Today we have an appointment with a volunteer from PARIS WALKS, an organization that provides volunteers to take visitors on a 2 hour walking tour of their neighborhood. The temperture in Paris when we hit the street at 9 am was ZERO DEGREES CELSIUS! For the non Euro/Metro folks that's 32` fahrenheight. In other words, REALLY cold for us California girls. It was also incredibly windy and just downright rotten to be out in, however, we had a date with Phillippe.
Our volunteer, Phillippe, (a design engineer with Renault) is a resident of Montparness, a working class neighborhood of Paris.The neighborhood was once the haunt of many famous painters and writers, along with the Latin Quarter. Today the Latin Quarter is still the bohemian, artsy area, while Montparness has become more of a business area.
Many inhabitants of Montparness are immigrants from Brittany (North Western France), which is the case with Phillippe. He happily showed us all of the hidden Breton pubs and clubs during our tour. He also showed us his favorite Brittany store where he buys treats from home,
Our tour included lots of funny local jokes and insights into Parisian behaviors.The landmark for the area is the Montparness Tower. It is a modern and unpopular tower so the joke is that it has the best view in Paris.... because it's not in it :) Phillippe showed us how the city bicycle lending program works and then showed us how some sneaky Parisians turn the bicycle seat backwards (a signal to the bike company that there is something wrong with the bike) so others think the bike is broken, thus leaving it available when the sneak comes back for it.
We had a delicious fresh, hot crepe at the fresh market.... can I just say YUM!! about that (this was the first venture back into the world beyond veggies for me, and I went crazy and had a Nutella crepe). Everyone else had breakfasty type crepe and Deiann declared it a "party in her mouth".
We were sad to leave Phillippe but he sent us off with a French kiss for each of us (a kiss on both cheeks....what did you THINK I meant?)
Our first mission after our tour was warmer clothes. We ended up in a store that had a 5 euro sign in the window. Looking for a bargain on some long sleeve shirts, I ended up finding a really cute wool lined coat for 20 euros.SOLD!
Thankfully the day warmed and was tolerable temperture wise. It's hard to belive that a week earlier Paris was 80 + degrees.
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