Walk #1 - Lutetia

This walk takes you back 2000 years to such vestiges as the sports/theater arena, public baths, Forum, arrow-straight roads, and a trace of the third century wall around the Ile de la Cité.

Walk #2 - A Medieval Sampler

Including the famous St. Germain des Prés Abbey (built, destroyed and rebuilt from the 6th to 19th centuries), the 13th century Cordeliers monastery refectory, and the 15th century Cluny abbots' "townhouse" - now a marvelous museum on the Middle Ages - , Place Maubert where a 16th century printer was burnt alive for heresy for having re-translated one of Plato's Dialogues, and the Bernardins Monastery refectory dating from the 13th century.

Walk #3 - Learning in Paris

University and student life (not always very calm!) from the 12th through the 16th centuries, via different "colleges" frequented by students as different as St. Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) and Protestant reformer Jean Calvin.

Walk #4 - The 12th Century City Wall

On the Right Bank of the Seine: through streets and lanes and visiting: an impressive free-standing stretch with two towers; a tower that has survived in the courtyard of the municipal pawn shop; and other vestiges.The first Louvre Castle was built as part of this rampart.

Walk #5 - The 13th Century City Wall

On the Left Bank, the rampart wends its way through courtyards, mews, curiously twisted buldings and streets, and even one underground parking lot.

Walk #6 - Notre Dame Cathedral

A reading of its amazing "stone comic strip" sculptures, and exploration of very curious and still unsolved mysteries - some concerning Masonic secrets - surrounding the Grand Old Lady of Paris, begun in 1163.

Walk #7 - The "Grand Century on Ile St. Louis"

An intimate round-island look at the architecture and (hi)stories of some of Paris's most impressive 17th century mansions, including one where Chopin played for and woo-ed Geroge Sand, not forgetting the home for many years of From Here to Eternity author James Jones.

Walk #8 - Cradle of the Capital: Ile de la Cité

A sampling of vestiges and major events that have shaped the history of Paris, and France, for 2,300 years of uninterrupted habitation, such as: the Royal Palace dating from the 13th century, the Exchange Bridge which gave birth in the 14th century to the Sunday bird market still extant, and the New bridge (inaugurated in 1607) with a statue of King Henry IV surrounded by enigma .

Walk #9 - Around rue de la Huchette: Heart of the Latin Quarter

Beginning on “Here Lies The Heart Street” (its original Medieval name was far less romantic!), this walk takes in architectural reminiscences of Renaissance King François Ier, 19th century poet Charles Baudelaire, a 16th century Royal Prosecutor who O-D’d here on opium, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Then: a series of antique punning shop signs, the oldest tree in Paris, the intimate 12th-13th century St. Julien le Pauvre church and other medieval memories.

Walk #10 - The Mouffetard Quarter: “Quaint” PLUS

A highway leaving Paris for Rome 2,000 years ago, Rue Mouffetard still boasts a street market that has functioned since about 1350, not to forget a public fountain erected by Marie de Medici, and church that briefly hosted a convulsionist sect (“barkers,” “meowers,” “jumpers,” etc.) in the 1700s. This tour also takes in the house where Ernest Hemingway lived in the 1930s and segments of the Medieval city rampart.

Walk #11 - The Naughty Marais

Feats of derring-do plus some hanky-panky, whose ghosts - including those of King Louis XIV and his mistress (eight, count'em, children) - Mme de Montespan) still haunt the exquisite architecture of what was once THE place to live in the French capital. (Not for children…)

Walk #12 - "Atmosphère" Along The Canal St-Martin

A look at what’s left of the Bastille’s story and reality, the handsome (!) early-17th-century St. Louis plague hospital, and Paris’ main “inland waterway” – a strollers’ delight.

Walk #13 - "Smiling Architecture": Parisian Art Nouveau

An on-the-spot review of original masterpieces of Hector Guimard, Georges Chedanne, Henri Sauvage and other Belle Epoque (ca. 1900) builders who were considered "kinky" because of their lack of symmetry and use of materials (ceramics, steel, etc.) considered vulgar at the time, but who were certainly rich in humor.

Walk #14 - Meet the Marne

Along the weeping-willow-bordered Marne River banks you’ll discover famed 1900s guinguette dancehalls, the Ile of Beauty (where 14th century Bastille-builder King Charles V loved and died), some crazy turn-of-the-century houses worthy of Charles Addams, the capital of France’s rowing champions and one of the original Paris Halles (central market) Baltard pavilions, dismantled and reassembled as a cultural in the early 1970s.

Walk #15 - The Cool, Clean and Angular” – Art Déco Architecture in Paris

Visits to and background on some of the best Parisian samples – Samaritaine department store, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Palais de Chaillot, La Coupole Café etc., of the movement that inspired such great American creations as New York’s Chrysler Building, with memories of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Josephine Baker, among other American luminaries.

Walk #16 - 19th - 25th August 1944: The Liberation of Paris

A walk-through of that glorious week's political and military highlights and anecdotes - some serious, others a real laugh - and pinpointing aspects of American involvement.