EXPLORING PARIS 2018 2019 01 Thursday September 20th 2018 The Accursed Kings 10 :00 am - Meeting : Exit métro Temple Maurice Druon was an extraordinary man. He was French, highly distinguished, a resistance fighter against the Nazis, a historian, a member of the French academy, a knight of the British Empire. He wrote contemporary novels, short stories, and an amazing seven-volume series about King Philip IV of France, his sons and daughters, the curse of the Templars, the fall of the Capetian dynasty, the roots of the hundred years war. The books were a huge success in France. So huge that they have formed the basis for two television series. Druon is France's best historical novelist since Alexandre Dumas, père. The Accursed Kings has it all: iron kings and strangled queens, battles and betrayals, lies and lust, deception, family rivalries, the curse of the Templars, babies switched at birth, she-wolves, sin and swords, the doom of a great dynasty and all of it, straight from the pages of history. Now, follow the trail for real! 02 Thursday October 4th 2018 Giacometti 09 :45 am - Meeting : Maillol museum, 61 rue de Grenelle. Nearest metro Rue du Bac. Known for his long, spindly figures, painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti left behind an immense body of work. The Musée Maillol is putting on an exhibition of some fifty of his sculptures, on loan from the Fondation Giacometti, alongside works by some of the great modern sculptors. Follow a chronological route through the gallery and observe how Giacometti s sculptures interact with those of Picasso, Rodin, and Bourdelle, highlighting the evolution of his work and the influences in his artistic surroundings. Entrance fee : 12,50 Audios : Included in entrance fee
03 Thursday November 15th 2018 A Dead body tour 10 :00 am - Meeting : Exit métro Vaneau Halloween period is perfect to enjoy this joyful and spooky tour. The 7th arrondissement in Paris is famous for a large number of religious monasteries and convents. They all shelter the mummified bodies of their founding fathers. Male and female saints rests (parts and bits) in gilded shrines adorned with gems and precious stones with waxed smiling faces From the Lazare monks, to the Jesuits, and on to the Foreign Missions and the miraculous medal chapel, you will enjoy for sure this Thriller walk. Entrance fee : 2 Donation / pers Audios : 2 / pers (required inside churches) 04 Thursday December 13th 2018 Passage ways of Paris 10 :00 am - Meeting : Exit Métro Louvre Rivoli Built for the most part in the 19th century, these arcades covered with glass roofs, created by piercing through other buildings, are a typically Parisian architectural feature. Most of them now house shops, tearooms and restaurants. There are around 20 of them in Paris in the vicinity of the Grands Boulevards. Each arcade has its own character. They house either numerous antique dealers, book stores, clothes manufacturers. Galerie Vivienne next door to the Palais- Royal is one of the most iconic covered passages. The nearby Galerie Véro-Dodat has many upmarket shops, like Christian Louboutin s workshop-boutique. Finally, the Galerie Colbert, built in 1823, has the particularity of having no shops. Its colonnade and rotunda surmounted by a glass dome house the Institut National d Histoire de l Art and the Institut National du Patrimoine.
05 Thursday January 10th 2019 Meiji exhibition at Guimet museum 10 :00 am - Meeting : Entrance to the museum Place Iéna On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its Restoration, the Guimet museum organizes a unique exhibition on the Meiji Era, Splendors of Imperial Japan. This show will offer a great opportunity to cover this period of modernization in Japan with splendid artworks such as cloisonné, gold ware, ceramics, textiles, bronze and paintings. Entrance fee : 8,50 / pers Audios : 2 / pers 06 Thursday February 14th 2019 Fragonard museum at Maisons-Alfort 10 :00 am - Meeting : 7 avenue Général de Gaulle, Maisons-Alfort, Nearest métro : Ecole Vétérinaire-Maisons-Alfort. Line 8. Built in 1766, this is one of the oldest French museums, heir of the cabinet of curiosities of the 18th century. Located in the prestigious Ecole Nationale de Vétérinaires (National Veterinarian School) of Maison-Alfort, the museum exhibits a unique collection devoted to pets, presenting skeletons, mouldings and natural abnormalities (cyclops, sirens, 2-headed calves, etc.), and the famous "Ecorchés de Fragonard" (Fragonard skinned creatures). In 18th-century French medical schools, study aids were produced in one of two ways. They were either sculpted in coloured wax or made from the real things - organs, limbs, tangled vascular systems - dried or preserved in formaldehyde. Veterinary surgeon Honoré Fragonard was a master of the second method, and many of his most striking works are now on display here. 'Homme à la mandibule' is a flayed, grimacing man holding a jawbone in his right hand - an allusion to the story of Samson slaying the Philistines. 'Tête humaine injectée' is a rather more sober human head whose blood vessels were injected with coloured wax, red for arteries and blue for veins. And, most grandiose of all, 'Cavalier de l'apocalypse' is a flayed man on the back of a flayed galloping horse, inspired by a painting by Dürer. Entrance fee : 6 / pers Booking fee : 70 / group
