Over the hills, under the moon - and off the beaten path

For the last several weeks we have lived on Montmartre and when we have walked the streets, we have actually walked in the footsteps of Van Gogh, Modigliani, and Picasso. Even though the most prolific painters on present-day Montmartre are the ones hitting on visitors coming to  the infamous tourist trap Place du Tertre, Rita has found inspiration in this 150-year-old artist community and taken up the water coloring she used to do a lot in her youth Last night, she even went to a live model drawing class in the basement of one of our local dive bars, and before going, she was pretty worried,  that she  would be the most inexperienced in the class: The last time I made drawings of live models was more than thirty years ago, and I felt completely rusty, but it turned out the participants in this class were at all different levels and I actually did some work that I dared show to the others. Our model was a beautiful, slim Bulgarian girl with a lot of curly hair. She w...

Living in Paris for the last months has been living a vast, moveable feast. Spending that much time in one place, you could expect you came to know this place intimately, but we have almost every day walked completely fantastic streets, alleys, squares, and parks which we had never visited before (or even heard of!).  This city - and its possibilities - seems to be endless. While wandering its streets, we found so many hidden, quirky spots, which you rarely read about in guide books, we decided to place our findings on a map.  In this way, our friends, who come to visit Paris, can see suggestions for surprising experiences off the beaten track. Putting them out here will eventually make them not so secret anymore - mais c'est la vie!   https://go.mapstr.com/ kJx7W7py3mb (link to our map of cool, quirkey, often hidden, places in Paris, New York and Copenhagen ) ----------------------------- If you want to use our map, install the apps Google...

Have you ever sat on a bench, giving yourself the time and patience to take notes of all the little things happening around you? Today, I wanted to try it for a few hours, and what better place to sit, doing exactly that, than Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris? 48 years ago, the author Georges Pérec sat here for three consecutive days, watching and noticing. His observations from these three days became the famous book 'An attempt at exhausting a place in Paris'.  Minute for minute, he wrote down what he saw:  'In the background, two boys in red anoraks A dark blue Volkswagen crosses the forecourt (I've seen it before) Tourists photograph themselves in front of the church  The square is empty. An empty tourist bus passes through it It's five to two The pigeons are on the embankment. They all fly away at the same time. Four children. A dog. A little ray of sunshine.  It's two o'clock.' Pérec took notice of ordinary street events, the passage of time, the...

The French have a special word that literally means to walk the streets of Paris. The word is Flânerie and this city of cities is so perfect for endless walks along small streets, through narrow passages and courtyards, and inside hidden gardens. During the last few weeks, we've enjoyed a lot of beautiful places. Some we found by just serendipitously turning corners, some we walked because we just love to visit them whenever we come to Paris.  There are more than 6.000 streets in Paris and even though our feet are as aching as if we had traveled each and every stretch, we have a long way to go.  Here are some favorites: Montmartre: Our apartment is just below Montmartre and it amazes us every time we visit the hill, how singular-minded the vast majority of tourists are when they make their explorations. The throngs of thousands are pulsating around the Place du Tertre and the Sacre Coeur. Some visit the Rue des Abesses but many of the beautiful s...

Opening the doorway to our gated community in Paris, you have no idea what you are about to enter into! Outside, on your right, at the Boulevard de Clichy, you just met some very friendly and hospitable ladies, trying to invite you into their dimly lit, pink sex toy shops and massage parlors. On the other side, you saw the crowds of tourists fighting to find space for their selfie sticks in front of the Moulin Rouge. You just left the Pigalle, the bustling,  decades-old center of Parisian sleaze, and here - a few meters in -  you find rows upon rows of secluded yards, gardens, sculptured hedges, marble staircases, fin-de-siecle sculptures - and absolute solitude and tranquility! Amazing! Our surroundings may be grandiose, but our apartment is actually quite small, and after having stayed inside the closed-off community for a few hours during the midday heat - how lovely it is to enter back into the hustle and bustle of the ...