Georges, a retired French gendarmerie officer, is waiting outside the metro station in the Parisian district of Le Sentier, eager to reveal the finer—and less refined—points of an area he is aware of “like his pocket,” as the local expression goes.
Le Sentier is a curious blend of shabby and sublime that stretches from the grand boulevards of Napoleon III’s architect Baron Haussmann to the aristocratic Palais Royal, through the colorful and infamous Saint-Denis district, with its prostitutes and rag-change sweatshops.
“How long have we got?” Georges asks. I anticipate that there is not much I don’t realize about a place I’ve lived near for almost 15 years, and respond: “Long sufficient.” Three hours later, Georges continued displaying my locations on my doorstep that I never knew existed. Georges is a part of Cariboo, an internet site ambitious to be the Airbnb of tailored tours with personal courses. The idea, evolved by Bertrand Bazin, 23, a graduate of
one of France’s elite commercial enterprise faculties, alongside Three friends, should rarely be simpler: take a metropolis dweller motivated with their home and introduce them to visitors looking for insider know-how. Because it commenced last July, the agency has no longer stopped developing, no matter the ultimate November terrorist assaults. From a base of 30 Cariboos in Paris, the enterprise has around 500 human beings worldwide in a hundred destinations, from France, Spain, and the UK to India, Brazil, and Mexico.
Georges’ tour is an eclectic mix of historical elements, little-known facts, quirky locations (just like the button and ribbon, saved with inventory from the 19th century, in rue Choiseul), souvenirs, and shopping for possibilities. His advice to tram traffic is to look up.
The factors out the characteristics of Haussmann’s famous boulevards: the lengthy avenues of ashlar-stone homes between 5 and 7 testimonies excessive, each subtly exceptional – the extra spacious apartments with ornate wrought-iron balconies on the second one-floor étaone-floor with flats turning into more modest with every floor, up to the rooftop garrets.
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He knows where to discover the little-recognized passages, statues, and carvings inspired by Greek mythology or people who reflect the proprietor’s trade or hobbies. Of the one hundred fifty or so protected courses that existed in Paris before Haussmann redesigned the city within the mid-19th century, the simplest 20 stays, amongst them the grand Galerie Vivienne (named a gallery now not a passage, due to its proximity to the aristocratic Palais Royal) and
the Prado and Brady passages within the much less properly-to-do tenth arrondissement, which is hard round the edges but more and more modern day. (Passage Brady is thought for its curry houses.) Georges points out Le Chabanais, the famous former brothel
frequented by Toulouse Lautrec, Man de Maupassant, and the Prin,ce of Wales, later Edward VII, whose private room bore the royal coat of hands and had a large copper bathtub (sold via Salvador Dalí in 1951 while the arwhilesed down) and a “love seat”. Le Chabanais was popular with the occupying German forces during the Second Global War.
There were prostitutes, courtesans, princes, and the monarch’s courtroom. On the Palais Royal, we gaze wist, fully into the window of the Grand Vé4 – the distinguished cradle of French restaurant gastronomy opened in the mid-18th century – On the €315 menu plaisir and dining salle in which French literary giants Colette and Jean Cocteau entertained the Parisian beau monde. It became inside the Palais Royal Gardens that Napoleon Bonaparte misplaced his virginity to a prostitute, Georges reliably informs me.
