIENTS, 1678: The bells of Saint-Paul are tolling 2pm as aristocrats gallop through the streets on horseback. the noise of tradesmen and delivery carts is deafening. We are following one imagined story: a single child born into poverty, working in the kitchens of Mme de Sevigne. This maid has only an hour to find a crucial ingredient for Madame's great feast...or her head may well be served on a platter. Can we even begin to imagine the crowded Paris streets of the late 17th century? Follow me on a walk through the Marais while I conjure a story to let you feel, smell, and even hear that crowded long-gone Paris. A scullery maid, running down rue Saint-Paul, will lead us into the life and times of Louis XIV. We'll discover life in a Marais mansion, investigate the cultural revolution that created modern French food and we'll find out if Marie-Louise succeeds in her task to bring butter to the sumptuous table of Mm. Sevigny, or if she perishes under the hooves of a distracted nobleman.
ART, RATS & LES HALLES, 1933: The fabulous food market of Les Halles existed for nearly 800 years, and today we'll take a walk through one of its heydays, a Sunday afternoon between the wars. In July, 1933, an English painter is looking for inspiration to finish an important work. She lives near the fascinating always-in-motion Belly of Paris. What she doesn't expect is to strike up a conversation with a butcher in the market, who becomes even more obsessed with her quest than she is. Here, we explore a story of Les Halles, immersing ourselves in its bygone 24-hour world of food, which inspired writers and artists for centuries.
CRUCIAL INGREDIENTS, 1678: The bells of Saint-Paul are tolling 2pm as aristocrats gallop through the streets on horseback. the noise of tradesmen and delivery carts is deafening. We are following one imagined story: a single child born into poverty, working in the kitchens of Mme de Sevigne. This maid has only an hour to find a crucial ingredient for Madame's great feast...or her head may well be served on a platter. Can we even begin to imagine the crowded Paris streets of the late 17th century? Follow me on a walk through the Marais while I conjure a story to let you feel, smell, and even hear that crowded long-gone Paris. A scullery maid, running down rue Saint-Paul, will lead us into the life and times of Louis XIV. We'll discover life in a Marais mansion, investigate the cultural revolution that created modern French food and we'll find out if Marie-Louise succeeds in her task to bring butter to the sumptuous table of Mm. Sevigny, or if she perishes under the hooves of a distracted nobleman.
ART, RATS & LES HALLES, 1933: The fabulous food market of Les Halles existed for nearly 800 years, and today we'll take a walk through one of its heydays, a Sunday afternoon between the wars. In July, 1933, an English painter is looking for inspiration to finish an important work. She lives near the fascinating always-in-motion Belly of Paris. What she doesn't expect is to strike up a conversation with a butcher in the market, who becomes even more obsessed with her quest than she is. Here, we explore a story of Les Halles, immersing ourselves in its bygone 24-hour world of food, which inspired writers and artists for centuries.
THE HILL & THE WATER NYMPTH, 1871: Walk into the days that followed the defeat of the Commune. Hope seems crushed, and yet the indefatigable spirit of a Paris guttersnipe pulls the streets back to life. Come walk into a story inspired by the democratic hopes of the Commune...and the mysterious water that springs beneath this neighbourhood. How can we imagine Paris after the 1871 Commune? Follow me on a walk through a forgotten part of Paris history, while I conjure a story about survival in times of political upheaval. "Parisians ! The struggle we have commenced cannot be abandoned, for it is a struggle between the past and the future, between liberty and despotism, equality and monopoly, fraternity and servitude, the unity of nations and the egotism of oppressors." (from John Leighton's PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE)
THE MYSTERY OF THE JAPANESE CLOWN: One chilly afternoon in 1889, a young woman faints in the busy boulevard de Rochechouart. A Cuban clown and a local seamstress try to revive her, but they’re astonished by the strange figurine she is carrying... Explore the world of lower Montmartre during the Belle Epoque—a neighbourhood of painters and musicians, acrobats and cabaret personalities— a world apart from central Paris, yet very much part of the city’s glittering Belle Epoque.
