After living in Paris for awhile, even the most bohemian of anglophones can get stuck in the same routine Hemingway was known to frequent the same four bars within a two-block radius. But now's the chance to wake up from winter's hibernation and rediscover the Left Bank with a walking tour of Paris that's not just for tourists. "Bohemian Paris Walking Tours: Haunts of the Lost Generation" is a two-hour walking tour of the St-Germain and Montparnasse neighborhoods that highlights literary and artistic points of interest along the way. Want to know the story behind Hemingway and Fitzgerald's mad tour of the Greek sculpture gallery at the Louvre? What art gallery hosted a midnight vernissage for Man Ray's first surrealist exhibit? The reason why Peggy Guggenheim and Lawrence Vail were kicked out of the Hôtel Lutetia? Or the location of the real Shakespeare & Co. where Sylvia Beach published James Joyce's "Ulysses" it's not the site of the current bookstore, you know. The answers to these questions along with others are as interesting to learn about as seeing what's there now. The tours are led by Gentry Lane, a native of San Francisco, who has a masters degree in Modernist Literature and Art. Often wearing a black beret atop her jet black retro bob, Lane definitely looks the part of a tour guide of bohemian Paris. She taught classes on 1920s Paris at Mills College in Oakland, California and is currently working on a book about the same subject. Now, Lane brings her classroom to the streets to the quaint cobblestone streets of the Left Bank, that is for a nostalgic look at the Lost Generation. Lane is a well-informed guide who's done her research on the époqueand is passionate about the subjects. She knows all about the artists and writers as well as their muses and lovers and speaks about them as if they were old friends. Her presentation makes it seem as if she has spent hours in La Coupole, Le Dôme and other Montparnasse cafés drinking coffee with the American expatriates of the 1920s. After hearing two hours of seedy gossip, historical facts and amusing anecdotes, tour participants may feel the need for a cup of coffee before heading home, bien sûrat Le Select, where all of the beautiful models used to wait every morning for artists to come by and hire them. Siren's Songs Tours offers three walking tours of Paris: Bohemian Paris, Oscar Wilde's Paris and Paris Macabre. For more information, check out their web site @ www.onecity.com/paris, or contact Gentry Lane, 8, rue Bréa, 6e, tel: 01.56.24.36.00, fax: 01.48.21.41.69. Group tours are limited to six people and are arranged by appointment daily for 200F/person (student/group rates available). |
