When I started this blog, I thought that I would be writing regularly, but I have not been able to do that. Unfortunately, it has been a while since I’ve written something new. When I first started the parisbywalking account on instagram, my aim was to walk all of the streets of Paris and post pictures of buildings, statues, museums, graffiti, restaurants and views that I liked. I wanted to share these along with their stories and facts which I found amusing. The blog came later as a tool to share all this in more detail without the restraint of the limited space Instagram allows. Well, but what was next when all of the above was done? That part I hadn’t yet contemplated.
In the end, I walked and I walked and at last the city ended and there was nothing left to see. I thought, “So what now?” Yes there are still around 200 restaurants that I want to go to but I decided that I don’t want the next step to be to turn my account into a restaurant rec account. There are already a lot of accounts that do that, and they do it with a lot more technical background info added.
But then what could I do? I kept thinking and decided to focus on a question that I have been receiving from a lot of people around me lately: “We always go to the same places. You have been around the whole city, why don’t you take us to different places?”
It was around this time that on a wednesday at the Marché President Wilson one of my followers approached me and told me that she loved my photo and was always curious about the places that I posted about and asked me if I would recommend her a route to wander through. This suddenly helped me put it all together and come to a final decision.
I had to organize walking tours in non-touristic parts of the city!
When I write it like this, it seems really easy right? Well for me, it was not so.
All my life, making decisions about business has given me nightmares and it has always taken me a long time to decide. Although in the end, my decisions never fail me, still this knowledge doesn’t make it any easier to take that final leap. Well it is also because since I was 18, all my work dreams and plans have been taken away from me by outside factors in the end. Therefore you might understand me when I say that whenever I get a new idea, the second thought that comes to my mind is “Why bother, it won’t probably work out in the end” Maybe this is something that I should discuss with my own therapist and not here. 🫣
Well, if there are any psychologists among you, please DM me. 🤓
Ok, maybe it’s better I get back to writing about Paris.
In the end, I took that leap once again as a “micro-entrepreneur” to start my one-man company and finally I’m beginning to organize my walking tours. I have already done a couple of test runs. I have already announced the structure of the tours on Instagram and I will soon be announcing upcoming tour dates. Here I wanted to explain in more detail why I’m starting from 20th Arrondissement. In a documentary I watched recently, they were talking about the benefits of writing since it allows you to come up with and realise things that you hadn’t thought of before. Let’s see what writing about the contents of the tour will bring out about the 20th Arrondissement. Before all else, we should all agree that I’m not a professional tour guide, which means these will not be tours full of historical and technical information about the area. More likely, they will be sightseeing tours where we chat about our own Paris stories. In our last trial tour, two friends who have moved to Paris at the same time as us confessed that they hadn’t seen any of the streets on my route before even though the route was only 30 min away from their home by metro. But like they also commented, it is way easier to have someone guide them through what he has discovered before rather than trying to find these places by themselves. I believe the fact that no one has any time to waste any more helps a lot what I’m doing.
The 20th Arrondissement has been a later addition to the Paris city limits. Charonne village which used to have vineyards is also a part of this arrondissement. A part of my tour takes us through the village’s main road which still exists today. A lot of the streets on the route have an architectural style completely different from the rest of the city. It actually feels like a small town. I think this is the main reason why I decided to start my tours from this area. When we first moved and before I started my Instagram account I remember very clearly thinking that what makes Paris so powerful and famous cannot only be the grandeur of the citycenter, there must be something more and I have to find that out. As I walked through all of the arrondissements I believe I understood it better. I think the power of the city comes from the variety it offers. Both the variety in human profiles and the variety of architectural styles work to form an harmony that adds to the magic of the city. What sets the 20th apart from other arrondissements is that it also includes a agroecological farm. Although it is stuck between buildings, it still maintains a sustainable farming system that also gives job opportunities to those in need, while also arranging workshops for students and gives the city habitants a chance to connect back with the land. You can also buy fresh vegetables and herbs for your own kitchen. I have read that there are also a couple of restaurants in the area that source their produce from this farm.
What else is on the tour? In summary; for example, although it doesn’t appear very exciting on the first look, the street where the tour begins from has been around since 1672. Then we walk though a street where obviously the most plant loving neighbours of the city have come together to live and come upon an extraordinary artdeco church. From there we move onto the part where the vineyards used to be, although they have lost their battles to urbanization long ago. However we discover that there are still some dead-end alleys in the area curiously. We come out on a plaza that I love which was chosen in 2020 by The Guardian as the most authentic neighbourhood of Europe and we use this opportunity to take lovely pictures of the place. Next we see one of the biggest and therefore most unexpected statues of the city and ask ourselves “Why?” Right after, we see another building where we once again ask “Why?”, I try to explain you the why, although I’m not sure how convincing the answer is, because personally I, myself, am not convinced. We come to “La Môme” Square where we discuss the statue made in his honour and what the architect was probably thinking when he was creating it. When we reach the square, it means that we are almost done but you have to soldier on for a small climb up two more streets to finally reach the really surprising and awarding end of the tour. We end in a totally unexpected neighbourhood where we cannot help ourselves and start the actually pointless discussion of what it would feel like to actually own one of these homes and wondering who lives here. In the end, if you have enjoyed the tour, I will also be recommending 2 restaurants and a wonderful café to rest your tired feet and enjoy yourselves. The cafe is both a nice way to end the day after lunch or for those who want to skip the lunch part. Especially the serene part at the end of the tour makes one feel as if they have gotten out of Paris, therefore I decided to name this tour “Serenity”. I loved to give this tour such an appropriate name without thinking that now I would have to keep naming all my forthcoming tours. 🤦🏻♂️