07 Thursday March 14th 2019 Embassy of Romania to France 10 :00 am - Meeting : 5 Rue de l Exposition. Nearest metro : Ecole Militaire. The Hôtel de Béhague has housed the Romanian embassy since 1939. It is situated in the same district as the Eiffel Tower and the Hôtel des Invalides, a few blocks away from the elegant Champ-de-Mars. Built in 1867, this private residence possesses some real treasures: a monumental staircase decorated in polychrome marble, a François Boucher painting, a ballroom, a Louis XIV-style wooden staircase, a perfectly preserved 19th century library and a garden rich in sculptures and statues. But the area that best characterizes the Hôtel de Béhague and which gave it its nickname 'Byzantium of the 7th arrondissement' is the private theatre. With its porphyry columns and Byzantine mosaics, it is the emblem of the place. TO BE CONFIRMED and ID required in advance Entrance fee : 2 Donation / Chocolates Audios : 2 / pers OTHER OPTION : Montparnasse district Meeting Metro Raspail. During the period between wars known as Les Années Folles, the artists of Montmartre moved into the dirt cheap ateliers of Montparnasse, and it quickly became the new center of Paris artistic and intellectual life. James Joyce, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Modigliani, Max Ernst, Jean Cocteau and Picasso were among the starving writers, poets, sculptors and painters who frequented the cafés along Boulevard Montparnasse, such as the Clôserie des Lilas, Le Dôme, La Rotonde, Le Select and La Coupole. On Boulevard Raspail, many old ateliers such as Picaso s, have been converted into upscale housing. Man Ray and his muse Kiki lived behind the beautiful ceramic façade at 31 Rue Campagne Première, and newcomers to the city such as Picabia and Marcel Duchamp stayed next door at the Hôtel Istria.
08 Thursday April 11th 2019 Equestrian Statues 10 :00 am - Meeting : Métro Tuileries In sculpture, the term "equestrian statue" describes a statue of a rider mounted on a horse. It derives from the Latin word "equus" (meaning "horse") from which we get "eques" ("knight"). If the horse is riderless, the sculpture is usually called an "equine statue". Since popes, politicians and even some kings rarely rode horses, equestian statues typically portrayed military commanders or militaristic leaders. Horses are notoriously difficult to render in either stone or bronze, and even the greatest sculptors experience technical difficulties of balance and weight-support. Paris offers the opportunity to cover a large range of equestrian statues from Joan of Arc in the Place des Pyramides to the great winged horses of Marly in the Tuileries. Further, along Cours La Reine enjoy, Simon Bolivar, the Grand Palais chariot of the Sun, King Albert 1st of Belgium, La Fayette and the brand new Russian hero. 09 Thursday May 16th 2019 Saint Lazare train station and around 10 :00 am - Meeting : Exit métro Liège Whether you re arriving to or departing from Paris by train, you ll get to travel through one of the seven train stations currently in use. Paris train stations are spectacular buildings, which have been immortalized by generations of artists such as famed French painter and impressionist pioneer Claude Monet. Inaugurated in 1837, the Gare Saint-Lazare, close to the Grands Magasins on boulevard Haussmann, was built between 1842 and 1853, extended between 1886 and 1889, then restored in 1936. This station, which serves the western suburbs of Paris, and Normandy, opened a new shopping mall in March 2012. Our walk, will take us on the foot steps of such 19th century artists who have been inspired by this Iron and Glass Cathedral - Manet, Caillebotte, Zola, and Monet.
10 Thursday June 13th 2019 Off Versailles, 10 :00 am - Meeting : Exit Versailles Rive Droite train station :RER line C The town of Versailles grew during the Ancien Régime by order of the kings. It spread outwards from the Palace, preserving the strict royal symmetry. The Notre-Dame district on the "right bank" and the Saint-Louis district on the "left bank", originally hunting grounds, are still home largely to official buildings that once served the Palace and its administration. The increasingly frequent sojourns of Louis XIV and his court, as well as festivities sometimes attended by thousands of people, called for lodgings and livery stables and so on. In 1725 a church was constructed for the inhabitants of the new Saint-Louis district. It quickly proved to be too small and was replaced by the cathedral of Saint-Louis, built between 1742 and 1754 by Jacques Hardouin-Mansart de Sagonne. In 1725 the Notre-Dame market and in 1736 the Saint-Louis market were laid out in "squares", each devoted to specific foodstuffs. Louis XV also encouraged the construction of new administrative buildings. To centralise the numerous departments that had been dispersed throughout Paris, in 1760 Berthier built the Ministry for War near the Palace, followed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Navy.