THE MYSTERY OF THE JAPANESE CLOWN: One chilly afternoon in 1889, a young woman faints in the busy boulevard de Rochechouart. A Cuban clown and a local seamstress try to revive her, but they’re astonished by the strange figurine she is carrying... Explore the world of lower Montmartre during the Belle Epoque—a neighbourhood of painters and musicians, acrobats and cabaret personalities— a world apart from central Paris, yet very much part of the city’s glittering Belle Epoque.
PARIS AFLOAT, 1910: Church bells are tolling 2pm in an eerily quiet city, where the flooding Seine has silenced the usual Paris cacophony. The motto of Paris is “Fluctuat nec Murgitur”…Tossed by the waves, she does not sink. But in 1910, Parisians feel the city might be sinking…the Seine has broken its banks and flooded the streets, the metros tunnels, and the sewers—forcing whole neighbourhoods to evacuate. We start our story beside the Louvre, where museum guards are desperately working to keep the flood waters out. The poet Apollinaire writes about the experience, shocked by what he sees. Halley’s Comet is passing overhead—leading people to blame the flood on occult forces. Soon, an exhausted museum guard makes his way home after spending four days in the basement of the Louvre, fighting the waters. The flood has finally peaked… “Tonight the city presents a weird spectacle, the soldiers, sailors, firemen and police hastily constructing temporary walls by the light of camp fires and torches in an endeavor to keep out the invading floods, while pickets patrol those sections of the city which are plunged in darkness by the bursting of the gas mains and the stoppage of the electrical lighting plants.” – The LA Times, 1910
MYSTERIOUS PASSAGES: One evening in 1855, a guest at the Hotel des Familles disappears. The following afternoon, three people come to claim his possessions...which include a single purple glove, a carte de visite from Baron Haussmann, and a pet lobster. Who is the rightful heir for these strange items? The mysterious arcades of Paris allow us to make our way through the Boulevards, following the story from the Hotel in the Passage Jouffroy (today known as the Hotel Chopin) down to the Palais-Royal. " ...des globes blancs, des lanternes rouges, des transparents bleus, des rampes de gaz, des montres et des eventails geants en traits de flammes..." - Emile Zola describing the marvels of the passage.
THE MISSING HOURS: The year is 1192. A Scottish theology student arrives in Paris to study and finds the city under construction. The roads are being repaved. The walls of the city are being rebuilt. The central Island is a sea of craftsmen’s shacks. And our visiting student is fascinated by a kind of art he has rarely seen before: the illuminated manuscript. Unfortunately, within two days of arriving in Paris, he’s accused of stealing an illuminator’s tools. Is he guilty? Will he end his days in an ‘oubliette’? Join me on a walk into 12th century Paris, a world not as far from today’s city as you might imagine.
MYSTERIOUS PASSAGES: One evening in 1855, a guest at the Hotel des Familles disappears. The following afternoon, three people come to claim his possessions...which include a single purple glove, a carte de visite from Baron Haussmann, and a pet lobster. Who is the rightful heir for these strange items? The mysterious arcades of Paris allow us to make our way through the Boulevards, following the story from the Hotel in the Passage Jouffroy (today known as the Hotel Chopin) down to the Palais-Royal. " ...des globes blancs, des lanternes rouges, des transparents bleus, des rampes de gaz, des montres et des eventails geants en traits de flammes..." - Emile Zola describing the marvels of the passage.
THE MISSING HOURS: The year is 1192. A Scottish theology student arrives in Paris to study and finds the city under construction. The roads are being repaved. The walls of the city are being rebuilt. The central Island is a sea of craftsmen’s shacks. And our visiting student is fascinated by a kind of art he has rarely seen before: the illuminated manuscript. Unfortunately, within two days of arriving in Paris, he’s accused of stealing an illuminator’s tools. Is he guilty? Will he end his days in an ‘oubliette’? Join me on a walk into 12th century Paris, a world not as far from today’s city as you might imagine.
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