Butte aux Cailles: A Walk for Those Who Think They Know Everything About Paris

What to Expect

Multi-faceted Paris
You've never seen the French capital like this! Is it even Paris: low-rise houses with steep roofs covered in ivy, fences, bartenders addressing you informally, wild apple trees along the sidewalk, an open-air pool, a cooperative restaurant with 'grumpy' service and the freshest meat, trips to get water from an artesian well, and entire walls covered in graffiti? We'll stroll through the well-known in certain circles Butte aux Cailles - the 'Quail Hill' - a quarter of the 'eternally young and forever drunk', a haven for poor students and good-for-nothings, the epicenter of bohemian ideas, a valley of commune dwellers and revolutionaries.

Lively History
Like the famous Montmartre, this working-class suburb, home to washerwomen, millers, and junk dealers, was annexed to the capital only a century and a half ago and managed to preserve its bucolic appearance and rural way of life. And the common people here have no less heart-rending stories than kings. Here, White Army officers who fled from Russia learned the layout of Parisian streets from a cardboard model to pass the taxi driver exam. Here, in an underground printshop, the notorious Lenin met Inessa Armand, enriching the history of communism with elements of a French melodrama. Here, Parisian street artists emerged from the underground and started calling themselves urban artists. And it is here that the most beautiful public housing in the capital appeared, and the Commune, defeated by royal soldiers in other districts of the city, emerged victorious and still reigns!

In two hours, you will soak up revolutionary ideas, be filled with the spirit of student unrest, and be touched by the aesthetics of 1980s underground art. To better digest the information, you will wash it all down with one of twenty types of rum infusion - lime, guava, or caramel?